00:00Florida, 2025. A real war with pythons is raging there. Giant snakes from Asia, once brought in
00:08as pets, now devour everything alive in the Everglades' swamps. Over 20 years, raccoon and
00:14rabbit populations have dropped by 99%. The government spends millions of dollars trying
00:19to fight them, but pythons reproduce faster than people can catch them. No one can stop them.
00:25But few people know that America once had a successful war against snakes. In the middle
00:30of the 20th century, Texas faced a similar problem, and Texas won. The hiss of a rattlesnake
00:37that sound meant death. Rattlesnakes were a real threat millions of Americans lived with.
00:43Western diamondback rattlesnakes can reach two and a half meters in length. Their venom destroys tissue,
00:48causes paralysis, and can kill a person within hours. Two centimeter fangs inject venom directly
00:54into the bloodstream. The bite turns black within minutes. Flesh dies. Without an antidote,
01:00death comes within three to four hours in hellish agony. In the mid-20th century,
01:06dozens of people died every year from snake bites, and hundreds were seriously injured.
01:11Farmers lost livestock. Children were afraid to go outside. Imagine walking across your own field,
01:16and just a few meters away, hidden in the tall grass, lies a massive rattlesnake. You don't see it,
01:23but it's already ready to strike. One wrong step, and the venom is in your blood.
01:28That's how Texas farmers lived every single day. In 1958, Texas said,
01:33enough, and declared war. The first rattlesnake roundup took place in the town of Sweetwater,
01:39a massive hunting festival. It wasn't just pest control, it became a real show,
01:44drawing 30,000 spectators every year. Hunters pumped gasoline straight into snake burrows to smoke
01:50them out. The captured snakes were brought in by truckloads by the ton. Organizers didn't count
01:55the snakes one by one, they weighed them in kilos. From 700 to 2,000, 300 kilograms of snakes in
02:02a
02:02single weekend, that's between 1,000 and 2,000, 500 killed snakes in three days. On stage, in front of
02:10the crowd, snakes were killed with machetes and skinned right before the audience's eyes.
02:17Children watched as their fathers peeled the skin off a snake in seconds. The crowd roared with
02:22delight. Kids laughed. No one thought about the consequences. It wasn't just a festival,
02:27it was humanity's triumph over nature. Later, the meat was fried and sold as a delicacy.
02:33The record roundup collected nearly 11,000 kilograms of rattlesnakes, more than 11 tons.
02:40Over 8,000 snakes killed in one weekend. The economies of small towns depended on these
02:46festivals. Sweetwater alone earned about $8 million a year from the roundup. It was a holiday that fed
02:52entire towns. Families came together, took pictures with dead snakes, bought souvenirs made of snake
02:58skin. It became a true tradition part of Southern American culture. In Texas alone,
03:03up to 125,000 rattlesnakes were removed from the wild every year, for decades. Millions of snakes
03:10were killed. And it worked. Within a few years, the number of rattlesnakes dropped sharply. Bites
03:17became rare. The death statistics fell almost to zero. Farmers could finally work safely in the fields.
03:23Children played barefoot outside again. Local newspapers proudly wrote,
03:27Texas is free of snakes! It looked like a perfect victory. The mass hunts worked.
03:32America celebrated its triumph over rattlesnakes. Ten years passed. There were still almost no snakes.
03:38No bites. Kids played barefoot. Everything seemed perfect. Then local farmers noticed something
03:45strange. There had always been rats in the barns, a few dozen. Nothing serious. A normal part of life.
03:50But last fall, there were a lot more. This spring, even more. By summer, the barns were crawling with
03:56them. Hundreds. Thousands. And every year there were more. Then the mice came. Their numbers exploded.
04:03Fields. Grain. Storages. Houses. Rodents. Were everywhere.
04:08Fifteen years after the roundups began, Texas farmers realized it was a disaster.
04:14Let's do the math. One snake eats about 200 rodents a year. Texas killed 125,000 snakes every year.
04:22Multiply that. 25 million rats and mice were left without a natural enemy.
04:2825 million every single year. Think about that number. If you lined up every rat, the chain would
04:35circle the earth twice around the equator, and they breed fast. One pair of mice produces eight litters
04:41a year, with up to 14 pups in each. Without predators, it turns into an avalanche. Grain
04:47storages were emptied within weeks. Rats chewed through bags, crawled into silos, destroyed tons
04:52of grain. Crops in the fields died right where they grew. Farmers spent huge amounts of money
04:58on poisons and traps. Nothing worked. There were just too many rats. Rodents brought disease.
05:05Hantavirus. Mice spread it through their droppings. A person breathes in dust containing those particles.
05:11At first it feels like the flu fever. Weakness. Then fluid fills your lungs. You literally drown
05:17from the inside. Without treatment, only half survive. And it started exactly in the areas
05:22where snakes had been killed most actively. Coincidence? No. Nature's law. Scientists
05:28looked at the numbers. Diseases that had almost disappeared came back. Rodents were eating one-third
05:34more grain than when snakes were alive. Farmers were suffering losses worse than in the hardest years.
05:40One biologist said during a congressional hearing,
05:43We killed our protectors. We celebrated a victory without understanding what we'd done.
05:48Rattlesnakes killed dozens of people each year. The rodents they kept under control bring diseases
05:53to thousands. Rattlesnakes weren't just dangerous predators. They played a critically important role
05:59in the ecosystem. They were natural regulators of rodent populations, free field sanitizers that
06:05worked day and night for centuries. Snakes controlled the very pests that destroy crops and spread deadly
06:11diseases. When people removed snakes from the ecosystem, they removed the last barrier between
06:17their fields and the endless armies of hungry rodents. In 2013, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
06:22received a petition to ban gassing snake dens. A working group was formed scientists, ecologists,
06:29roundup organizers, and ranch owners. The results were clear. Removing that many predators from the
06:36food chain has devastating consequences. Texas won its war with rattlesnakes but lost a war with rodents
06:41it never meant to fight. And this isn't happening only in Texas. The same story repeats all over the
06:47world. India, 58,000 people die from snake bites every year, the highest number in the world. People fear snakes
06:54and kill them whenever they see them. But scientists warn, if snakes disappear completely, hunger will kill
07:01not thousands but millions. Rodents in India already eat enough grain every year to feed 200 million people. Only snakes
07:09keep their numbers even slightly under control. Without snakes, agriculture would collapse, and with it, a country of
07:16one and a half billion people. The Caribbean Islands. In 1872, just nine mongooses were brought here from India to
07:24kill
07:24snakes on the plantations. It worked perfectly. Snakes disappeared completely on most islands, but mongooses turned
07:30out to be omnivorous predators. They started eating everything. Half of the 39 native, lizard species went extinct forever.
07:39Sea turtles lost 77% of their nests. The population of the Hawaiian goose, the Nen, crashed from 25,000
07:47birds to
07:47just 30 individuals, 30 birds across all the islands. The species was on the edge of total extinction.
07:53All of that, the price of destroying snakes. Every time, it's the same mistake. People see a dangerous
08:00predator and think, let's kill it, and life will be better. But nature isn't a list of enemies and
08:06friends. It's millions of invisible connections. Remove one link and the whole system begins to
08:12collapse in unpredictable ways. And here lies the cruel irony. Florida is now fighting desperately against
08:19invasive pythons, snakes that humans brought there themselves. Yes, they must be controlled. They are
08:25an alien species. But Texas once successfully wiped out its own native rattlesnakes, the snakes that had
08:31been part of the ecosystem for millions of years, the ones that kept the balance. And now Texas is paying
08:37for it with an invasion of rodents and diseases. Florida can't get rid of its foreign snakes. Texas got
08:43rid of its own and regrets it. Rattlesnakes seemed like enemies. They bit. They killed. They terrified
08:50people. All of that was true. But every night, they also hunted rodents. They killed the same rats and
08:56mice that spread deadly diseases and destroy crops. They protected farmers without even knowing it.
09:02Every species in nature is part of an incredibly complex system that took millions of years to form.
09:07Even the most dangerous predator plays its own role in it. Everything is connected by invisible
09:13threads. And when humans step in and decide that one species isn't needed, they tear those threads
09:19without seeing the whole picture. The web starts to fall apart. The balance breaks. And the consequences
09:25don't come right away, but they always come. Texas wiped out all its snakes. Ten years later, it realized
09:32its mistake. But it was too late. Rattlesnake populations take decades to recover. A female
09:38gives birth only once every two or three years, with few offspring. When you kill 125,000 snakes
09:45every year, there's no turning back. And rodents keep multiplying. Today, Florida is fighting pythons
09:51and still can't win. Texas defeated its snakes and is still paying the price. Snakes are dangerous. Yes,
09:57they bite, they kill. But they also protect every night, for centuries, for free. A world without
10:05snakes is not a safer world. It's far more dangerous. Because when you remove a predator
10:10from nature, you don't remove danger. You just can't see what's coming next until it's too late.
