Maria Alejandra Cardona
Ochopee, Florida (Reuters) – Amy Siewe is a successful real estate agent – but her life has changed after she captured her first python in Everglades, Florida.
“I'm just fascinated by snakes. So when I learned that there was a python problem in Florida…I went to hunt and I caught a nine-foot (2.75 meters) python, that's it. I was fascinated!” she said.
Within two months, she sold her business in Indiana and moved to Florida to become Python Hunter.
Now, her belt has over 600 dead pythons, known as “Python Huntress,” one of the few women in hundreds of men hunting invaded Burmese pythons in Florida's Everglades wetland ecosystem.
“This python is about 10 feet (3 meters) long,” she said, wrestling a snake that had just caught in the tall grass in the middle of the night. “It's probably three years old and so far it has eaten about 200 native animals, including mammals and birds.”
Burmese pythons have been spreading in Everglades National Park since Hurricane Andrew destroyed breeding facilities in the pet trade in 1992, releasing about 900 snakes.
Python was originally from Southeast Asia, growing up to 18 feet (5.5 meters) long, and has a loss of appetite, consuming local wildlife, including mammals, birds, and even crocodiles.
The Everglades are a unique subtropical ecosystem, a continuous mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere. It is home to many unique species, including the endangered Florida Black Panther, American Crocodile and American Crocodile.
But it does not provide natural predators for Burmese pythons, thus making the invasive species a balloon. Scientists have noticed a sharp decline in raccoons, opossums, lynxes and rabbits in the area.
“There are estimated to be 500,000 pythons,” Siewe said.
The python hunted at night cannot be transported alive legally and therefore killed after being captured and measured.
After returning home, Siewe skin off the skin, then tans the skin professionally, tans the leather, and makes it into leather bags, wallets, watch bands and other merchandise.
It takes an average of 12 hours to capture one.
“So that's not that effective,” she admitted. “We always have Python in Florida. All we have to do is figure out how to reduce their numbers. Hunting is the most effective tool we have now.”
(Reported by Maria Alejandra Cardona; Editor of Sandra Maler)
