![]() ![]() Steve Gauta picks up a cottonmouth snake during his search for pythons in Big Cypress National Preserve on Monday. We give them about a mile of berth before we start looking again. Gauta offers advice on spotting the sheen and wishes them luck. We had some time to take a little vacation and help out.” “I didn’t know these snakes were decimating the ecosystem here - that’s really what attracted me to this. “I’ve always wanted to come to the Glades,” says Josh Bryant, standing in dirt road next to the truck. Turns out the guys are military veterans who drove down from North Carolina. Gauta welcomes them as if he’s hosting a dinner party. We turn onto a dirt road west into Big Cypress and happen upon an SUV and two fit guys in camo gear. But when you get one, it’s the greatest feeling of accomplishment.” “It’s definitely a mix of emotions - being scared, excited, nervous, everything at the same time. Imagine going down 50 roller coasters at the same time, and that’s the butterflies you feel in your stomach,” he says. Gauta found the head and got credit for the catch. They got hold of a 17.5-foot serpent that was so entwined in the underbrush it took five men to pry it loose. Gauta was hunting with a professional contractor last year when the contractor’s foot wobbled off something that felt rounded and muscular. “That’s where energy drinks come in,” says Gauta, waving the can he’s currently sipping.Įven huge snakes can be invisible. They typically head out at sunset and return to Naples at 4 a.m. Business has skyrocketed since they caught the 19-footer last month. Now, when they’re home from college for the summer, they take clients out at night. Gauta volunteered his, went out with him and caught his first python. Turning point came during the 2021 python challenge when a knowledgeable hunter named Edward Bays needed a truck. We put all sorts of money, blood, sweat and tears into it with no success.” Related ArticlesĪs pythons try to hide, they face a new enemy: Possums with GPS collars “We were going down roads at the wrong time of day, the wrong temperatures, all that. They spend their winters up north in college, and devote their summers to the snakes.Īt first they caught nothing. Gauta, 21, and Waleri, 22, both of Naples, have been doing this for three years now, and it’s grown into an obsession. “We’ve been out for three nights and we haven’t seen s***,” he says. Perfect.” The night is full of promise.Įven so, we meet into a shirtless hunter in floral shorts and cowboy boots with an ominous warning. “They loooove that humidity,” Gauta says. A lilac-bellied storm band moves off, leaving the forest wet. To the west, cypress trees against last light. To the east, the tall black night of the Everglades. (John McCall/South Florida Sun Sentinel) Encounters in the darknessĪtop the truck bed, the still night air becomes a beautiful breeze. Steve Gauta, in the driver’s seat, and Jake Waleri, in the truck’s bed, slowly cruise backroads in their pickup truck and spotlights to search for pythons in Big Cypress National Preserve on Monday. The “invasion front” where scientists believe they are reproducing freely, now reaches the shores of Lake Okeechobee, and the suburbs of Fort Myers. What is clear, however, is that the snakes are relentlessly expanding their range north. The snakes are so hard to find, live in such hard-to-reach areas and so successful that scientists are loath to estimate how many now exist in Florida. ![]()
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