Invasive Pythons: Soon We’ll All Be Taking Golden Showers

I like big snakes and I cannot lie!

I like the idea of big snakes lurking in their nature habitats.  I like the idea of big snakes constricting the poop out of delicious animals, unhinging their jaws to consume said delicious animals, and then relaxing in the breeze as said-said delicious animals digest inside their snake-bellies and eventually pass in the form of snake turds.  Yes, I like big snakes!

Okay, I did lie about how much I like big snakes, but just a little. There is one thing that I don’t like about big snakes – I don’t like when big snakes go level-10 invasive in habitat that simply isn’t capable of handling their swagger.  I’m looking at you and your beady little snake eyes, your flickering tongue, and your weird infrared sensing pits, Burmese pythons in the Everglades.

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Why, just recently I was down in the Everglades shadowing the very nice folks at the outstanding nature based operations of Everglades Nature Tours (cough-shameless plug-cough).  I was way the F out there in the swamp under their expert care just strutting around in my classiest cut-off jean-shorts absorbing the never ending supply of magnificent otherworldly scenery like this:

And this:

And then WAM BAM THANK YOU, MA’AM!!!  An 11ish foot Burmese python was just laying around out there stewing in its own juices.

If you are a level-10 adventure-boy like I am the choice is pretty clear cut on how to proceed when stumbling upon an absolutely wicked invasive giant snake.  You get your classy cut-offs dirty by getting in there and manually extracting that friggin’ thing from the ecosystem!

Whoa-whoa-whoa, well sculpted reader (don’t think that I didn’t notice that you have been working out), I’m not grabbing that friggin’ thing by myself.  One awkward, even praying mantis-like, Id Eco Super-Eco versus a super-thick well muscled 11ish foot python is likely to end badly:  with me riddled with hundreds of bleeding needle-teeth holes from those sharp-ass curved teeth; also constricted to death – can’t forget to mention the death by constriction.  No, I’m bringing help to grab that bitey stranglely son of a bitch.  I’m bringing Dave.

This is Dave:

Dave is a guide for the absolutely glorious people at Everglades Nature Tours (cough-shameless plug #2-cough).

Dave is an Army veteran.

Dave likes to spend his free time doing crazy crud like hiking in the Everglades looking for dangerous critters, gator wrasslin’ (he has the scars to prove it), or hand-placing radio transmitters behind the dorsal fins of great white sharks…while free diving with them (he is missing the limbs to prove it – just kidding).

Dave even has his own catch-phrase, “If it is dangerous and can kill me then I want to play with it.”

You just can’t make up a character like Dave.  He is as rootin’ tootin’ as it gets.

Dave and I both know that we can’t leave this slithery son of a bitch in the swamp.  A snake of that length and fatness is putting a beating on the local wildlife population like I put a beating on the buffet at the local Ponderosa.  Worse, a snake of that size is of breeding age.  All of that sweet, sweet snake humping is going to produce vastly more strangely little bastards and further doom the native critters of the Glades.  This snake simply has to get the F out of this swamp!

So, we went after the big bastard.

Dave got his hands on it before it knew that we intended to end its days of swamp murder and humping.  The mighty serpent gave a shrug of its coils and pulled itself free of Dave’s grip. It quickly slithered into its nearby limestone boulder lair before Dave or I could grab it again.

Its retreat into its lair did not stop our desire to evict the SOB.  In fact, the pursuit escalated.

Dave got up on the boulder pile and whispered the sweetest of nothings to the snake to get it to come out and play with us.

Somehow, Dave’s sweet snake-whispering worked.  The snake emerged looking to slip away from us into some nearby shrubs.  Dave and I were both able to get a strong grip on its coils as far away from the head as possible.  Its girth was so thick that neither of us could get both hands around it by a long shot (that is what she said).  Luckily, when the snake saw how obviously bad-ass we were it ducked its head back into the boulders in an attempt to retreat from whence it sprang.  I was relieved because I did not want the business end of that horrible thing biting the crap out of me.

The game of man versus snake tug o’ war began.

We would give a pull with little impact to the snake’s position.  Then, the snake would counter-pull with equally little impact to our grip.  For 30 minutes this continued with neither side gaining an advantage.  Then, the snake played its ace.  The asshole hit us with a huge blast of piss.

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Have you ever had a golden shower from a python?  No?  Well, let me tell you what it is like:  the urine is as yellow as yellow gets; the volume is enough to saturate two dudes pretty thoroughly; the smell…that is an awful stink that I will never forget.  I’m talking a pungent, musky, concentrated urine just soaking your cut-offs.

With us and the snake now coated in its piss it was impossible to maintain our mighty ape-like grip on its urine lubricated coils (also what she said).  It gave one last mighty tug and the little shit slipped right out of our hands.  Failure.  Complete python-piss soaked failure.

Then, it simply stared at us mockingly from its rocky abode…beady little emotionless eyes watching…forked varanid ancestor tongue flickering…piss all over us in the hot, humid air.

After such a long pursuit under the gaze of the evil sun in the brutal Everglades heat we were completely beaten and humiliated by the serpent.  We were simply too exhausted to give it another go.  Dave, as rootin’ tootin’ as they come, was laid low by our new master.

A recap of our collectively failures:  a huge invasive python that we actually had our hands on escaped from us to continue to reek havoc in the Everglades; we were smashed by it physically as it whopped us; we were humiliated by it emotionally as it gave us a golden shower.  Victory:  snake!

Afterwards, as I sat in the local Starbucks completely reeking of snake piss, I reflected on the experience.  The only redeeming thing about this experience was that it was literally one of the most fun things that I have ever done in my entire life.  Thanks again to Dave and the nice people at Everglades Nature Tours (cough-shamelss plug #3-cough) for making it happen!

Word to your mom,

Id Eco Super-Eco