NAPLES, Fla. — One of the most respected nonprofit environmental groups in Florida is celebrating a record-setting python hunting season.

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida says it bagged more than four tons of invasive Burmese pythons during the recent snake breeding season; its biologists removed 177 pythons from a 200-square-mile area in Collier County from November 2025 to this April.

The seized snakes weighed a combined 8,080 pounds.

“This was our first four-ton removal season. Our tagged scout snakes helped us locate large breeding snakes deep in the landscape before they had a chance to lay eggs,” Ian Bartoszek, the organization’s wildlife biologist and conservancy science project manager, said.

The team also removed 4,100 Burmese python eggs.

“These science-based management efforts are suppressing local python reproduction. With continued pressure, we hope to see these removal numbers decline over time,” Bartoszek added.

Burmese pythons have been decimating Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve for years.

The largest documented snake caught in Florida was a 19-foot, 125-pound female Burmese python captured in the Big Cypress National Preserve in July 2023 by hunters Jake Waleri and Stephen Gauta.

In December 2021, Conservancy of Southwest Florida biologists bagged a 215-pound female Burmese python, the heaviest snake ever caught in Florida.

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