Florida snake hunter Jake Waleri said he's lucky to walk away unharmed from a bout with the largest Burmese python ever captured.
Florida snake hunter Jake Waleri said he's lucky to walk away unharmed from a bout with the largest Burmese python ever captured.
A Florida snake hunter has survived a wrestle with a record-breaking Burmese python to capture what is potentially the largest animal of the species ever recorded at almost six metres long.
The monstrous snake can be seen lunging in a video with mouth open at Jake Waleri, 22, after hegrabs its tail in long roadside grass in the Big Cypress National Preserve.
Avoiding the lunge, Waleri quickly grabs the snake’s neck.
But his arms can then be seen straining and shaking against the power of the snake as he rolls on the ground and tries to control its neck, while the snake tries to swing its jaws around to latch onto Waleri’s arms.
Two others come in to assist Waleri and unwind the snake from around him before taping its mouth shut.
Ian Easterling from the Conservancy of Southwest Florida said the python is the longest recorded as captured in Florida and possibly the longest ever captured.
Waleri told Australian media outlet ABC that coming across the snake at 1am, he didn’t at first realise it was so big as he and his team spent three minutes capturing it by at first trying to tire it.
“But then it slithered out onto the road and I could see the full mass of the thing, and I knew it was going to be one hell of a fight,” he told the ABC.
“We did the best to tire out the snake while dodging its attempts to strike us.
“We all worked to tire her out, but I jumped on the head to eventually pin the snake.”
Waleri told the ABC his heart rate was up.
“I was scared, I definitely did not want to get bit by a snake this size, my friends and I were very lucky to walk away unharmed,” he said.
