A
tour guide in the Florida Everglades took his excursion to 11 when he
spotted a massive Burmese Python -- and leapt into the water to wrestle
it into submission.
"I grew up here, so this is pretty standard for the most part," Tommy Owens ofEverglades Adventure Tours told NBC2.
Tell
that to the awe-struck families who caught the whole adventure on
video. Owens and fellow guide Warren Wortman were leading parents and
children on a canoe tour through the river when the sight of the
invasive species swimming along undisturbed made Owens indignant.
"They
don't belong here, and that was literally running through my mind," he
said. "I just launched on it essentially, ambushed it like any other
predator out here." (Story continues below.)
The snake, however, turned out to be 10
and a half feet long -- and it began coiling itself around Owens' arm
as the fight began.
"That's
when I found out he was stronger than I was, and much bigger than I
thought he was," Owens laughed. "We were kind of doing like a snake
ju-jitsu. He'd get a coil around one arm and my other arm would uncoil
him and that arm would get coiled. It was tough... at one point I was
literally handcuffed to this snake."
With Wortman's help, the snake was eventually subdued and euthanized.
"They're
eating our birds, our wading birds, our rabbits, our smaller mammals,"
Owens explained. "A snake that size can just cause a lot of damage, so I
caused a lot of damage to him essentially, unfortunately for him."
Indeed.
The pythons are suspected to be wiping out large numbers of raccoons,
opossums, bobcats and other mammals in the Everglades, aaccording to an
alarming recent population study.
Many
of the snakes are believed to have made their way into the ecosystem
when dumped by irresponsible pet owners -- and they've become such a
huge problem they state even sponsored a month-long amateur hunt earlier
this year. Unfortunately, the big hunt only yielded 68 of the estimated
150,000 pythons roaming the Everglades.
As for the little girls canoing with Owens and Wortman that day? They loved it, according to the guides.
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