198-Pound Python Fights Back Against Hunters In Florida Wildlife Preserve

Five python hunters managed to take down one of the biggest Burmese pythons ever recorded in Florida recently. Conservationist Mike Elfenbein told CBS News he and his teenage son were hunting pythons in Big Cypress National Preserve when they encountered the beastly snake.

"It was more than a snake, it was a monster," the 45-year-old father told reporters. Three more python hunters -- Trey Barber, Carter Gavlock, and Holden Hunter -- ran into the massive creature at the same time. Despite being strangers, the five hunters banded together to take down the Burmese python.

"The five of us knew we had to capture this thing," Elfenbein said.

The team spent over 45 minutes wrestling the huge python, which was described as a "formidable opponent" with "zero fear" of the hunters. The reptile kept lifting her body off the ground to constrict the men or simply "move us out of the way," as the conservationist recounted.

Around 10 p.m. on November 3, professional python hunter Amy Siewe got a call from Elfenbein after the snake was captured. She measured the female animal, which was 17 feet and 2 inches long, and weighed a whopping 198 pounds. That would make it the second-heaviest python ever captured in Florida, Ian Bartoszek, a research manager at the conservancy, told CBS News.

The current record holder was a 215-pound, 18-foot python captured in Picayune Strand State Forest back in June 2022. The longest python captured in the Sunshine State was 19 feet long and weighed 125 pounds, according to Bartoszek.