School pick up turns into python sighting on Marco Island
By Gina Tomlinson
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MARCO ISLAND, Florida (WBBH) — A quick school pick up turned into a wild Florida moment when a Marco Island dad spotted something slithering along the side of the road — and it wasn’t a garden hose.
Sean Stuart was on his way to grab his daughter from Marco Island Academy when something thick and scaly caught his eye in the grass along Sheffield Avenue.
He hit the brakes, threw his truck in reverse, and took a closer look.
What he saw was an 11-foot Burmese python, as thick as a football, and creeping through a patch of grass just a couple hundred feet from nearby homes.
“I’m from Boston,” Stuart said. “We got lobsters and championship sports teams, not big pythons, right?”
Stuart, who owns Marco Island Roofing, did what many would; he grabbed his phone, recorded the moment, and posted it online.
“When you see something double the size of you, that’s kind of scary. I’m a roofer, not a python hunter,” he said. “So I wasn’t going after that thing.”
The video post alerted the community and sparked a swift response.
Paul Miller, a charter boat captain with “Florida Jaws,” also traps pythons on the side, showed up with a buddy and a game plan. The two headed into the brush, joined by neighbors, and started searching.
“That’s the biggest one I have ever seen on Marco,” Miller said. “We just went looking back in the woods with a few of the residents on the street, and we ended up finding him in a big brush pile, and it was not too happy to be found!”
The snake didn’t end up back in the wild. Miller handed it off to state researchers who plan to study it as part of ongoing efforts to understand, and hopefully control, Florida’s growing python population.
“They’re invasive,” Stuart said. “And we want to get rid of them as fast as possible. They’re going to keep getting bigger and more of them.”
Wildlife experts say if you see a python, don’t approach it. Instead, click here to call the FWC’s invasive species hotline or report it through the agency’s online form.
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