Wearing a Santa hat, biologist captures a giant python in Florida using a ‘spy snake’
Biologist Ian Easterling, wearing a Santa Claus hat, appeared to be enjoying a stroll through the swampy terrain of Southwest Florida the day before Christmas. In reality, his mission was far different: capturing massive invasive snakes. And he didn’t come away empty-handed.
Easterling captured a 153-pound female Burmese python — one of the largest caught in 2025 — while tracking a male “scout” snake, sometimes referred to as a “spy snake,” on protected lands, according to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, based in Collier County.
The organization shared a photo on social media showing Easterling carrying the gigantic snake over his right shoulder as he walked through a wooded area.
How ‘scout’ snakes help track invasive Burmese pythons in Florida
The program that tracks these massive reptiles using male “scout” pythons is one of the most effective tools available for detecting Burmese pythons in remote areas of the Everglades and has been used since 2013.
The goal of the effort is to locate reproductive female pythons and then humanely euthanize them, preventing further reproduction.
Ian Bartoszek, a biologist and environmental science project manager at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, told el Nuevo Herald in a 2020 interview that experts from several agencies joined forces to track Burmese pythons in Big Cypress National Preserve, Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge, and other areas of Southwest Florida.
Male pythons are implanted with radio transmitters and then tracked to better understand their movements, reproductive behaviors and other key characteristics.
Read more: Three hunters capture this huge invasive species in Everglades swamps
These “scout” snakes help locate pythons in remote, hard-to-access areas, often requiring researchers to travel long distances in the field to remove the invasive reptiles.
Why tracking invasive Burmese pythons matters in Florida
Using male pythons is particularly effective because it allows researchers to identify large females carrying developing eggs, which can be removed before the eggs hatch, experts say.
Female Burmese pythons can lay between 12 and 100 eggs, and the mating season in South Florida runs from December through April.
Invasive Burmese pythons have become established throughout South Florida but remain extremely difficult to detect, despite their ability to grow up to 18 feet long.
Read more: Hunters find 2 python ‘mating balls,’ but with an odd twist, Florida video shows
An intense battle is being waged in the region to combat these enormous snakes, which have had a devastating impact on Florida’s native wildlife. They have been documented consuming 24 species of mammals and 43 species of birds, as well as alligators.
As of June 2025, Conservancy biologists and project volunteers have removed more than 40,100 pounds of pythons and more than 20,000 eggs from an area of approximately 150 square miles in southwest Florida, according to data from the organization.
