WATCH: Florida Woman Describes for Shocked CNN Hosts How She Catches Pythons With Her Bare Hands
As Florida’s annual python hunt kicked off Friday, CNN’s Alisyn Camerota and Victor Blackwell had a truly entertaining interview with Donna Kalil, one of the state’s certified “python removal agents,” who described for the shocked hosts exactly how she catches the giant snakes with her bare hands.
Burmese pythons, a non-native species to Florida first introduced by people releasing unwanted pets into the wild, have had a devastating impact on the Everglades. They grow to an average length of 12 feet and have been known to reach over 18 feet in the wild. The voracious reptiles’ appetite leaves local animals at a severe competitive disadvantage — for both the species the pythons target as prey and the other predators who find their food source wiped out.
Kalil was the first Florida woman to become a state-licensed python removal specialist, Blackwell said to introduce her, asking about what sort of troubles the snakes were causing.
The pythons have eaten about 98% of the animals in Everglades National Park, said Kalil, “and they’re w0rking their way north and we’re trying to stop them.” The purpose of the python challenge, she explained, was to educate the public on how they can help.
“Donna, how do you catch one of these?” asked Camerota.
“By hand,” Kalil answered with a laugh. She described how she had a vehicle she would use to drive out along the levees and roads in the Everglades, with night being the best time to go out.
Burmese pythons are ambush hunters, she explained, so were usually “moving pretty slow.”
“So they’re moving pretty slow and if you sneak up and grab them by hand,” said Kalil, “then the excitement starts, you know, depending on how big that snake is, it’s going to give you a run for your money. You have to wrestle it.”
“You wrestle it, with your bare hands?” asked a shocked Camerota.
“Yes,” Kalil replied. “You make sure it doesn’t wrap around your neck or anything else that you don’t want strangled because that is what they do. They’re not venomous, and they are constrictors.”
Kalil encouraged people to not be afraid of the snakes, noting that they had been pets several generations ago. “If you come across one here in south Florida, you look at it, it’ll look at you, it’ll turn around and go away.”
Blackwell asked her about the trophy skins that were mounted on the wall behind her.
The top one was the first one she caught, said Kalil, in Big Cypress National park, and the second she caught with her brother on South Florida Water Management lands. Both were 12 feet long, but that wasn’t the longest she had ever caught — her record was 15 and a half feet long.
Kalil said the pythons were “monsters.” “We need help,” she concluded, encouraging the CNN audience to “come down and help us catch them.”
Former Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera (R-FL) made headlines in 2017 when he accompanied several registered python hunters and killed a 15-foot python with a pocketknife. Mediaite reached out to Lopez-Cantera to see if he had any advice for aspiring python hunters.
“My advice for first timers would be to go with an experienced guide,” Lopez-Cantera replied. “Be safe and have fun.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
