TO GO WITH AFP STORY by Leila MACOR: "Python patrols stalk Florida swamps to staunch marauding serpents"
TOPSHOT - Tom Rahill, founder of Swamp Apes, handles a Burmese python as he speaks about the snake at Everglades Holiday Park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on April 25, 2019. - Along with the venomous lionfish, the Burmese python is perhaps the least welcome invasive species in Florida: lacking any natural predators, it has happily chomped its way through the state's wildlife. Native to Southeast Asia, the Burmese pythons have become a plague in Florida. The South Florida Water Management District hired 25 contractors for the Python Elimination Program, launched in 2017 to "humanely euthanize" the constrictors. And that is why Tom Rahill spends his nights stalking through the Everglades trying to kill the snakes. Rahill's patrols begin at night when he heads into the vast wetlands that occupy much of southern Florida and are full of alligators, mosquitos and, increasingly, pythons. (Photo by RHONA WISE / AFP)