Python shows up at private beach club in Florida and gets subdued with golf clubs
A 9-foot invasive python had the nerve to show up uninvited at one of Florida’s private beach clubs, and video shows it was evicted with the help of golf clubs.
The odd encounter happened in the dark Thursday, Dec. 21, at the Hideaway Beach Club, a private community in Marco Island on the state’s Gulf Coast.
Marco Island police reported the Burmese python was found “in the bushes near a residence.”
Three police officers and a security guard responded, and resorted to using golf clubs to keep the snake’s powerful jaws from clamping down on their legs. Pythons are nonvenomous but have a powerful bite.
Hideaway Beach Club posted video of a tug-of-war in the dark that began when officers unceremoniously yanked the snake out of the bushes by its tail.
It’s not clear how golf clubs entered the melee, but the club’s amenities include a “9-hole Executive Golf Course.”
The snake was finally subdued when someone tossed a cloth over it’s head, rendering it temporarily blind. The security guard then grabbed it just below the head and slipped it into a pet crate.
News of a large python hiding on the island has rattled some residents.
“The video is frightening,” Kelley Felner wrote on the Marco Local News Facebook page.
“If there’s one....,” Debi Allen-Cox posted.
The snake has been transferred for research purposes to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, which identified it as an adult male, officials said. A necropsy (animal autopsy) will be performed on the snake, the conservancy reports.
Burmese pythons were illegally introduced to Florida’s Everglades through the exotic pet trade and are creating havoc by preying on native species, experts say.
The snakes have been slowly expanding their turf to the north, and growing larger in the process, experts say. Conservancy staff say there are records of pythons being found on Marco Island before 2015.
How the snakes are reaching the island is a mystery, but the club covers 300 acres, half of which are wetlands and conservancy, it reports.
Marco Island is 105 miles west of Miami.
This story was originally published December 29, 2023 at 7:59 AM with the headline "Python shows up at private beach club in Florida and gets subdued with golf clubs."