'Absolute monster': Dramatic moment snake catcher captures five-metre python

WARNING – DISTRESSING CONTENT: A man has wrangled in a five-metre python but not before the enormous serpent put up a fight.

Mike Kimmel, owner of Martin County Trapping & Wildlife Rescue, went to Florida’s Everglades last week to capture a Burmese python.

In Florida, the species is considered invasive as it eats indigenous animals. Burmese pythons also aren’t native to Florida with most coming from South East Asia.

Mr Kimmel went in search of “an invasive man eater” on June 7, but realised “she wasn’t coming without a fight” after finding one in a swamp.

“I noticed her almost immediately as soon as we crossed paths, I could barely contain my excitement,” he wrote on Facebook.

“She definitely was not afraid of me and started to slowly cruise through the vegetation as I carefully walked next to her trying to gauge exactly how large she was because of all the grass and weeds it was hard to tell but I could tell she was an absolute monster.”

Mr Kimmel wrote she was tangled in vegetation making her capture difficult and described the snake as 68kg of “solid muscle”.

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“I knew going for her head first would be the easiest and safest capture method but I couldn’t turn down the chance to grab her by the tail and dance with the devil herself,” he wrote.

“As soon as I grabbed a hold of her I sealed my fate. No turning back now, she was coming for me.

“She immediately started to battle it out, taking strikes and pulling me into some tall grass with her, making it difficult to dodge her strikes. She was able to successfully get a bite on me.”

Mr Kimmel’s arm was punctured by her fangs “piercing an artery and hitting some nerves”, but the pair continued to tussle.

“After losing about a gallon of blood I was able to tire her out and get her under control,” he wrote.

“I then used a snake bag I had on my waist to tourniquet my arm because I was getting worried about how much blood I was losing, better safe than sorry.

“I then had to drag all 150lbs (68kg) of her alive, working to control my breathing so I didn’t pass out from blood loss and the extreme heat that day, I would have been screwed.”

Once Mr Kimmel got the snake to his boat he euthanised her.

It hasn’t officially been measured, but Mr Kimmel claims the snake was five metres long and included a photo of it draped over his shoulders.

People were shocked by the python’s sheer size.

“Oh my God, it is huge,” one woman wrote.

Another woman called it a “monster”.

“This gives me nightmares,” a third woman wrote.

While the snake is large it’s not the longest captured on record in Florida.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the largest recorded capture was 5.8 metres.

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