Python That Ate Raccoons Like Appetizers Captured

It’s off to the auction block for a 20-foot, 250-pound python known to gobble down raccoons “like they were marshmallows” within the glow of the glitzy Ft. Lauderdale beach strip.

A veteran animal trapper who helped wrestle the snake from under a home Thursday said he hopes to get at least $500 from a zoo or nature preserve.

The snake, which slithered about the residential seaside neighborhood for years, was stuffed into a sleeping bag after it was displayed to curious onlookers.

“He won’t have to eat for about a week,” said Todd Hardwick, owner of Pesky Critters Relocation in suburban Miami. “When it is time, I might feed him a rabbit.”

“We saw the head at first and everyone said, ‘Wow,’ ” said Bob Moxley, a park ranger at Hugh Taylor Birch State Recreation Area, where the snake searched for its prey. “When it all came out, everybody just screamed.”

Hardwick said the python probably was a pet that was released years ago in the park and rested under the house when it was not hunting for food.

“The homeowners had been calling people for a month, but no one wanted to go after it,” said Hardwick, whose company traps nuisance animals in South Florida. “People say they’ve seen it eat 30-pound raccoons like they were marshmallows.”

The reticulate python, a native of Southeast Asia and Indonesia, can grow to more than 30 feet. Although not venomous, the snake coils around prey to stop breathing and blood flow.

‘It Showed No Fear’

Hardwick and a three-man crew began digging tunnels below the home on Wednesday. They found the snake about eight feet underground next to a concrete wall.

“I got close enough to snare it, and then we just attacked,” he said. “It showed no fear of us. It’s a proud reptile. He could have broken our ribs in the flash of an eye.”

Homeowner David Spalding said he was not afraid of the reptile, but he was concerned for others. “The thing that frightened us was that he could come out and attack a small child,” he said.