A Florida snake hunter known as Snakeaholic, working with the organization Proyectos Retic, captured a reticulated python measuring more than 18 feet in Naranjito, the longest recorded in Puerto Rico to date. According to Odalys Luna, a member of Proyectos Retic, the snake was caught in the Mango Bajito sector of Barrio Nuevo, near Highway 167.
It measured 18 feet and four inches, and, per Snakeaholic’s post, set a new record for the capture of a live specimen in Puerto Rico. The hunter said he had been working extremely hard in Puerto Rico learning how the species behaves. According to him, the python was spotted strangling a cat behind a house in the sector and was driven downhill before he found it in a bush and grabbed its head to pull it out of the vegetation.
He said it took all his hunting skills and 20 minutes of searching to find the snake. Reticulated pythons are an invasive species that has proliferated in the island’s most rural areas and harms the ecosystem; they have been recorded eating people’s pets and other native species. Because of that, the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DRNA) authorized that they may be hunted without a license.