New footage from the Florida Everglades shows an American alligator doing what few local animals can: killing a large, invasive Burmese python.
In South Florida, where the invasive pythons have hammered local wildlife, the scene was an instance of native species fighting back.
What happened?
A clip shared to Reddit on June 25 shows an American alligator whipping around the body of a recently killed Burmese python, using a death roll to toss and tear at the carcass.
(Click here if the embedded video does not appear.)
Once they reach full size, Burmese pythons have almost no natural enemies in South Florida. In the Everglades, adult snakes are primarily vulnerable to very large alligators and to humans who hunt them to help reduce the invasive snake's population size.
While Burmese pythons are native to Southeast Asia, they have established breeding populations in Florida after pet-trade animals escaped or were intentionally released, and they have now become infamous for wiping out native mammal populations.
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Among the reactions, one commenter summed it up with an "Atta boy."
Why does it matter?
The Everglades did not get Burmese pythons through natural spread. Their expansion has been tied to humans interfering with nature, allowing them to take hold in the wild.
Native animals have paid heavily for that.
What's being done?
The goal is not to blame any individual animal for behaving naturally, but to reduce the damage caused by an introduced predator with few checks in the ecosystem.
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Native predators such as alligators may help in isolated moments like this one, but they cannot solve the problem on their own.
This gator might be an unwitting ally in the fight against invasive critters in the Everglades, but more needs to be done to protect this crucial ecosystem.
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