#2020 - Python Cowboy

28:56And I think it was the kind of thing where it's like, well, we can, let's dump one of these crates out there and see what happens, and see if we can start farming them out there. These people, I've even just hear how they talk about the Python problem in Florida. And it's a, I don't know, there's definitely something to it. And just... How do they talk about it? Kind of defending it, almost, you know, like, I'll leave the Python's alone. What? Who does that? Different old school breeders that I would, the old reptile importers, like the kind of, some of the founding fathers of it, the exotic pet trade in Florida.

29:42Dude, I think you just uncovered a giant conspiracy. Yeah, well, it is, it is for sure. Somebody needs to look into that. People are actually responsible for this. This episode is brought to you by Life Lock. Tax season is already stressful. You shouldn't have to worry about identity theft on top of everything else. And trust me, it's a big worry. Especially since during tax season, your sensitive info does a lot of traveling to places you can't control. It goes through payroll, your accountant, or your tax consultant, and countless other data centers on its way to the IRS. Any of them can expose you to identity theft because they all have the info on your W2.

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32:48But I think it was on the West Coast. He was caught. It was a sting operation where they have surveillance, him dumping hundreds of reptiles into. I don't know if it was the Everglades. I think it was maybe the western, probably the western side of the Everglades conservancy area. Everything from chameleons, taegus, monitors, pythons, all kinds of different species. Why was he doing that? Aren't they valuable? Yep. What we're seeing in the state is people doing that to farm them, especially with chameleons. People will go out and they'll dump maybe 50 chameleons into an area in a specific tree more often.

33:31Then they'll come back a year or two later and there's a huge population of them. Then they go out and they pick them and then they sell them for 50 to $100 each. You could go out and make three grand in a night just from a couple hundred dollars of chameleons you put out there a year ago or so. It's become a business. There's right and wrong ways to go about things. By no way am I knocking the reptile trade or anything like that. As a kid I grew up with 20 different reptiles as pets and breeding them and selling them as pets. There's nothing wrong with that. There's a right and wrong way with anything like owning a gun or anything else.

34:22We shouldn't necessarily make these animals illegal because what we've seen when just recently they've made iguanas and tagus illegal in Florida to own his pets. We're seeing people dump their pets because FWC has been going around and they said they wouldn't but they have been. They've been going around and actually euthanizing people's pets. To someone that this iguana or this python even or anything to a lot of people it's like a dog. It's like someone killing your dog. It really is. They would much rather turn it loose and give it the chance to survive than to have it euthanized. Then what you're left with is irresponsible pet owners.

35:08You're left with people that are breaking the law to own these animals. Probably don't have proper enclosures. Probably don't take good care of them and probably will just release them when they're done with them. You take all of the good away and you're left with the bad when instead we should put your populations in place. Proper regulations where people then are forced to house these animals correctly. The problem is no longer pet iguanas or pet pythons. It's wild breeding animals. When they made these iguanas illegal just this past year they've now stopped all of that free management we had.

35:57People coming from all over the country, coming to Florida, catching these iguanas, catching these tegus, taking them out of the state and selling them where they can't survive anyway because it's too cold. It was helping us. It was helping control these populations. Now all of that is gone. You're not allowed to do that anymore. This year in particular I'm seeing more baby iguanas than I ever have in my entire life. That was the primary way that they were regulating or that they were controlling the population size. Was people coming in and grabbing them? No, that's not the primary way but that was a huge way.

36:34That was on top of what myself and other people in the state are doing. That was especially for the juveniles and baby iguanas that's 90 % That's what they're after. They go out there and trap them. It may even be bigger than I'm thinking. A lot of people were making living off coming down here catching them, taking them out of state. And out of state they can't survive? No, it's too cold. You see it just with you don't have these animals surviving in North Florida. It gets too cold. Interesting. That's crazy then. It's almost like a perfect scenario because they can't be in phase of the can't survive.

37:22That's the thing. We all fought against this when they were trying to get these new laws passed. Because at face value it seems like, oh yeah make them illegal. It'll help. But when you talk to the experts and the people that really know it's counterproductive. And at this point there's so many iguanas in Florida that the idea of eradicating them. No, we're never getting rid of the pythons. We're never getting rid of the iguanas. They're here to stay. But management is absolutely essential. Is it possible to manage the pythons in the Everglades? Yes, it is. How effectively it is remained to be seen.

38:06I feel right now we're losing that battle. But that's because the state really ties our hands. For the general public it's almost impossible for them to go out and hunt these pythons. They just don't have the access. They're not getting compensated for it. Nothing like that. A lot of these areas where the pythons are, you're not legally allowed to go off the trail in a vehicle. And that's the only way you can get around. So you have to stay on trail? You have to stay on levees, roadways. Is there an extensive trail system or is it mostly just wild? No, it's mostly just wild. And here's another thing which you're going to get a kick out of.

38:47In the national park itself you are not allowed to remove invasive species. If you come across a 20 -foot python eating a deer, you are not allowed to do anything. Because it's inside the national park and everything inside the national park is protected, even the invasive wildlife. Now they do allow state contractors to go in the national park and remove these pythons. But that's not nearly enough. We need the general public involved. We have a lot of people wanting to help. And inside the national park, even a state contractor is not allowed to get off the road in any sort of vehicle, airboat, anything.

39:31And that's the only way you can get around. The Everglades is 1 .5 million acres of impenetrable swamp. You know, half of its underwater, sawgrass that will slice you open, twice as tall as you, and too thick to even get through. So you would need an airboat, you would need a swamp buggy, and none of this is allowed. And we really saw kind of the tides of battle kind of change, I guess, you would say, when it became a national park. So we had python sightings in the Everglades in the 60s. They were seeing these snakes. And nothing was done. What was actually done was the Florida gladesmen who historically lived and survived off the Everglades and was a keeper of the Everglades, was kicked out of the Everglades when it was made a national park.

40:31It's another thing, it's a rabbit hole, I don't necessarily want to go down to. How many of those guys were kicked out? Hundreds, maybe thousands, it's hard to say. So is all the folks that were living in there? Yeah, so they actually had camps out there. They built camps and they'd live out there. Some would go out there, recreation, a lot of them would live out there, make their living out there, gator hunters, commercial fishers, moon shiners, drugs mugglers, all kind of stuff. And a lot of these camps was actually, especially when you're getting more into the python starting to take over when they were really trying to get everyone out, which that's not the reason they were trying to get everyone out was because of the pythons.

41:14It was because they were trying to turn into national park and they felt like these people shouldn't be in there. They were burning down camps and there's actually stories of burning down camps with gladesmen inside and all kind of shady stuff going on. That's maybe a topic for another time. How long did it take to move these people out of the forest? The national park, I believe, was started in like 47. It was actually finalized in some time in the 60s, maybe the late 60s. And then from there, I want to say the whole exodus kicking everybody out probably 20 years or so, 15, 20 years. And it's still kind of a raw spot for a lot of us.

42:06A lot of us don't like the park service because of everything that happened. And we feel that the ever glades should be open to the people to enjoy it. And enjoy it in the right way, of course. But we really seen that when the gladesmen, the eyes of the ears and the keepers of the ever glades was removed from the ever glades. And our access was limited. The pythons took over. The water quality went down. We're seeing fracking in our ever glades. We're seeing oil drilling, all kind of stuff that we feel the ever glades should be represented and preserved in a better way. Do you think that that was one of the reasons why they wanted to get everybody out so they could extract the resources?

42:55I think there was definitely some ulterior motives for sure. I work closely with a lot of these state departments. I'm not trying to ruffle too many feathers, but yeah, there's definitely some shady stuff going on in the ever glades. Why are we not allowed to enjoy our ever glades, but we're allowed to take from her natural resources and diminish her. The government is not manage the invasions species and not manage the invasive species properly and not manage the water properly. Our ever glades is dying because of their water quality issues. What is the source of the water quality issues? It's a very complicated issue.

43:41And it's not one that I'm extremely versed on. I would say, I definitely know about it, but I don't want to say the wrong things. Overpopulation, too many people move in to Florida. Pollution -based? Pollution -based, agricultural -based. And the core of it is not allowing the water to flow south how it needs to naturally. So the ever glades is the greatest filter in the entire world. It's a natural wonder of the world. It really is. And right now we are not using it the way we should. There are steps being taken to send water south and to start to restore some of this natural flow. But the problem is if we restored the natural flow to where it was, Palm Beach all the way down to Miami returns as a swamp land.

44:41All of the sugar cane, which is huge money at the south of Lake Okeechobee, is swamp and is no longer being able to use for sugar cane. And we see a lot of that, you know, make the decisions in what happens with our ever glades and conservation. Is it a lot of corruption, a lot of money driven rather than we need to set aside this piece of land, have it gather water, treat water, send it south to be filtered through our ever glades and provide water to where it's dry, clean, healthy water. And then it can be filtered out through the Bay of Florida. We're seeing more where that land's being kept for agriculture or something else or where a project gets started and then it's lobbied and nothing gets done.

45:39We're seeing a lot of just promises not being made as well. So have they dammed the flow of this water? Yep, so there's a series of levies and locks that control the water in South Florida. It's controlled by South Florida water management. And you know, they started managing the water 100 years ago or more, I believe, maybe even much further than that. And that's really where we went wrong, is we should have learned to kind of work with the water flow more and not totally shut it off the way we have and totally made it man -made. Which, you know, like I said, they're trying to reverse some of that.

46:21They just built a new lock that's going to help send some of the water south through Tammy Amitrail in 41, but it's just not enough. We need more water to be filtered and cleaned and less of it to be dumped out into the estuaries on the east and west coast. This water will remain stagnant and it'll build blue -green algae, which is actually a bacteria. And this bacteria produces toxins, I believe it sucks up all the oxygen in the water. And I don't know if you've seen these fish kills we've had on the east and west coast, but that's exactly what it's from, is our water management. So it's not just the everglades, but it's the east and west coast.

47:06And that's because they're taking the water that needs to be sent south, cleaned and filtered, and they're sending it out into these estuaries where it kills everything. And it's, you know, they're protecting, which, you know, I'm not blaming US sugar by any means. US sugar does a lot to actually help Florida conservation. But it's just kind of a situation we've got ourselves in where there's not a great solution besides, you know, really taken away a lot of this money. And our estuaries are just suffering for it, our everglades are suffering for it. Have they done anything to try to figure out how to mitigate whatever pollutants are getting into the water?

47:50Are they trying to figure out some sort of a solution? I'm sure. I'm sure. I don't know if it's gained any traction because right now we're having algae blooms as we speak on Lake Ocacobian different areas. And no, I don't know of any solution to really combat that algae bloom. And especially once they have it, you know, it's the water levels get so high, they have to flow it out. Is there a way to do this without flooding Miami? I'm sure there is. I'm sure there is, but to get it in a way where everyone's happy and on board with it and there's the money to do it is another thing. So how did Miami get built?

48:31Was Miami originally swamp and they just filled it in? Yeah. The canal systems were able to redirect the water. And, you know, I'm sure they, which, you know, I don't know exactly how Miami is built. I'm sure they built up on the limestone on the swamp. It's essentially limestone bottom down there. And then they divert the water with these canal systems. And they're able to, you know, send it in areas that's not Miami or send it through the canals through Miami out into the intercoastal and things along those lines. And they have a series of locks and gates that help control all this. It's very complicated.

49:06And, you know, I wish I knew more. But if the natural flow of water would happen, if they just removed all the levees and just let everything flow all the way down, it would flood Miami. Yeah. Yeah. It would flood all through. Which, you know, who knows they maybe if you could take away everything they did, all the ground being built up and everything, yes. It would be a swamp. Wow. Yeah. It's kind of crazy when someone sets out to do something to make it habitable for people and doesn't take into consideration that this is just this immense ecosystem. You'll get a kick out of this. So in, in an effort to dry up the Everglades while they were doing this, they wanted to dry the Everglades up.

49:50They actually from airplane, release, released Melalucas seeds over the Everglades because Melaluca sucks up water. So now they pay contractors to go out and remove the Melaluca from the Everglades because it's sucking up all the water. Oh boy. That's crazy. There's so many instances in human history of people putting in a species to try to mitigate another species and having that species run a mock like the Australia situation with the wild cats. Yeah. It's insane. It is. Well, they have ferocats everywhere in Australia. They've decimated ground nesting birds and they kill everything. Everything.

50:34Everything. We see it in Florida. We see in Florida. We ferocats like crazy and they're killing everything. We saw the numbers. We read the numbers on one day on the podcast about how many animals get killed every year just in the US by ferocats. And it's in the billions. Mind blowing. It's so crazy. There's such a little birderers. I think they've said like 15 to 20 different species are attributed to them being extinct. Yes. Because of the cats. It's crazy. Yeah. It is. So the Florida situation as it stands, what what are the official efforts to mitigate the Python population? So what do you think they could do?

51:19Could they just open it up to people? So in the perfect world, if you were the the the king of Florida and they said, hey man, Python cowboy tell us what to do. And you're like, this is what we're going to do. You're going to open this up to vehicles and put a bounty on these things. Not necessarily. No, not necessarily. So that can be a little bit risky. You know, we've seen not so much in these past Python challenges. These past Python challenges, the tournaments we have in Florida where the general public goes out there and competes for money catching pythons. They've been great. They've been super successful.

51:57We're not seeing much bad come from them. But in maybe you know six or seven years ago, maybe six years ago, I think it was when they first came out with these competitions. And there wasn't any education behind it. It was it was a free for all you had a bunch of red necks riding around in trucks with shotguns and AR 15s shooting every snake that moved. We even trash out there and it was just a terrible thing. Barely any pythons were caught or removed. And it just was not beneficial. Now with all the education we've put out between the news, social media, TV shows, you know, the state programs, we see a different kind of snake hunter out there.

52:43We see people that are trying to help trying to do things the right way. They care about the ecosystem. They don't want to leave behind trash. And you know that is very encouraging for me to say something more like, yeah, let's let's have a public bounty system where the general public can get out there and do what they need to do. But in order for that to be successful, we do need more access. You know, if they want to protect the national park and all that, that's fine. Okay, let's still allow people to remove invasive species when they come across them, whether they're state contractor or just some average Joe.

53:25But we will have penalties in place for anybody harming a native snake in the national park where then people will be careful not to get in trouble and do something illegal. Outside the national park, which you know, we have all kind of Francis says Taylor, Rocky Glades, Frog Pond, all these different areas, area three to one that have pythons in them and that we should allow more access, more airboat access, more buggy access year round. And show people how valuable these snakes are. The skin is extremely valuable. It makes beautiful leather. There's people lining up to buy this leather. I fund my entire python operation off this leather.

54:15I've actually quit. I resigned from the state. I was one of the first state python hunter hunted for them for maybe about five years. This past two years, I decided to resign from the state because I'm not allowed to use a dog if I'm hunting for the state, which is, you know, a little funny. That sounds crazy. Yep. So, you know, my thing is showing people that I'm funding my entire entire entire operation off these snake skins. You can possibly make a living off these snakeskins definitely makes some side money. And you're going to begin out there helping the Everglades. If they were to add a bounty on top of that, I think in the very beginning, you might see a little bit of what we used to see where you just have people out there for the wrong reasons.

55:06You know, trying to just get a picture with a snake or whatever. But I think they're going to quickly see how hard it is. They're not just catching snakes like they thought they were. And all those weekend warriors, all those people, they're going to die off. And you're going to be left with the general public that really does want to help. They're going to be good at it. And that's the only way we're going to get that under control. You know, it's going to have to be a delicate process to get there, I feel like. You know, maybe everyone has to sign up for a license. And then for that license, they go through some kind of training course like we do already for the Python challenges.

55:42And to me, that is the way to go. We need more than just these state contractors who, to me, they're all hunting the same spots. They all hunt the public highways or these couple of levies that produce pythons. And they're just driving the road all night, open down. And we need to get out in the swamp to get where they're nesting, where they're breeding, and where they're eating our native wildlife. And we're just not doing that like we should be. And that's why I've been putting so much into this Python team. I've been putting together specifically to use dogs to help us find these snakes. And just this nesting season alone, I've completely proven that that's the only only way to do it.

56:33Yeah. Yeah. This this season alone, I found maybe I think eight nest now, which to give you an idea before this Python season, there was like a handful of nest nest ever found in the state. It's a very rare thing. Very, very rare. Before I used a dog, I found a one nest. That's it. I don't know of any other person in the state of Florida that has found more than one nest. So for this last two months alone, I'm finding that many nest. I'm finding underground pythons. We never really understood how much they nest underground that we have this season with my dog finding these snakes actually underground.

57:24And you know, that's where a lot of them are going to nest. Almost every snake I found in a hole. Yeah, I took out seek one productions. They're like a hunting medium company. Oh, this is crazy. You're actually digging into the ground. And my my dog, Otto, alerted me to this hole. And he let me know that there is a Python in this hole. And to be sure I took my little camera, stuck it down in there and sure enough, I could see a Python in the very back of the hole. How do you train your dog to find pythons? You know, there's definitely training that goes into it, but it is natural ability. These dogs are extremely talented.

58:06Not every dog will be a snake dog, especially. You know, I have 20 or more hunting dogs right now. I use them all to help me with invasive species and different things like that. Only a few of them will find me a snake. Dogs in their instincts generally don't like snakes. They want to stay away from snakes. A lot of the dogs I found the snakes like invisible. It'll be stepping on it like it ain't even there. But a few of my dogs, I don't know what it is. They're really, really good at it. And so just completely natural that they grab the snake. We train all of our dogs. Don't get me wrong. But we mainly the training was for other stuff ahead of time.

58:49And I'm just transferring it over in his snakes. These dogs, I work with them every, especially my dog auto, who's really getting the snakes for me now. This dogs with me every day. Like we are. He's a German wire hair pointer. He's adorable. He looks so happy. No, he loves it. He loves it. I always say when I die, I want to come back as auto because he is the happiest frickin thing in the world. And so auto is the best one that you've ever had for snakes. He is my best python dog. He's got a snake. He's my, he's my phenomenal python dog, my phenomenal iguana dog. And I mean, hold, hold do everything else as well.

59:24There's, there's nothing that dog cannot do. So when you find those eggs, do you destroy them? Yeah. So what I actually do is all, they normally don't make it that easy. That iguana was sleeping. I don't know what it was doing. But yeah, so I'll freeze the eggs, which kills them. And then I preserve them and donate them, sell some as educational displays for schools, research stuff like that. Because it is. They're a dinosaur egg. Yeah. Twice as big as an alligator egg. And how many eggs will a female python produce normally? So on average, what I've been finding this, this last season, which is really kind of, you know, given us a lot more data, your average size snake is going to lay 20 to about 60 eggs.

1:00:16And what is their primary food source out there now that they've kind of decimated most of the wildlife? But I would like to add that they're capable of 100 eggs or more. Oh, wow. Really big one. Oh, yeah. A 16 footer, a 17, 18 footer, they get that big, excuse me, so they can lay large clutch of nest or large clutch of eggs. I'm sorry. Wow. We just found a nest this season underground as well. It was an underground 16 footer. And she was on a nest of 70 active eggs. And especially, yeah, it's great. Well, it shows what we're up against too. You know, it's, it can get discouraging. One snake is birth to 70 snakes.

1:00:59Yeah, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel and I'll kind of get to that. So, you know, especially an underground nest like that, almost all of those are going to survive. When they're hatched, they're already two foot long, which is, yeah, which is about the size of most of our adult native snakes. So they're getting preyed on maybe for that first month. And then after that, they're not much as messing with them. And they grow very, very quick. It's mostly birds prey on them. Yep, birds, owls, stuff like that. Sometimes alligators a little bit, but pythons are eating alligators more than alligators are eating pythons.

1:01:39So what is their primary food source now? Right now rats, Everglades rats. There's a lot of rats out there and alligators, I would say. They've wiped out most of all the other mammals. And, you know, they're working on our waiting birds for sure, but I've been seeing them eat a lot of alligators. So that's probably the primary food source. Yeah, wow. Which honestly, you know, this may say about, I'd rather them be eating alligators than anything else. We got plenty of them. They're not going to wipe out the alligators by any mean. But they will wipe out everything else. We're 90 to 99 % of our small fur bearing game in the Everglades has been wiped out by pythons.

1:02:24And that is real. That is real. But... So deer. Like if you want a deer hunting. This is small fur bearing, man. Oh, this is like marsh rabbits, raccoons, otters, things along those lines. Our deer are wiped out as well. Our deer populations are in a fraction of what they used to be. And that's because of large pythons, our water management and panthers, for sure. So, you know, everything's really kind of struggling. What about black bears? Oh yeah, we got black bear down there. The black bear, I don't know, you know, I don't think they're getting affected by too much other than the water. So the water is a primary concern of yours, essentially.

1:03:08Yeah, absolutely. That's the big one, huh? Absolutely. And a lot of its agriculture, a lot of its fertilizer, pesticides. Yeah, we have very high mercury levels in our water. That's why I actually, a python over 10 foot in length really shouldn't be eating. Its mercury contents will be dangerous high. And that's the shame. And people are eating pythons. You can. I wouldn't say people are, you know, down there having it for dinner every night. I've eaten it a number of times. Yeah, what does it look? Very chewy, very, very chewy. I'm no chef by any means. I think if you knew what you were doing and you were able to get a really tender and nice, it wouldn't be too bad.

1:03:49Like sous -veeter or something? Yeah, yeah. But the flavors, the flavor is not bad at all. It's nice white meat. You're kind of eating it off the ribs like fish kind of almost. But it's not bad at all. The iguanas delicious. Yeah, I've heard iguanas very good. I've seen a lot of people kill them and cook them on YouTube. Yeah. They cook like some stir fry or what do you cook iguanas? Again, it's not something like, hey, darling, I got some iguanas fried up for dinner, you know. I'm feeding most of it to my livestock and then making leather products from the skin. But I've barbecued it. I've kind of pan fried it in some general so's and pineapple.

1:04:35And that was actually really good. I got a big male that had like these huge cheeks. And in the cheeks, there's a nice medallion of meat. And that's how I fried that up. It was good. Was it, does that taste similar to anything? It's almost like a dark meat frog leg. Which sounds maybe a little gross, but it's not bad. Frogs are pretty good. Oh yeah, frogs are delicious. Yeah, it's just people have to get past the fact that it's a frog. Yeah, same thing with Python and iguanas. Yeah, so is that a common thing where people hunt need iguanas now in Florida? Not so much to hunt them to eat them. I think that's more just like a YouTube thing.

1:05:16You know, people love that stuff. It's more so you have people hunting them because it's fun. It is. It's a really fun thing to do. I do guided hunts for it. And I do guided hunts for just about everything in Florida. And I always say I've never seen people have so much fun as I do on these iguanas. I mean, you're just, you may shoot at 100 iguanas in the day, you know. And watch my dog go in and catch it, bring it back. Are you using air guns? Yeah, we're using really high end semi -automatic air rifles, 25 and 30 caliber. This is actually out on a golf course. That size of these suckers. And yeah, that's a big breeder.

1:05:56That's what I'm looking for when I'm out there. You know, I'm removing any iguanas I see, but those are the big problem. Those big breeders, they usually have a harem of like five or six females. And little fun fact, they have two peckers. So they're out there slaying in it, you know what I mean? And they're everywhere. Yeah, they're everywhere. They are everywhere. And is there a limit like if you're after invasive species, are you allowed to shoot as many as you found? Yeah, yeah, it is. I don't want to make it seem like, you know, the iguana thing is just a free for all in Florida. The iguanas, they're in these real residential areas.

1:06:36You know, urban settings where you just can't really walk around and shoot stuff in people's backyards. You're trespassing, people are calling the cops on you. I'm permitted and licensed to do this in the various areas I do. Someone will hire me, bring me in, and you know, definitely for people to go out and do this on their own. They need to be careful. They need to make sure they're in a public area where they're allowed to do that. Your dog just jumped in the water and caught a swimmer. That's amazing. Yeah, hold down, pick them up off the bottom. Wow. Jump them, grab them out of trees. It's crazy that this one dog is just so good at reptiles and snakes.

1:07:14We have a number of them backing them up now. They're not quite as good as him, but they are... They learn from him? Yeah, yeah. I usually have him mentor them a little bit, take them out, see how they do it, or see how he does it, and you know, they'll pick it up. But him, though, he's just had so much experience. I've had him since six months old, out on golf courses helping me, and he's just... he's got it down. So you can see here, he knows to re -grip, because the tail's break off. And here, he watches... He drops it, trying to show off for the clients, and he is very upset, but... Now old dad's got his back there.

1:07:56Wow. What, was it hurt in his mouth, like just part of the fight? No, he was just... Shaking it around and excited, and yeah, wiggled out of his mouth. A lot of times when he catches him, especially after he gives him a kind of... a little bit of a thrashing, they just give up. And I think he was kind of thinking this one was a little g -gave up and was being silly with it, so. Yeah, he's supposed to do that. That's not good. He's supposed to keep hold of it until it gets back to me. When you're out there, like on a typical day, how many of Guanas are you seeing? Depends on where I am. Depends on if this is my first time removing a Guana's on this golf course.

1:08:42I have communities and golf courses in city parks that I've been managing for the past couple of years, and I may go me or send one of my guys, and you know, we may only get 15 to 20 that day, or I may go to a brand new one. That's like Jurassic Park, and I get over 100. Really? Like Jurassic Park? Like Jurassic Park. Six -footers fucking. Really? What's the biggest one you've ever seen? Um, biggest one I've ever seen, Shadow, uh, six and a half foot, maybe a little more. How big do they get? Problem is I don't measure or weigh them all. Highphones I do, but you don't want as I just... What's like the biggest Guana ever?

1:09:24Six and a half foot, basically. So I've never heard of one bigger. 20 pounds essentially. As long as it's table almost. Uh, tip to tip, no, almost. Short, almost. That's insane for an Guana. Like what does that weigh? It looks like it weighs about 50 pounds, but there are 20 pounds that big, about 20 pounds, 15 to 20 pounds. 20 pounds is monsters for an Guana. Is there any video that we could see of like a Jurassic Park type situation? Do you have any videos that I'm like, all over golf course? Um, there's definitely some on YouTube. I think a one in particular where it's like a hundred of them running from this guy just walking playing golf.

1:10:03Um, generally when I see that I'm, I'm blasting, so I'm not really taking too much video. So yours is semi -automatic, you can fire off multiple shots. Yes, semi -automatic. I got eight shots and I keep spare magazines on me and swap them out real quick. Yeah. And a lot of times too when I get into a place where I know it's covered with them. And a lot of times they'll close down the area for the day for me. I'll bring in my guys and we're all geared up. We all got guns. We got a couple dogs. And we're just annihilating them. You know, all day we'll just come in and wipe them out. What's the most you've ever shot a day?

1:10:41Uh, close to 200. Close to 200. It's crazy. Yeah, just the Guanas and then on top of that, you know, we'll have different invasives. We'll get cane toads while we're there, miscovy dogs, Egyptian geese. Sometimes pigeons will become a big problem. They're also invasive. They'll have us remove them. And you know, it kind of becomes a little bit of a cleanup. This is a big boy. Boy, uh. Yeah. So is there any video Jamie of a bunch of invasive pythons on a golf course? It's just Google Python. It's giving you a new story. Festation golf course. Yeah, there's one video in particular where I was blown away.

1:11:24I was like, oh, I got to get out there. Now, do they pay you per Python? How do they, how's that work? Uh, for the Guanas? Or, I mean, for a Guanas, right? Um, yeah. It kind of depends on on how I, there is no state bounty for a Guanas. Uh, I want to make that clear. A lot of people think there is, there's not. Should there be? Um, yeah, that would be great. But I don't see how that would be possible. I really don't. Um, because of where a Guanas are and, and how many a Guanas people would be getting, the budget would have to be huge. And you would have a bunch of people just running around the city, shooting stuff.

1:12:00You would have guys getting shot. You would have windows getting shot out. Right. You just, you need, yeah, you really do for a Guanas more than anything. Pythons, they're out in the middle of the Everglades away from people. And you're generally going to be grabbing them or just shooting them, point blank. Um, so it's kind of a little bit different. But, um, it all depends on how I work the job. Most jobs all, all set it up to where it's per Guana. That way they kind of know what they're getting into. And I like to kind of stay motivated and like, each one is like, change, change, you know. Um, so that's generally how I do it.

1:12:37And every, every place is different. Um, I may have a place that's, you know, only $10, $15 for a Guana. And I got places that's $100 or more per Guana. So, you know, it's all, it's all different. I could be a very profitable day. Go ham. It can't, it can't. Do you find any videos of, uh, it's nothing that's super impract, I mean, I'm seeing, here's one tons of red iguanas. Hold on. Is there more than one type of a Guana that's invasive down there? So we have the green iguana, which, you know, they, they do get orange. Those are the big orange ones you see. Those are just big dominant alpha males that turn that orange, like kind of like a peacock, you know, sort of thing.

1:13:15Um, but we're also dealing with Mexican spine -y tailed iguanas. And they're not, uh, quite a bit, as big of a problem. Uh, we are seeing them in certain pockets in certain areas, uh, you know, kind of populations booming. The main thing about them is, yeah, look at all that, that poop. This is crazy. And, you know, when we first start an area, especially areas, where I first start doing guided hunts, it'll look like this. And we, we clean it up pretty quickly. Uh, we're seeing huge results for the iguanas, any, any, even the pythons in a lot of the areas that we're focusing. Wow. And these are all just invasive species that are brought over as pets.

1:13:57Yep. Yep. Well, you know, they're, they, these specific ones weren't necessarily pets. These were probably wild born. But, you know, their lineage does come from escaped and released pets. Right. Yeah. It's just crazy how much of an impact that can have. It, it is. There's a, you know, and it's kind of cool to see, not necessarily cool, but interesting to see, um, the, the differences in impacts. The pythons are wiping out our native wildlife. And the iguanas, while they do have impacts on our native wildlife, specifically our burrowing animals like our gophretortis, our burrowing owls, and they're both protected and threatened, species already.

1:14:38They more so have an impact on our infrastructure. Uh, they cost our state millions and millions of dollars every single year with the burrows they dig, the vegetation they eat. They dig under houses too, right? And they fuck with the structure of the... Yep. So they'll dig these burrows to, to lay nest, and they'll undermine housing foundations, sidewalks, sea walls, and the main concern has been roadways and our levy embankments. As I was explaining earlier, those levy systems manage our water, which is absolutely crucial for the state of Florida. And the iguanas will degrade the embankments so much where they have to come in and totally rebuild them back up.

1:15:18To give you an idea, the town of Davy, which is just a small town here in South Florida, last year, the year before, they spent $1 .7 million repairing iguana burrows along their levy embankments. That's not roadways, that's not houses, that's not sidewalks, sea walls, just the levy embankments. And you spread that across the whole state. I mean, you could be talking $50 million, maybe more. Dade County, Miami Dade, has been talking about upping their budget for a iguana removal, which I'm planning on putting a bid in for it. Their budget before was just not adequate for what needs to be done.

1:16:01They're now comparing it to the mosquito problem. And the mosquito problem, I believe they spend like $40 million a year on. So I think their budget in the prior years was like $250 ,000 for iguanas. And they're quickly seeing that we need to spend millions on these reptiles to get them out. Have you seen this insane research they're doing about injecting mosquitoes with vaccines? Scary shit. Yeah, what the fuck are they doing? Scary shit. Well, they want you to get that damn shot anyway. This is crazy. This one's crazy. Yeah, that is. Like the idea that you're going to contain those mosquitoes once you release them out in the wild.

1:16:47Yeah, what's going to happen? We've seen how things have gone wrong before. Yeah, how do you not learn from all the stuff we've been talking about earlier today? Invasive species, cats, toads. The fact that you've got some genetically engineered mosquito and you're releasing it on the human race. Like, holy shit, man. Well, here's something on that too. So they're doing that. They've already released them in Florida for my understanding. They're already out there. Which mosquitoes? The modified ones. I don't know about the... Not the vaccine, but the modified ones. And what are these modified ones supposed to be doing?

1:17:21I guess helping with the mosquito population? I don't know. I don't know. But I do know, supposedly, and I'm pretty sure this is accurate, we had our first case of malaria in Florida, like ever, or for a very, very long time. Texas as well. Texas as well. So, you know, it's a little... Same places where they're working on these fucking mosquitoes. Same places they're working on these fucking mosquitoes. Yeah, I don't know if that's why. I'm not saying that's why. But I am saying that I am very concerned when human beings are making a decision that can infect... Effect rather the entire population that lives down there.

1:17:59Or in the entire country or anywhere where there's mosquitoes. How do I... Can you not say that these things are going to go everywhere? Yeah, well, you know, like you said, what if it goes bad, then what? What do you do? Well, this idea that we're supposed to trust these guys, they know exactly how everything's going to work out. Like, fuck off. Yeah. Yeah, what are you doing? No. Yeah, just like they knew about COVID. It's like they know about everything. It's never been one thing they've ever gotten perfectly right. And this is a... A giant overstep. It just seems like that involves everyone.

1:18:28That should be something that the public should be educated on before these decisions are made. That people should discuss it. It should be something that on the tip of politicians' tongues, like, hey, what the fuck are we doing? Dude, it's a plot of a horror movie. Yeah, it really is. It is. There's so many of those going on simultaneously. It's hard to pay attention. We're getting invaded by aliens. We're about to go to war. Jesus Christ. AI, chat, GPT, and sentient AI. It's a crazy time, man. It's a crazy time. Ooh, it's just... I feel like we are literally like on the launching pad. I feel like it has just begun.

1:19:03Absolutely. I think it's going to get way crazier over the next few years. Yeah, for sure. But when you see... Just... Florida is just... To me, is always such an interesting test case. Because it's such a wild place. It's always a place that people have kind of gone to get away from everywhere. It's the south, but it's very different than the rest of the south. And then the fact that it's... I mean, it's got such a crazy history of cocaine and Miami and the violence and the organized crime. That's all linked to the exotic pet rate as well. It all goes hand in hand. Yes, sir. How so? So, you know, the big thing with all these big drug dealers, you know, at the time was having these crazy exotic pets, tigers, fucking anaconda, big snakes, all kinds of stuff.

1:19:49And they... You know, they ate the best pet owners. Right. You know what I mean? And not to say that the animals released or escaped from them became a problem, but it was the whole culture of it. Everyone wanted to be like these drug dealers. So they all wanted these crazy animals too for the wrong reasons. And I think that's why it... At least one of the reasons it became so popular down here to have these crazy animals. It's a good climate and everything for it too, obviously. But it was just such a big thing. Still is. Florida is unlike any other place. It really is. It's unlike any other place in the country.

1:20:31And the fact that you guys are dealing with all these different invasive species there, it's almost appropriate. Look for the... Because the state is so crazy. It's just like a course. Of course, that's where it's happening. Because there's not really another state in the country that has such an issue with other than hogs. Well, hogs, which are... It's so perfect for it too. You got the port of Miami where stuff from all over the world is coming in through. The climate is perfect. You got the Everglades. It's just everything. Everything lines up. It's the perfect storm. When did you first start camping out in the Everglades?

1:21:06That was when I was... At least hunting for pythons or just... Anytime. I've been going in the Everglades for a while. Growing up as a Florida boy, we're all kind of out there running around. Catching snakes. How many people go missing out there every year? I don't know. It's not zero, right? No, I'm sure. It ain't zero. I mean, I've almost been in that person before. I'm sure there's some, for sure. Do you think people are getting eaten out there?

1:21:41Maybe if they're doing something they shouldn't be. And what? Being out there? No, no. Maybe swimming across a damp canal at night when they ain't supposed to. That's mainly when I see people getting attacked by an alligator. They're generally going to stay away from you. They don't want none to do with you. If you come across an alligator that's been getting fed by people, that fuckers dangerous, for sure. Anything is, we have these people that are... Since 1965, there's only been 175 unsolved cases involving deaths and murders. That's just the bodies. But that's like deaths and murders. Well, imagine that would be a good place to drop off of.

1:22:21That's kind of what I was going to say. It's a very good place to go hide stuff. I've found vehicles that were using crimes dumped out there. I've found dogs from dog fights that were dumped out there. I've found animals that have just been dumped. I've found very intricate and mind -blowing satanic rituals and sacrifices out there. What? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I found different stuff before. Maybe someone was doing some voodoo, some sanaria, sacrifice to chicken, whatever. All that's normal out there. That's not that crazy. But what I found this night was very crazy. The police came and investigated it.

1:23:10It made the news. And that's the facility I was hunting. It's Aerojet. It's actually an abandoned space rocket facility from the Cold War, where they were developing and testing space rockets. And what were you hunting there? Python's. I was out there hunting these snakes. This facility is, you need special access. I was given special access by the state of Florida to remove pythons from out there. And nobody can just go back out there. But people do go out there, as you can see from the graffiti and different stuff like that. Usually to do stuff that they're not supposed to do. There's a lot of crimes committed out there.

1:23:51There've been murders out there, gang initiations, all kinds of stuff. So they have a pentagram? So, yeah, it's a whole thing. So we go out there. The first thing I came across was a big rock pile with an upside down wooden cross on top. And a bunch of red spray painted upside down crosses all over. And you could tell the cross I think was burnt a little bit. And it wasn't, you know, crazy, super crazy. It was. It was like, oh, this is new. You know, this wasn't out here a few days ago. And then I found this little doll. And as I kind of investigated that doll more, a little red scarlet snake actually came up and wrapped around her neck.

1:24:36And I picked up the, there it is. I picked up the scarlet snake. And, which, you know, is kind of weird that there's a life snake, a red snake on this doll. And I've caught a lot of snakes in my life. And that is the only one that was bleeding out of its anus. There was blood coming out of its beehull, which, you know, I don't know why, who knows what. It was a little weird to me. And then the night just kind of gets weirder from there. You see the red lettering in the other clip. It was a big Latin saying, like 100 -foot long pretty much on the road. I drove over it. We later translated it to turn around, run, hide.

1:25:23He is watching you. Go further into the complex. And there's these big abandoned buildings. I go in the building, you know, still just Python hunting. Like, you know, who knows what these kids are doing out here. I thought it was strange the Latin, your average kid just messing around. Don't know Latin sayings like that. And then I come to this big room where there's the big pentagram. In the middle of the pentagram, there is a three -legged plastic chair with a blood stain in the bottom of it where you could tell something was killed, sacrificed, whatever. On each wall, there's three walls. On each wall, there's upside -down crosses, Latin sayings, and all kinds of stuff.

1:26:08As I'm kind of walking in the room, which, you know, I don't want to sound like a psycho or anything. But that doll from earlier grabbed my leg. I don't know if I kicked it. I didn't see it or what. But that doll from the rock pile somewhere else, I don't know if it was another doll or what. I never seen that other doll. I kick it. It seemed like it grabbed me. It's that same doll from earlier. Same thing with the cross on its forehead. The one I cocked over. The other I messed up. And so, you know, it's very, very weird to me. Kind of like scared me right next to it. Wasn't there and then it was there.

1:26:49I didn't notice it. I didn't notice it. He didn't carry it over there. No, I didn't touch it. I didn't touch it. I didn't touch it. Was anybody else with you? I had two guys with me that didn't even want to get out of the truck when they seen the first thing. They stayed in the truck. So the same doll that you saw on the rock pile somehow made its way to where you were. Yep. I don't know if it's a duplicate doll or what. But it's seen more than one of those dolls. Only doll I seen. Only doll I seen. I'm not big on the whole supernatural thing. So me, I'm real doubtful of it in the first place.

1:27:18But to me, it was the same doll from earlier. I did not see it until it hit my foot. Right next to that doll, there is a saying on the ground that says, the omen will follow. Which to me was like the creepiest thing of the whole thing. Was like, you know, that if you interact with any of this, this spirit's going to follow you. Which I'm Christian, I believe in God. I wasn't worried, you know, I know the good Lord has my back. But very strange, right? Very strange. As we go through, there's all kind of different stuff. In one of the rooms, there's a sleeping bag with something inside of it. I don't think it was a body, anything like that.

1:28:04Police went out there and investigated it. I didn't investigate further past that. Something was inside the sleeping bag. And on the walls, there was, looked like red spray paint. And it said she was only nine. We gave her to the devil, like basically talking about sacrifice and a child. And then you have this little girl's gown that's nailed to the wall with like a dark red stain on it. Oh, Jesus. And what was the investigation? Did you follow up and find out what they found out? I never heard anything from it. I'm assuming they never found much from it because I never heard anything from it.

1:28:44Did they know it was human blood? That was in the chair. I don't know. I don't know. I would like to think it's red spray paint. But I don't know. I don't know. For the sake of the, for the sake of the story, who knows what it was. Yeah. So, you know, we continue on with our hunt. We end up starting to get out of there. The guys are like, dude, we want to go. We don't like this shit. I'm like, all right, you know, let's pack it up. Let's go. So we start making our way out. And I see flashlights. I mean, there's one one road in one, one road out. There's a gate at the end of it. You can't drive a vehicle in.

1:29:21And I mean, we're miles, miles out here. You have to drive miles to then walk miles, right? So I see these, this flashlight bouncing on the side of the road. As I'm driving out, and I'm like, who the fuck is this? No, I've never seen anyone out here in my life ever. Get in closer to them. I have my pistol in my truck. I put my pistol on my lap, you know, just in case. As I'm getting closer, about to kind of pass the guy. The guy's like, Mike. It's my name. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm definitely shooting this guy. Like, what the fuck, you know? And he's like, I love your Instagram. I was like, oh shit.

1:30:07And he's, I'm like, dude, what are you doing out here? He's like, oh, I seen on your story a couple days you were out here. Python hunting, so I figured I'd come out here and take a look. He was with a buddy. And I'm like, you know, that's awesome. You know, you're better than devilish. Yeah, yeah, my good luck to you. But I found some crazy shit back there. And it is fresh. Like someone was just back there doing some satanic shit. You know, be careful. Look out for yourself. I go on my way. I talked to him the next day. He said five minutes after he left me. He heard a bunch of gunshots back there.

1:30:44And he fucking rolled out. Left. Whoa. So people were still there. Sure shit seems like it. Holy shit. Sure shit seems like it. So I do, I do a little more investigating in myself. Turns out Aerojet, that facility itself has this, which I've done a whole YouTube video on. It definitely check out. It's interesting. Has a whole satanic history. The founder of Aerojet, the guy who was working with NASA and the federal government on these space rockets, was a public satanist, Jack Parson. Was a public satanist who supposedly died in some kind of experiment, some say a satanic ritual, an explosion.

1:31:28And um... What the fuck, man? Look at this guy. Oh yeah. Very public satanist. He practiced what was called sex magic. And you know, you can imagine what that's all about. And so his wife, who he, I think it was a second wife, I'm not sure what. But he claimed he conjured her from hell. That she was a demon, an elemental, an elemental from hell. Her name was Marjorie Kimmel, the same name as my grandmother. So this guy's a legit rocket scientist for NASA. Full blown satanist. Public satanist. Yeah. What year was this? Um, 60, 70s. Cold water. And then, arrow jets still a thing too, you know. I think it's out in Texas or I don't know what it put.

1:32:17Bro, this is a flat out horror movie. Yeah. And then dude, that rabbit hole goes way deeper, way deeper. The occult history behind NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Mm -hmm. Wow. So, you know, that spot is... Jamie, will you send me that please? Significant for satanic rituals. And that happened during the Easter Moon, which is also... I found out, I didn't know this before, high activity for satanic rituals for whatever reason. They think that they're... It's a better time to link or I don't know what. Oh, God. Yeah. It wasn't just some, you know, oh, we're laughing about it. It was like a real deal.

1:32:58They were trying to do something out there. You know what's really fucking terrifying? People dismiss the idea of demons. They dismiss it completely. But you have to believe in God. Mm -hmm. Like, if you tell people that you saw the devil doing the work, you're like, Mike's all the devil. Yeah, you're like, we're joking. What are we doing, Mike? Even a small, dude, like a Toad's bike. Yeah, what the fuck you up to? Yeah. But if you tell them that, you know, God's boked you, people will listen. Mm -hmm. If Satan is real or if demons are real, they really are a real thing. And these occultists really can summon them.

1:33:35You know how fucking terrifying that would be. Dude, just to find out that's real. But isn't that like the old saying, the greatest thing that Satan's ever done? Yeah, that's it. That's it. And I look at the world we're in right now, Joe. And everything going on. And to me, it's hard to believe that there ain't something metal in or something. You know what I mean? It's just something pulling on the tree. There's some dark energy right now. Of human behavior, right? Yeah. Like, what would cause someone to want to embrace Satanism? What would cause someone, what would cause someone to even, but let's just pretend that that was just fake and they had a doll and they spray painted everything.

1:34:15Like, what the fuck are you doing? And you're way, way out there, dude. That's, that's such a commitment. That's like, and the fact that there's a deep history of Satan is a task. That stuff out there. It's crazy. And the scary thing is you know that there are people that sacrifice people. That's happened. That's the real thing. Whether or not it's happening right now, it's just cognitive dissonance that keeps you from believing it's possible. A buddy of mine came across a little bit of that when he was hunting the Amazon. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. It was a big religious sacrifice. And right in the same area of the Amazon, he was in.

1:34:59I want to say like the day after he left. I want to say it was the day after he left. Or I want to say it was while he was there. Something crazy. I don't want to ruin the story. But he was in the Amazon hunting and he got word that in one of the villages close by, there was like 60 people slaughtered. A huge religious sacrifice. It was something to do with religion. And you know, it just shows like holy shit, you're in another world there. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that's some terrifying shit, man. I had Paul Rosalie on the podcast who spends a lot of time in the Amazon protecting the natural ecosystem and he said he had encountered some natives at one point in time.

1:35:48And he looked around a tree and he saw a guy with a bow with face paint on. He's like, oh my god. Like I've got contact with you. Just got out of there in time. Yeah, that's sketchy. Yeah, sketchy. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot sketchy. He knew quite a few people that had been killed out there too. Oh, yeah, believe it. Yeah, believe it. Even one guy, he was explaining this one guy who had developed a relationship with them. Like he would push like a raft towards them with supplies, kept giving them things, and eventually was able to get close to them. And one day they found them with six arrows. They decided no more.

1:36:23And they said, yeah, you know, fuck you, man. Yeah. I mean, how many negative encounters that they had with loggers and line -ins? Yeah, well, that's it. They have a reason to, they're probably fearful. They don't want to change their way of life into us where... Well, they probably don't even know what that means. Yeah. You know, they just probably... I mean, these people would completely... Yeah, they're completely in contact with people. They just see enemy, and they know that they've killed people before. Yeah. I mean, there's been so many slaughters and murders of indigenous people when they were trying to take over areas for mining and for...

1:36:54And stories get passed around between them. Yeah. As I see people on a raft with supplies dressed weird... Kill them. Kill them all. Yeah. Mmm. It's crazy. It is crazy. Yeah. You know, that's kind of their version of the Everglades, right? Like, but... You need more crazy. Yeah, and you're in there. You're in there territory. Yeah. There's nobody's coming to help you. No. Nobody's coming to save you out there. Hell no. Yeah. I mean, it's infinitely bigger than the Everglades. Oh, yeah. For sure. Well, the Everglades has always been... What was that movie? There was a movie called Southern Comfort.

1:37:28Did you ever see that movie? I don't think so. It's a great movie about these army reservists who are doing some sort of... A thing down the Everglades. And I think one guy gets in an altercation with one of the swamp people. A glades, man. Yes. One of the people that live... I don't think it's the glades. I think it's some other swamp. I forget where it's supposed to be taking place, but it's a fucking great movie. I want to say it's like 79 or 80 or something like that. What year was this? Does it say Jamie? 81. Yeah. Louisiana, BAU. That's it. I got you. It's a great movie, though, man. These guys are fucked.

1:38:12Yeah, you get going against someone that knows their home range is better than you. Yeah, they start getting hunted. It's pretty crazy. Fun movie. But it also delves into the culture of the people that live there. And you go to see their homes. And it's like, wow, this is like... Yes, sir. It's a completely different world. Absolutely. Completely different worlds. Yeah. And those people have been living like that for a long time. Yeah. And there's a lot of culture behind it. Yeah. Yeah. And Malcolm Gladwell wrote about people that live in the Appalachians and some of the insane violence that took place there.

1:38:51And he said, there's a direct connection between the type of people that moved there because they were herders. And herders unlike farmers had to protect their animals. So when someone would come, they could just steal all your animals the middle of the night. So they were always on guard. And fiercely, because that was like literally all of your food. Oh, yeah. All livelihood. Yes, sir. Everything that keeps you off. So they were always protecting against thieves. Yeah. And there was like a culture and honor culture behind that. And so when they, the same folks moved to the Everglades, they carried that over there with them.

1:39:24That's why it's like seeped in violence. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, there is. There's a whole deep history to the Everglades and the Gladesmen. And that's another big thing that I, that's important to me. I'm on the board of directors for the history of the Florida Gladesmen nonprofit. And we go around the state to airboat shows, buggy shows, parades, all kind of different stuff. And we have a mobile museum which we bring with all kind of old Everglades artifacts and pictures and showing how, you know, the Gladesmen has kind of gone from a bit of an outlaw, you know, Gator Hunter Fisher to now it's a, um, stords of the land to a protector of the Everglades.

1:40:12And you know, really kind of trying to convey that message that, you know, we need those eyes in the ears out there to keep protecting and preserve that culture. Is there a good documentary on that culture? Yes, yeah, there's, there's a few of them. Um, I think you got, uh, Gladesmen, uh, sawgrass cowboys or something like that. Uh, there's, there's a, there's a few of them. Yes. But like, you, you recommend those two? Yes, yes, absolutely. Is that available everywhere? Is that? Yeah, yeah, I think, um, yeah, you can buy it, you can stream it. There it is. Gladesmen. Yeah, that's a good one. Give me some wine, Jamie, let me hear this.

1:40:51It is true. Yeah.

1:41:00There's a lot of people asking you, you know, what's it like being on the air, but driving in the air, but I thought, well, have you ever ridden a motorcycle? I go, yeah, if you ever got out on one of those real isolated roads, there's nothing but you and the two green lines on either side of the road, they said, yeah, they'll add a couple more cylinders to take the green lines away. That's the closest thing to flying you can get and not be worth it.

1:41:38We actually run these air boats to stick these frogs. You see a pair of eyes, you go towards him, try to stick him and pure wet around him, go onto the next one. The slower you go, the more you see.

1:42:07I put it in the bucket and hopefully we'll get to eat him.

1:42:20I feel like I'm a keeper of the Everglades. It's my heart and soul. I've just been coming here all my life and being able to venture out and see everything. So when they take all this away, when all of us are gone, then nobody's going to be able to take the next generation out to see what we see, my Everglades.

1:42:52So this is official say air boats harm the fragile ecosystem that they're spending billions dollars per tank. The Glades have been of air boat in here for generations. The band constitutes a war in their way of life. And that's very frustrating for us because we see every year with the way they manage the water, how they flood and dry up. It kills all the vegetation anyway. So you know, it's the reasoning behind it doesn't make much sense. And especially the air boats, we're laying grass down, we're not tearing it up, rooting it up. It lays down, it returns. So it's unfortunate. But it is. It's a war on our way of life.

1:43:29And what's behind it? Like who is behind doing this? Federal government. And have they had debates on this or any sort of a conversation? Where can we explain to them the benefit of allowing people to continue to do that? Yeah, you know, I know there has been. But you have this such outcry from, you know, the Gladesman, the average Gladesman is a blue -collar guy. He works every day. They're the kind of guys that don't go to a lot of these meetings. And it's unfortunate. And that's a problem with us, you know what I mean? Not making excuses by any means. And we also see that with hunters. They don't show up to these meetings like the, forgive my length, tree huggers do for the people that are against it.

1:44:20You get all these carons in there that don't know a thing. Right. I've been to the meetings myself and we had one lady get up on there and her argument against allowing access was what are the caterpillars going to do? And like I, I thought she's joking, but she's dead serious. She was worried that the caterpillars were going to suffer and the butterflies would suffer. And it's just, it's based on nothing. It doesn't make any sense. There's caterpillars are fine. The airboats don't hurt the caterpillars. I mean, they might knock it off a tree or something, but, you know, we're not. We're not out there killing caterpillars with airboats.

1:45:02So you get a lot of that. You get this one side of the room that's against it because they don't really know why. And then you get us on the other side of the room where it's a few guys that know what we're talking about, but we're just the minority in a lot of these situations. And also too, it's, it only does so good, you know? At the end of the day, decisions are made and we're not the ones making the decisions. That seems like such a bummer because those people are so interesting. And we fight for it. You know, that's why we have, we do our best to work with the state. We work with FWC where we have these youth hunts where we can take youth hunters out, show them how to hunt alligators, show them how to harvest, make use of the alligators, and do all that kind of stuff.

1:45:51All of it outside the National Park, none of it is allowed in the National Park, which is essentially the jewel of the Everglades, the best part of it. And, you know, so we do what we can. This is fairly recent that this... No, the National Park was turning the National Park in the sixth. So like we were saying earlier, but the youths have... It's been a battle since then. Yeah, and they're constantly taking away access. Every year it seems they're trying to take more access away. And especially now with 1200 people moving in, a thousand people moving to Florida a day, everything's getting developed and bought up.

1:46:25And you have more corruption where areas that weren't supposed to develop to now starting to get developed. And it's a sad thing, you know. We've seen the Everglades go from three million acres to now we're down to 1 .5 million acres. And how long?

1:46:43I don't know. I don't know that exact number. Historically, the Everglades was three million acres. I don't know what year they're basing that change off. Probably within the last 100 years. Wow.

1:46:57It's such a sad story. It's such a sad story of, you know, the consequences of human civilization and that you're getting to see it. You're getting to see it all. When you were a kid, do you remember a difference in the population of wildlife? Do you remember before the pythons decimated everything? Absolutely. Absolutely. When did the big change when did it start to happen? I think we've really started to notice it this past 10 to 20 years maybe. And you think that's just when all these populations that they dumped in there or however gotten there? I think it's happened under our nose. I think it's happened under our nose where the population is just so out of control now where we're seeing all the road kill.

1:47:42We're seeing all the wildlife has been decimated. And that takes a while to notice. It's not like we're out there. There's any really good way to count these animals. This is based solely off of sightings. So it's like, you know, after a couple years or a year or two people are starting to realize I haven't seen a raccoon in months. Or I haven't seen a raccoon in a year. And that ain't right. There's something wrong there. And I think that's when everyone started to realize like, hey, all of our native wildlife's gone. We're running over all these snakes road kill on the road. You know, there's a big problem here.

1:48:22And when you start to look more into it, then you start finding the snakes everywhere. I talk to guys all the time out there while I'm in the Everglades snake hunting. And you know, when I first started Python hunting, I would always get the same thing from the fisherman out there. Oh, it's a hoax. There ain't no pythons out here. I kind of thought the same thing too. If you're not looking for these snakes, you're not finding them. You're not finding them. You have to be. You're just an average person. You'll go right past it. You'll go right past it. Most of the time they're moving at night, they're nocturnal.

1:48:57And people just ain't out there at night. And if they are, they're not looking and they don't have lights. And do they all burrow underground? No, no, no. Most don't burrow underground. They don't burrow. They don't dig. They take over existing burrows to lay nest during nesting season. That another animal leaves behind? Either another animal or erosion. Those islands are all limestone rocks stacked on each other. So they'll road away, little caverns and holes. And then they'll get into them and use them.

1:49:27But they're very good at hiding. If you think about a snake, it can kind of make any shape it wants. It's just a long tube. I've seen 16 footers hide in eight inches of grass right in front of me. If I didn't step on it or know it was there, I would have never seen it. When the conservancy of Southwest Florida, GPS radio tags these pythons with a tracker, I'm sure you've seen it. And they release them back into the wild to gain data and to go during breeding season and hope to find breeding balls. Even though they're tracking this snake and know exactly where it is, a lot of times they don't find it until they step on it because it's just so hidden.

1:50:14Between their camouflage and just their shape of their body and where they are, they're very good at their cryptic predators. So there's really no way to do anything other than control the population at this point. And sort of control it. Sort of. We're never going to get rid of them. We do need to manage them and we need to use new and old technologies to do that. And what I mean by that is I've been a part of taking out researchers and developing new types of cameras that can actually spot pythons. And how they do that is not with thermal because pythons are cold blood. They do that with and forgive me.

1:50:54Some do from the swamp. I think they read reflective properties off of snakes or the way light reflects off of different things. A python and its skin is basically the most reflective and shiny thing out there besides water. So if we use that camera with a drone and with software that we're already using in Africa to combat poaching and different things like that, we could fly that drone up at the start of a levy or out in the Everglades. Fly it out, fly it around and it would be able to show where it sees a piece of a python. Mark it and tell me the hunter where there's snakes. And if this area is worth me spending time here tonight.

1:51:39Because you know, there's pythons all over the Everglades, but essentially, especially without a dog, you're looking for. You're looking for it. Yeah, exactly. Oh, they kind of glow. Yeah, and it almost looks like thermal, but it's not reading heat. And the camera I helped test was actually a thermal camera that mid production, they slip a different lens in it. And I guess that is what allows it to read that. But I think that would be a big game changer, especially for people not using dogs. But from what I've seen, the dogs is what we need to be putting all of our money into, what we need to be putting our time into.

1:52:20I got a few dogs now that are finding snakes almost every time we go out. And for python hunting, finding a python almost every time you go out is like unheard of. It's like the Holy Grail. You could go out there for a week and maybe find one. You might find a dozen in a night, but it's just so hit or miss. It's so hard to predict. And they're just very hard to find. You're essentially looking for them when they expose themselves out in the open. But with the dog, you don't have to wait for that. You can find them where they're at. And so it was the pushback of about the dogs. Is that animal rights people?

1:52:58The thing is cruel to use dogs? They're scared about animal rights people. Also to every single state contractor they have higher now, nobody has hunting dogs or I don't think would know what to do with a python dog.

1:53:16What they protection team itself aside from the python programs where they have a team of trained dog handlers, trained dogs, and they go out and in the Everglades state funded and they find these pythons full time. That's all they do. Which a big thing for me has been trying to get the state to support what I got what I've got going on. I already have that operation. I've already built it this past two years. We're successfully going out there removing those snakes. But I've seen how working with the state has gone before. I would love to get there. They're kind of nod where they allow me different access and permissions.

1:53:53But a private funding right now looks even more attractive to me. We have a couple people that have reached out wanting to help. And the dogs and the Everglades is going to be the game changer. It really is. What kind of a ramp up in people like yourself. How many more would you need to get a handle on this? A lot. We need like I said, we need the general. You'll be basically not doing anything to stop the population right now. No, yeah, we are. In the areas we're focusing, yeah, we're definitely seeing results. We're seeing native wildlife increase. We're seeing less pythons. And especially with us getting these nests now, we're going to see huge results next year.

1:54:36I know we are. But we're just focusing on a small area. We need to spread out big time. And we need the general public to get involved more. We need a team of dog handlers and dogs. And that needs to just continuously grow. You know, there's that needs to just constantly train a new people, train a new dogs. And it's going to take the right person. It's not just getting anybody. It's taken me a while to find the guys I have now. And you know, we definitely are seeing results. But on a whole, we're losing the battle. We're really running it in the areas where you're. We're running it. We're winning in the areas.

1:55:16It's such a small percentage of the actual every that's the problem. Yeah. And to me, I say that because we're seeing a ton of baby pythons. We just caught the largest python ever in the world recently, that 19 footer that was caught right off the side of the road. Like they're just crossing the road. These big ass things. And it goes to show to me that there's still a lot of big snakes out there. And they're reproducing laying eggs, creating an army. And it's right under our nose. You know, so it can be discouraging when you look at it. But that's the main thing. We can't get discouraged. We got to keep hammering.

1:55:58You know, we got to keep hitting these snakes, doing what we can, finding new ways and save our everglades. We got to. Is there any way that anybody listening to this can help? Yes. Yes. You know, especially so I just started a nonprofit specifically to help with this. Veterans for conservation. We are specifically trying to get some of that funding back into expanding my dog team, expanding more handlers, a guana removers, and everything like that, which again, I've already been self funding and doing myself. And then in the process of that, we want to take veterans out, specifically combat vets, take them out and get them involved, give them a new purpose, and get them in on the battle.

1:56:49And we've just seen it with working with the different military charity groups we've worked with, wishes for warriors is the one we really like to work with a lot. And we just see how beneficial it is getting them out there. And I think if we tie those two together, we can help save our state and help save some veterans. That's a great purpose, a great idea. And so if someone wants to get involved, is there a website that can go to? Best thing to do would be to email Python cowboy hunts at gmail .com. Oh boy, get ready. You got someone to filter that out? Yeah, I do. I got an assistant. That's where I book on.

1:57:27Why assistant? Where I book all my guided hunts and sell a lot of my leather products through there. I also have my website that I sell my leather products on python cowboy .com. And all of that, every dollar we make from leather products from my merchandise, all of that goes right back into trying to get out there, remove more pythons, rescue native wildlife. I got a five acre wildlife rescue where I have all kind of different rescues. And you know, that's what I have to help fund that. And it's been going good. Do you sell python skins direct to the public? Yeah, yeah. So somebody wants to get one and have it made into something?

1:58:04Yes, sir. We can make it for you. I actually have my, which may have to get some more, my lady answering my emails is my leather, leather crafter as well. So she makes my leather products, takes my orders, ships and all. One person. One person. Wow. That's a valuable, her and her mother, her and her mother. Wow. All right, man. So, well, listen, thank you very much for being here. I really enjoyed talking to you. It was really fun. And you've got a crazy job and a crazy task. And it's fascinating. Stay away from those fucking stations. Stay away from those stations. That's it. Pleasure meeting, brother.

1:58:40Pleasure to be on. Thank you. Yes, sir. Bye everybody.