Amy Siewe (Python Huntress)
👤 PersonPodcast Appearances
He is a very, very feisty one.
So as I walk over there, just make sure you're out of the way.
Nope, not under the truck.
Come on, buddy.
One snake saved.
There's a snake right here, Dave.
That's a baby cottonmouth.
I'm just going to get it off.
Number two saved.
This is a banded water snake.
So these are... You're going hands?
Anyone want to hold him?
Okay.
Okay.
Let's go see what we've got.
Nope, it's a stock.
It's not a snake.
No, he doesn't count.
Second time you've told me.
I don't even know.
On the East Coast, they're eating mostly gators and birds.
Because all the mammals are gone.
They're moving north and west.
Absolutely.
This is it.
This is what I do every night.
To my favorites.
Super.
Yeah, snake hunter.
Amy, you're killing it.
Thanks for helping bring balance to our precious ecosystem and also for protecting me and for being strangled and swallowed by a python.
Thank you for saying that.
No.
One of my friends did, though.
I don't like that I have to kill them, but it is a necessary thing.
I have a tremendous respect for them and I know a lot about them.
A lot of people don't want to do this.
Mammal extinction is a big one.
98% of the mammals are gone in parts of the Everglades because the pythons have eaten them.
So they're the apex predator.
They eat rats, rabbits, bobcats, deer, gators.
Wait, deer?
So there was a breeding facility that was actually breeding the pythons for pets.
Hurricane Andrew came through in 92 and blew it away and sent 900 pythons to the same general vicinity of the Everglades.
There's an estimated 500,000 of them out there now.
Yep.
Once I learned that there was a python problem down here, I came down, went on a hunt, I caught a nine footer, and I was hooked.
It's like, I can actually use this passion that I have to help Florida with this epic problem.
I mean, why don't you come on a hunt with me and we can see how this all works out.
Oh, I'm like...
Dave, this is, I'm not saying this right now, okay?
Python!
But I also, so I break for snakes.
We have to kill the pythons.
We might as well save as many native snakes as we can.
Wait, stop, there's a cotton mouth.
There it is.