The neighborhood networking app Nextdoor lit up last month when a user posted a photo of a Burmese python – the invasive predator devastating native wildlife populations in the Everglades – taken in the western portion of Matheson Hammock Park, barely two miles from Coconut Grove’s southern reach.
“At minimum, it probably means they are in the yards of houses in Coral Gables and Pinecrest,” the person who posted the photo wrote. “Keep an eye on your pets and small children.”
While neither state nor local officials would confirm reports of the sighting to the Spotlight, those who hunt the massive snakes for a living say the large but elusive creatures are indeed living among us.
“I do not doubt for a minute that there are pythons in that area,” said Donna Kalil, a “python elimination specialist” working under contract with the South Florida Water Management District.
While pythons captured in Florida have reached 19 feet, the snake in the Matheson Hammock photo is estimated to be around 11 feet long.
Kalil is one of about 50 hunters helping the district to capture and remove pythons from South Florida. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) – a separate state agency – employs another 50 hunters.
The Matheson Hammock sighting is certainly not the first in the area.
Last Memorial Day a large specimen was seen devouring a pet chicken in the gated Coral Gables community of Hammock Lakes, according to a longtime resident, who asked not to be identified. “No one wants to discuss it because they fear their home values will be negatively affected.”
And to be sure, the python is no stranger to Coconut Grove. Although Miami police say there have been no recent reports of the snake in the Grove, an interactive map of python sightings maintained by the FWC shows six verified sightings in recent years, all within residential areas.
In 2017 a 12-foot python was found in Coconut Grove, on Matheson Avenue near Douglas Road, hiding under a pile of debris in the aftermath after Hurricane Irma.
The most recent confirmed report was in July 2023 when a snake was captured on South Bayshore Lane in North Grove.
Frederico Arrosa, another state-licensed hunter, told the Spotlight that he’s captured four pythons in Coral Gables in the past three years. He’s received calls about sightings in the Grove but was unable to find any.
Arrosa says the snakes are migrating from the wilder, western lands of the Everglades region in response to a dwindling food supply there.
“Pythons have nearly wiped out their prey in the Glades,” he says. “There is more food for them here, such as raccoons, possums and ducks living in residential areas.”
Pythons are very good swimmers, Arrosa explains. They navigate the dense mangroves that line the bay, and through the region’s system of canals. The snakes can also hitch rides in vehicle engine compartments, in boats and on boat trailers, he says.
Although nonvenomous, Burmese pythons can pose a danger to cats and dogs and, potentially, humans as well. And they are difficult to eradicate.
A female can lay between 50 and 100 eggs a year, although the vast majority don’t make it to adulthood, falling prey to birds, alligators and crocodiles.
Jason Schultz, public information coordinator for the South Florida Water Management District, urges anyone spotting a python to call 888-483-4681 without delay. Sightings can also be reported through the IveGot1 invasive species monitoring app.
When a call comes in, Arrosa says, he’ll be there in under an hour.
