In the summer of 2021, researchers reviewing footage from a trail camera in the Big Cypress National Preserve in southern Florida watched something they had not recorded before. A Florida bobcat approached the nest of an adult Burmese python, a protected clutch of eggs, and began to eat them. The animal then cached the remaining eggs, a behavior suggesting it intended to return. The footage marked the first documented case of a native animal preying on python eggs in the Everglades.
Later footage from 2025 showed a bobcat killing an adult Burmese python of roughly 13 feet, the first confirmed attack of its kind on a mature snake. These events have drawn attention because they represent a behavioral shift in a landscape where, for over two decades, native wildlife had no response to the invasive python.
Burmese pythons are native to Southeast Asia, not Florida. They arrived in the state primarily through the exotic pet trade. Young pythons are small and manageable, but they grow quickly and live for decades, eventually reaching lengths that make them difficult to keep. Some owners released their snakes into the wild, and in the early 1990s, a major hurricane damaged breeding facilities, allowing additional animals to escape. The Everglades provided a warm, wet, prey-rich environment with no natural predators capable of controlling a large constrictor. A single female can lay 50 to nearly 100 eggs per year, and with no native checks on their population, the snakes established themselves across the region.
The consequences were severe. Road surveys conducted over years found that raccoon sightings fell by roughly 99 percent, opossum sightings declined by a similar margin, and bobcat sightings dropped by about 87 percent. Marsh rabbits, swamp hares, and foxes largely disappeared from the records. Scientists also found evidence of pythons consuming white-tailed deer and, in some cases, alligators. The loss of small and medium-sized mammals was particularly damaging because these animals disperse seeds, control insect populations, and serve as prey for native predators.
In their native range, Burmese pythons are kept in check by predators, competitors, and parasites. In Florida, none of those limiting factors were present. The python had no natural enemies and could hunt without exposing itself to significant risk. Its coloration made it nearly invisible in the marsh, and researchers sometimes stood within arm’s reach of tagged snakes without seeing them. This combination of concealment, high reproductive output, and absence of predators made the python an exceptionally effective invasive species.
The 2021 bobcat footage was significant because it showed a native predator engaging directly with python reproduction. The 2025 footage went further, documenting a bobcat killing a full-grown python. One biologist described the event as the ecosystem rebalancing itself, with native animals beginning to recognize the python not as an unbeatable threat but as a potential food source. Other documented encounters include an alligator pulling a large python through shallow water, an eastern indigo snake consuming a smaller python, and a Florida black bear attacking an adult python. Birds of prey have also taken young pythons from open areas.
These incidents do not yet constitute a solution. Pythons still number in the tens of thousands in the Everglades, and each female can produce dozens of eggs per year. A handful of individual predators cannot match that reproductive rate, and many native species lost to python predation have not returned. Wildlife officials continue to rely on removal programs, including a statewide python hunt and a program that uses radio-tracked male pythons to locate breeding females.
The documented encounters are isolated events rather than evidence of a broader turnaround. What has changed is that some native animals are now learning, through experience or observation, that pythons are vulnerable. Whether that behavior will spread faster than the pythons can reproduce remains unknown. Researchers continue to monitor the area with trail cameras, waiting to see what the Everglades will show next.
