In December 2022, biologists with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida found the body of a radio-tagged Burmese python in pinewoods near Naples. The male snake, known as Loki, had been part of their research program for more than six years. The team had checked on him days earlier and found him in good condition. When they followed his signal after a cold front moved through, the head and neck of the 13-foot, 52-pound snake had been removed and the body covered with pine needles.
Biologists set up a trail camera over the carcass. The next day, it recorded an adult bobcat returning to feed on the remains. This was the clearest evidence to date of a bobcat preying on an adult python, though the researchers noted they could not completely rule out that the snake died of other causes first.
The encounter drew attention because it involves two species whose populations have moved in opposite directions over the past four decades.
Burmese pythons became established in South Florida in the early 1980s, likely from escaped or released pets. The region’s warm, wet conditions proved ideal for them. Females lay an average of 49 eggs per nest, and larger females have been found carrying as many as 95 eggs. The snakes are now spread across more than 1,000 square miles of southern Florida, and their numbers are estimated in the tens of thousands or higher.
The impact on native wildlife has been severe. Road surveys in Everglades National Park between 2003 and 2011 found raccoon sightings down 99.3 percent, opossums down 98.9 percent, white-tailed deer down 94.1 percent, and bobcats down 87.5 percent compared with surveys from before pythons became established. A USGS diet study of 1,716 pythons collected between 1995 and 2020 found 76 different prey species inside them. In December 2023, biologists in Southwest Florida documented a 115-pound female python swallowing a 77-pound white-tailed deer.
Removal efforts have been extensive. Since 2000, more than 23,000 wild pythons have been removed and reported to state authorities. The Florida Python Challenge in 2025 drew 934 participants who removed 294 snakes. Detection dogs, environmental DNA testing, and thermal drone trials have been used with varying results. A 2020 study estimated that visual searches and traps succeed less than 1 percent of the time, even where scientists know pythons are present.
The Conservancy of Southwest Florida has run a radio-tracking program since 2013. Biologists fit male pythons with transmitters during breeding season and follow their signals to large females, which are removed before they can nest. The program has removed more than 40,000 pounds of python from a 200-square-mile area.
Loki was one of those tracked males. Bartoszek, the program’s lead biologist, had first suspected a Florida panther killed him. The trail camera showed otherwise. The bobcat weighed about 25 pounds, roughly half the snake’s weight. Bobcats normally prey on squirrels, rabbits, and rats. Pythons, in turn, have been found with bobcat claws in their stomachs.
The likely explanation is temperature. Pythons are cold-sensitive subtropical animals. When a cold front moves through, they seek shelter underground. Loki was far from his burrow when the cold hit. Bartoszek believes the cold most likely stunned the snake, leaving it slow and unable to defend itself. A bobcat, which generates its own body heat, would not have been slowed the same way.
Cold weather has not eliminated pythons. A hard freeze in 2010 killed about 40 percent of tracked snakes in one study, but the population recovered. A 2023 USGS report found genetic changes in Florida pythons linked to cold tolerance.
There is other evidence of native predators eating pythons. In June 2021, a motion-triggered camera in Big Cypress National Preserve recorded a bobcat eating eggs from a python nest while the mother was away. The cat returned repeatedly over several weeks. It was the first documented case of a Florida animal preying on python eggs. Researchers have also documented alligators eating pythons, a Florida kingsnake consuming a hatchling, and cottonmouths eating newly hatched pythons. A 2021 paper described a bobcat killing an adult male python and a Florida black bear attacking an adult female.
Biologists do not suggest these events will solve the python problem on their own. The snakes continue to spread. Between November 2025 and April 2026, the Conservancy removed 177 pythons from its study area, totaling 8,080 pounds and 4,100 eggs. Bartoszek described the work as suppressing python breeding locally.
The state still allows unlimited hunting of bobcats. Florida’s bobcat season runs from December 1 through March 31, which overlaps with the python breeding season and the months when cold fronts can leave pythons exposed. Whether bobcat hunting affects python populations is an open question that nobody has studied directly.
Researchers describe the growing interactions between native predators and pythons as adaptation rather than a complete solution. USGS ecologist Andrea Currylow, who led the study of the nest-raiding bobcat, said native species are learning to respond to the invader. Bartoszek called the events a score for the home team and said the Everglades are fighting back. He also said it would take many more observers to know how frequently these encounters occur.
