I look for the bag and any sort of weapon to kill the python. We didn’t discuss a contingency plan beforehand, which now strikes me as a mistake. Gorden-Vega calls for a snake bag to use as a tourniquet to tie off her arm and stop the bleeding, and I run to the truck. Suddenly there’s more blood than I’ve ever seen in my life-dripping down Gorden-Vega’s arm and onto her moccasins. I watch as the snake turns around and sinks its teeth into a vein. Gorden-Vega accidentally grabs too far back from the head, and her dirty-blond, shoulder-length hair falls forward into her face, temporarily blinding her. Read Next: The 10 Most Venomous Snakes in the WorldĪlthough she’s done this more than 200 times before, tonight’s python is partially obscured behind some brush. As she moves in on the snake, she does not-cannot-hesitate. Speed, confidence, and efficiency of movement are important. For her part, Gorden-Vega tries to grab the snake behind the head before it can react. There’s no single way to bag a python each hunter has developed and honed his or her own method.
Now, standing on the side of the road, staring at the 8-foot python in front of Gorden-Vega, therapeutic is the last word on my mind. After having spent more than a year cooped up in a big-city apartment during the pandemic, I thought snake hunting might work for me too. I first got in touch with Gorden-Vega through her friend Robin Haines Merrill, who took to python hunting after she suffered a traumatic injury. Anne Gorden-Vega holds the snake that bit her.
While there’s usually no one to hear her scream out in the swampy wilderness, she wouldn’t even be able to if she got into real trouble. Pythons are constrictors that kill by biting and then wrapping tighter and tighter until their prey can no longer move its diaphragm. She’s also aware that she has to be careful. In fact, she knows more than most “herpers,” people who head out nightly into the Everglades to scan the coco plums and pond apple trees in search of invasive reptiles. Gorden-Vega certainly understands more about Florida’s ecology than I do, even though I’m from here and she’s originally from Missouri. The 62-year-old art teacher is basically operating on muscle memory as she dives into the brush with a flashlight, searching for the Burmese python she knows is there. She’s out of her Chevy Colorado pickup before I can even process what’s happening. ANNE GORDON-VEGA notices a yellowish glint in the brush and slams on the brakes.
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