The epic battle to rid Florida's Everglades of invasive Burmese pythons

The Everglades National Park in the US state of Florida is home to a stunning array of wildlife.

There are more than 360 species of birds, including the great blue heron and the diminutive green variety. It is said to be the only place in the world where freshwater alligators and saltwater crocodiles co-exist.

And then there are the non-native species that are throwing off nature’s balance.

On a blisteringly hot late-October morning, wildlife biologist Ian Bartoszek, who heads the Conservancy of Southwest Florida’s snake research and removal programme, sloshes through a cypress swamp outside Naples.

Holding an H-shaped antenna aloft in his right hand, he listens as the signal from the device in his other hand steadily increases. “As the beeps get louder, the giant snake is getting closer,” he says.

Of all the invasive species plaguing the Everglades, the Burmese python is the most high-profile and, arguably, the most intractable. No one is quite sure how a snake native to Southeast Asia found its way into the wilds of South Florida in the late 1970s, although many believe the first were escaped – or released – pets. Estimates of their population run into the hundreds of thousands, and they are voracious.