In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Joe talks about the invasive species problem in the Everglades, and how invasive species like pythons, snakes, and panthers are eating our native wildlife. Joe also talks about a recent encounter he had with a panther, and why he thinks it may have been a little bit different than the rest of the panthers he has ever seen before. Joe also shares some of his own experiences with panthers, snakes and other invasive species, and talks about how they have affected him and his family over the years, and what he's learned about them from those encounters. Enjoy, and spread the word to your friends about what's going on in the wilds of South Florida! If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts. I'll be looking out for your comments and thoughts in the comments section below. Thank you so much for all the support, and stay tuned for more episodes like this one! Cheers, Joe and the JOGAN Experience. - The Jogan Experience - By Night, All Day, by Night, by Day, By Night! - All Day! (featuring the Joggan Experience Podcast by Night All Day) - by Night all Day, all Day! - Joe Rogans Podcast by Day and All Day by Night by Night! - By Day, All Night, all day, all by Night. by Night... by Night - by DAY, by DAYNights, by NITE, by SONGS by DAY by DAY - by NOVORTHODAY, by VENO, by EVENING, by SEASON, by SUNDAY, by MONDAY, ALL DAY, ALL BY MOST SUNDAY by DAY! by DAYS, by SEA, by DAILY, by FRIDAY, EVERY SUNDAY BY SEA, BY SUNDAY EVENET, BY SEVENTHANETTE, BY DAYNITE, EVERYTHING BY SUNNETTEENOUGH, BY MUNDERSTANDING, BY MEETING, EVERY MOST DAY, BY VESTEMENT, BY SEA WEEKNITE AND SUNDAY AND MUNDO, BYESTTHING BY DAY, AND EVERYTHING EVENTHING EVERLAST WEEKDAY, BY ACHTERY, BY EVENNITE BY SUNNY N EVENETTE AND MOST FROG DAY, VETTING, BY DESTINATION, BY N EVENTHING, AND EVENETHER, BY CHANGE, BY EVERYDAY, AND THE MOST CHECKED, BY PODCAST BY DAY AND OTHER DAY, EVENETHEY, AND AVAILMENT, BY NOVINE AND OTHER THAN THAT'S WHAT'S UP IN THE WEEKS, AND THEY'S NOT EVEN THING?
00:01:19.000They're just going off of captures, really, and the decline of native wildlife, which there's other factors at play when it comes to the decline of our native wildlife.
00:01:30.000Obviously, pythons are eating up our native wildlife in the Everglades, without a doubt.
00:03:06.000We've had, I believe, a couple in the past few years each year where people are out turkey hunting or sitting on the ground calling for a turkey, calling for a coyote, something like that.
00:03:20.000And a panther comes in and thinks some guy got mauled on his face or something like that.
00:03:35.000Me personally, just from python hunting down there over the years, I've seen a dozen or more of them.
00:03:41.000I've been sleeping in my tent in the middle of the night out in the Everglades, and I'm woken up by a panther growling right next to my head outside my tent, circling my tent for about 15 minutes.
00:05:58.000The mountain lions are a different, you know, they're not a different species or breed, but they're different, you know, physically than our Florida panther, but not anymore.
00:06:15.000took texas cougars brought them down to florida and interbred them with the last few remaining florida panthers we have oh no so they're no longer a florida panther they're now texas cougars and they are bigger they are more aggressive and you know we're we're dealing with it for sure what a stupid move yeah We've seen that it's the cane toads,
00:06:39.000cane toads in the sugar cane fields, the Bufu toads that we're dealing with now, same thing.
00:06:45.000They brought them in to control insects in the fields, and they winded up eating everything but the insects, basically, and now they're a big problem.
00:06:55.000Are those the kind of toads that eat rats?
00:09:21.000What they've done is they take the toad, and they rub the toad on a windshield, and they get all it out, and then they scrape that stuff off of the windshield, and they smoke that.
00:12:18.000I was actually out in my 14-foot John boat by myself, and I was checking spoil islands out there.
00:12:28.000These islands were dug maybe a hundred years ago or more when they dug the canal.
00:12:34.000They were made a hundred years ago when they were digging the canal.
00:12:37.000And they've been up there, you know, gaining vegetation, getting real nasty, and a lot of these critters come up on them to breed, to feed, and to nest.
00:12:49.000And I was out there looking for, you know, a python like I normally do, and I came across her.
00:12:56.000I knew immediately when I saw her that she was very large, possibly the largest python I've captured.
00:13:04.000And I could only see the back half of her.
00:14:43.000It intertwines in all the weeds and just drags you.
00:14:47.000So I know grabbing this thing, my goal is to piss it off and get it to start striking at me where I can see that head and grab a hold of that head.
00:17:59.000Normally, when they bite, they latch on.
00:18:03.000And she would have latched on, she would have wrapped around me, and I would have been in a very, very bad situation being out there by myself.
00:18:19.000I was able to grab her head and I don't know if it's how I pushed it forward and pulled her off or what because all their teeth are recurved like fish hooks almost kind of.
00:18:51.000So now my main thing is controlling her without exerting myself too much because every time I'm doing anything, I mean, I've never seen blood come out of my body like this, you know, really.
00:20:59.000Why would it be so hard to have a gun right there?
00:21:02.000Well, I'm literally crawling through cane and sawgrass, and it gets snagged.
00:21:09.000You can lose a gun very easily, and it's just, it's in the way, and 99.9% of the time, I'm not going to need one.
00:21:17.000And especially me, I'm the kind of guy where, if I come across a 30-foot snake, you know, which pythons don't get that big, let's say I come across a 30-foot snake, something crazy, I ain't shooting it.
00:21:51.000And, you know, normally I don't always get great...
00:21:54.000I mean, I get pretty good footage with my cell phone, my shoulder cam, but like I was set up this day and I knew I had my GoPro running when this thing bit me.
00:22:02.000Are you cinching up at the top of your arm above the wound?
00:22:11.000And, you know, to be honest with you, the first thought that went through my mind when that thing bit me, and I have all these cameras going, and I see all this blood, is this video's definitely going viral.
00:25:56.000I do have some things that are leading me to believe this.
00:26:02.000I'm not just pulling this out of my butt.
00:26:04.000But this is definitely an opinion, I would say.
00:26:09.000I believe that they were intentionally released by somebody or multiple people, probably reptile breeders, in a hope that they could stop importing pythons from overseas as pets and start farming them in-state.
00:27:03.000Well, just from what we've seen with other species, for something to take hold like this and become so prevalent, it needs to be intentional.
00:27:13.000There needs to be thousands to be released at a time.
00:27:18.000During the height of the Burmese, it was the most popular pet being imported into Florida.
00:27:23.000During the height of it, you would have a thousand come in in a week in a crate and they would, you know, sell them all over the country.
00:27:30.000And I think it was the kind of thing where it's like, well, we can, let's dump one of these crates out there and see what happens and see if we can start farming them out there.
00:27:42.000These people, I've even just hear how they talk about the python problem in Florida.
00:27:48.000And it's, I don't know, there's definitely something to it.
00:28:03.000Different old school breeders that I would, the old reptile importers, like the kind of, some of the founding fathers of it, the exotic pet trade in Florida.
00:28:17.000Dude, I think you just uncovered a giant conspiracy.
00:29:04.000But what we're seeing in the state is people doing that to farm them, especially with chameleons.
00:29:10.000People will go out and they'll dump maybe 50 chameleons into an area in a specific tree more often.
00:29:18.000And then they'll come back a year or two later and there's a huge population of them.
00:29:22.000And then they go out and they pick them and then they sell them for $50 to $100 each.
00:29:26.000You could go out and make $3,000 in a night just from a couple hundred dollars of Chameleons you put out there you know a year ago or so and it's become you know a business and you know there's There's right and wrong ways to go about things.
00:29:46.000By no way am I knocking the reptile trade or anything like that.
00:29:51.000As a kid, I grew up with 20 different reptiles as pets and breeding them and selling them as pets.
00:30:02.000There's a right and wrong way with anything, like owning a gun or anything else.
00:30:07.000You know, we shouldn't necessarily make these animals illegal because what we've seen when just recently they've made iguanas and tegus illegal in Florida to own as pets, and we're seeing people dump their pets because FWC has been going around,
00:30:24.000and they said they wouldn't, but they have been.
00:30:27.000They've been going around and actually euthanizing people's pets.
00:30:31.000And to someone that, you know, this iguana or this python even or anything, to a lot of people, it's like a dog.
00:30:43.000And they would much rather turn it loose and give it the chance to survive than to have it euthanized.
00:30:50.000And then what you're left with is irresponsible pet owners.
00:30:55.000You're left with people that are breaking the law to own these animals, probably don't have proper enclosures, probably don't take good care of them, and probably will just release them when they're done with them.
00:31:07.000So you take all of the good away and you're left with the bad when instead we should put regulations in place.
00:31:19.000Where people then are forced to House these animals correctly and the problem is no longer pet iguanas or pet pythons it's wild breeding animals and when they made these iguanas illegal just this past year they've now stopped all of that free management we had of people coming from all over the country coming to florida Catching these iguanas,
00:31:49.000catching these tegus, taking them out of the state and selling them where they can't survive anyway because it's too cold.
00:36:01.000What was actually done was the Florida Gladesmen, who historically lived and survived off the Everglades and was a keeper of the Everglades, was kicked out of the Everglades when it was made in National Park.
00:36:42.000Moonshiners, drug smugglers, all kind of stuff.
00:36:45.000And, you know, a lot of these camps was actually, especially when you're getting more into the Python starting to take over, when they were really trying to get everyone out, which...
00:36:58.000That's not the reason they were trying to get everyone out was because of the pythons.
00:37:01.000It was because they were trying to turn it into National Park and they felt like these people shouldn't be in there.
00:37:06.000They were burning down camps and there's actually stories of burning down camps with gladesmen inside and all kind of shady stuff going on.
00:37:17.000You know, that's maybe a topic for another time.
00:37:20.000How long did it take to move these people out of the forest?
00:37:23.000So the National Park, I believe, was started in like 47. It was actually finalized sometime in the 60s.
00:37:49.000And it's still kind of a raw spot for a lot of us.
00:37:53.000A lot of us don't like the park service because of everything that happened.
00:37:58.000And we feel that the Everglades should be open to the people to enjoy it.
00:38:05.000And enjoy it in the right way, of course.
00:38:09.000We really seen that when the gladesmen, the eyes of the ears and the keepers of the Everglades was removed from the Everglades and our access was limited, the pythons took over, the water quality went down, we're seeing fracking in our Everglades,
00:38:26.000we're seeing oil drilling, all kind of stuff that, you know, we feel the Everglades should be represented and preserved in a better way.
00:38:37.000Do you think that that was one of the reasons why they wanted to get everybody out so they could extract the resources?
00:39:18.000Is dying because of their water quality issues.
00:39:22.000What is the source of the water quality issues?
00:39:26.000It's a very complicated issue and it's not one that I'm extremely I mean, I definitely know about it, but I don't want to say the wrong things.
00:39:42.000Overpopulation, too many people moving to Florida.
00:40:05.000And right now, we are not using it the way we should.
00:40:09.000There are steps being taken to send water south and to start to restore some of this natural flow.
00:40:17.000But the problem is, if we restored the natural flow to where it was...
00:40:23.000Palm Beach all the way down to Miami returns as a swampland.
00:40:27.000All of the sugar cane, which is huge money, at the south of Lake Okeechobee is swamp and is no longer being able to use for sugar cane.
00:40:40.000And we see a lot of that, you know, make the decisions in what happens with our Everglades and conservation is it's a lot of corruption, a lot of money driven rather than we need to set aside this piece of land,
00:41:00.000have it Gather water, treat water, send it south to be filtered through our Everglades and provide water to where it's dry, clean, healthy water, and then it can be filtered out through the Bay of Florida.
00:41:15.000We're seeing more where that land's being kept for agriculture or something else, or where a project gets started and then it's lobbied and nothing gets done.
00:41:53.000And that's really where we went wrong, is we should have learned to kind of work with the water flow more and not totally shut it off the way we have and totally made it man-made.
00:42:05.000Which, you know, like I said, they're trying to reverse some of that.
00:42:08.000They just built a new lock that's going to help send some of the water south.
00:42:14.000through Tamiami trail in 41 but it's just not enough.
00:42:18.000We need more water to be filtered and cleaned and less of it to be dumped out into the estuaries on the east and west coast.
00:42:26.000This water will remain stagnant And it'll build blue-green algae, which is actually a bacteria.
00:42:37.000I believe it sucks up all the oxygen in the water.
00:42:40.000And I don't know if you've seen these fish kills we've had on the East and West Coast.
00:42:45.000But that's exactly what it's from, is our water management.
00:42:48.000So it's not just the Everglades, but it's the East and West Coast.
00:42:52.000And that's because they're taking the water that needs to be sent south, cleaned and filtered, and they're sending it out into these estuaries where it kills everything.
00:43:04.000And it's, you know, they're protecting, which, you know, I'm not blaming U.S. Sugar by any means.
00:43:10.000U.S. Sugar does a lot to actually help Florida conservation.
00:43:14.000But it's just kind of a situation we've got ourselves in where there's not a great solution besides, you know, really taking away a lot of this money.
00:43:24.000And our estuaries are just suffering for it.
00:44:22.000The canal systems were able to redirect the water.
00:44:25.000And, you know, I'm sure they, which, you know, I don't know exactly how Miami was built, but I'm sure, yeah, they built up on the limestone on the swamp.
00:44:32.000It's essentially limestone bottom down there.
00:44:34.000And then they divert the water with these canal systems.
00:44:37.000And they're able to, you know, send it in areas that's not Miami or send it through the canals through Miami out into the intercoastal and things along those lines.
00:44:55.000But if the natural flow of water would happen, if they just removed all the levees and just let everything flow all the way down, it would flood Miami.
00:45:18.000It's kind of crazy when someone sets out to do something to make it habitable for people and doesn't take into consideration that this is just this immense ecosystem.
00:45:59.000There's so many instances in human history of people putting in a species to try to mitigate another species and having that species run amok.
00:46:09.000Like the Australia situation with the wild cats.
00:46:27.000We read the numbers out one day on the podcast about how many animals get killed every year just in the U.S. by feral cats, and it's in the billions.
00:47:28.000You know, we've seen not so much in these past Python challenges.
00:47:33.000These past Python challenges, the tournaments we have in Florida where the general public goes out there and competes for money catching pythons, they've been great.
00:47:44.000We're not seeing much bad come from them.
00:47:47.000But in maybe, you know, six or seven years ago, maybe six years ago I think it was, when they first came out with these competitions, and there wasn't any education behind it, it was a free-for-all.
00:48:01.000You had a bunch of rednecks riding around in trucks with shotguns and AR-15s, shooting every snake that moved, leaving trash out there, and it was just a terrible thing.
00:48:12.000Barely any pythons were caught or removed.
00:48:17.000Now, with all the education we've put out between the news, social media, TV shows, you know, the state programs, we see a different kind of snake hunter out there.
00:48:30.000We see people that are trying to help, trying to do things the right way.
00:48:36.000They don't want to leave behind trash.
00:48:39.000And, you know, that is very encouraging for me to say something more like, Yeah, let's have a public bounty system where the general public can get out there and do what they need to do.
00:48:52.000But in order for that to be successful, we do need more access.
00:48:57.000You know, if they want to protect the national park and all that, that's fine, okay?
00:49:03.000Let's still allow people to remove invasive species when they come across them, whether they're a state contractor or just some average joe.
00:49:12.000But we will have penalties in place for anybody harming a native snake in the National Park, where then people will be careful not to get in trouble and do something illegal.
00:49:23.000Outside the National Park, which, you know, we have all kind of Francis S. Taylor, Rocky Glades, Frog Pond, all these different areas, Area 3, 2, 1, that have pythons in them, and that we should allow more access,
00:49:39.000more airboat access, more buggy access year-round, and show people...
00:50:05.000I was one of the first state python hunter.
00:50:09.000I hunted for them for maybe about five years.
00:50:12.000This past two years, I decided to resign from the state because I'm not allowed to use a dog if I'm hunting for the state, which is, you know, a little funny.
00:50:35.000Possibly make a living off these snakeskins, definitely make some side money, and you're gonna begin out there helping the Everglades.
00:50:41.000If they were to add a bounty on top of that, I think in the very beginning you might see a little bit of what we used to see, where you just have people out there for the wrong reasons, you know, trying to just get a picture with a snake or whatever.
00:50:55.000But I think they're going to quickly see how hard it is.
00:50:59.000They're not just catching snakes like they thought they were.
00:51:02.000And all those weekend warriors, all those people, they're going to die off.
00:51:05.000And you're going to be left with the general public that really does want to help.
00:51:10.000And that's the only way we're going to get that under control.
00:51:15.000You know, it's going to have to be a delicate process to get there, I feel like.
00:51:20.000You know, maybe everyone has to sign up for a license and then for that license they go through some kind of training course like we do already for the Python challenges.
00:51:54.000to get where they're nesting where they're breeding and where they're eating our native wildlife and we're just not doing that like we should be and that's why i've been putting so much into this python team i've been putting together specifically to use dogs to help us find these snakes and just this nesting season alone i've completely proven that that that's the only only way to do it yeah yep this this season alone i found Maybe...
00:55:42.000And how many eggs will a female python produce normally?
00:55:45.000So, on average, what I've been finding this last season, which has really kind of given us a lot more data, your average size snake is going to lay 20 to about 60 eggs.
00:56:02.000And what is their primary food source out there now that they've kind of decimated most of the wildlife?
00:56:07.000But I would like to add that they're capable of 100 eggs or more.
00:56:25.000um we just found a nest this season uh underground as well it was an underground 16 footer and she was on a nest of 70 active eggs and especially on them yeah it's it's great well it shows what we're up against too you know it's um it can get discouraging it can be snake gives birth to 70 snakes yeah but there is a light at the end of the tunnel and i'll i'll kind of get to that um So,
00:56:51.000you know, especially an underground nest like that, almost all of those are going to survive.
00:56:58.000When they're hatched, they're already two foot long, which is about the size of most of our adult native snakes.
00:57:07.000So they're getting preyed on maybe for that first month, and then after that, not much is messing with them.
01:02:14.000I don't want to make it seem like the iguana thing is just a free-for-all in Florida.
01:02:18.000The iguanas, they're in these real residential areas, urban settings where you just can't really walk around and shoot stuff in people's backyards.
01:06:00.000I got eight shots and I keep spare magazines on me and swap them out real quick.
01:06:06.000And a lot of times, too, when I get into a place where I know it's covered with them, and a lot of times they'll close down the area for the day for me, I'll bring in my guys and we're all, you know, geared up.
01:06:18.000We all got guns, we got a couple dogs, and we're just annihilating them.
01:06:23.000You know, all day we'll just come in and wipe them out.
01:06:25.000What's the most you've ever shot a day?
01:06:29.000Close to 200. Close to 200. Yeah, just iguanas.
01:06:34.000And then on top of that, you know, we'll have different invasives.
01:06:36.000We'll get cane toads while we're there, Muscovy dogs, Egyptian geese.
01:06:41.000Sometimes pigeons will become a big problem.
01:07:36.000Because of where iguanas are and how many iguanas people would be getting, the budget would have to be huge, and you would have a bunch of people just running around the city shooting stuff.
01:07:53.000Yeah, you really do for iguanas more than anything.
01:07:56.000Pythons, they're out in the middle of the Everglades, away from people, and you're generally going to be grabbing them or just shooting them point blank.
01:08:03.000So it's kind of a little bit different.
01:08:06.000But it all depends on how I work the job.
01:08:09.000Most jobs, I'll set it up to where it's per iguana.
01:08:13.000That way they kind of know what they're getting into, and I like to kind of stay motivated in each one.
01:10:00.000And it's kind of cool to see, not necessarily cool, but interesting to see the differences in impacts.
01:10:09.000The pythons are wiping out our native wildlife.
01:10:12.000And the iguanas, while they do have impacts on our native wildlife, specifically our burrowing animals like our gopher tortoise, our burrowing owls, and they're both protected and threatened species already.
01:10:25.000They more so have an impact on our infrastructure.
01:10:28.000They cost our state millions and millions of dollars every single year with the burrows they dig, the vegetation they eat.
01:10:39.000So they'll dig these burrows to lay nests and they'll undermine housing foundations, sidewalks, seawalls.
01:10:46.000And the main concern has been roadways and our levee embankments.
01:10:50.000As I was explaining earlier, those levee systems manage our water, which is absolutely crucial for the state of Florida.
01:10:57.000And the iguanas will degrade the embankments so much where they have to come in and totally rebuild them back up.
01:11:05.000To give you an idea, the town of Davie, which is just a small town here in South Florida, last year or the year before, they spent $1.7 million repairing iguana burrows along their levee embankments.
01:11:19.000That's not roadways, that's not houses, that's not sidewalks, seawalls, just the levee embankments.
01:11:25.000And you spread that across the whole state, I mean, you could be talking $50 million, maybe more.
01:11:32.000Dade County, Miami-Dade, has been talking about upping their budget for iguana removal, which I'm planning on putting a bid in for it.
01:11:42.000Their budget before was just not adequate for what needs to be done.
01:11:47.000They're now comparing it to the mosquito problem.
01:11:52.000And the mosquito problem, I believe they spend like $40 million a year on.
01:11:57.000So I think their budget in the prior years was like $250,000 for iguanas.
01:12:04.000And they're quickly seeing that we need to spend millions on these reptiles to get them out.
01:12:10.000Have you seen this insane research they're doing about injecting mosquitoes with vaccines?
01:13:33.000I'm not saying that's why, but I am saying that I am very concerned when human beings are making a decision that can affect the entire population that lives down there, or in the entire country, or anywhere where there's mosquitoes.
01:13:48.000How can you not say that these things are going to go everywhere?
01:13:50.000Yeah, well, you know, like you said, what if it goes bad?
01:16:59.000I've been going in the Everglades for a while, you know, growing up as a Florida boy, we're all kind of, you know, out there running around catching snakes.
01:17:06.000How many people go missing out there every year?
01:18:35.000So I was, which I found, I found different stuff before, you know, I'll find maybe so where someone was doing some voodoo, some Xanaria, sacrificed a chicken, whatever.
01:18:46.000All that's like kind of normal out there.
01:19:14.000I was out there, you know, hunting these snakes, and this facility is, you need special access.
01:19:21.000I was given special access by the state of Florida to remove pythons from out there.
01:19:26.000And nobody can just go back out there.
01:19:28.000But people do go out there, as you can see from the graffiti and different stuff like that, usually to do stuff that they're not supposed to do.
01:19:36.000There's a lot of crimes committed out there.
01:19:38.000There have been murders out there, gang initiations, all kind of stuff.
01:19:48.000So, when you go out there, the first thing I came across was a big rock pile with an upside-down wooden cross on top and a bunch of red spray-painted upside-down crosses all over.
01:19:58.000And you could tell the cross, I think, was burnt a little bit.
01:20:02.000And it wasn't, you know, crazy, super crazy.
01:21:25.000Your average kid just messing around don't know Latin sayings like that.
01:21:29.000And then I come to this big room where there's the big pentagram.
01:21:34.000In the middle of the pentagram, there is a three-legged plastic chair with a bloodstain in the bottom of it where you could tell something was killed, sacrificed, whatever.
01:21:48.000On each wall, there's upside down crosses, Latin sayings, and all kinds of stuff.
01:21:54.000As I'm kind of walking into the room, which, you know, I don't want to sound like a psycho or anything, but that doll from earlier grabbed my leg.
01:22:08.000I don't know if I kicked it, I didn't see it, or what.
01:22:12.000But that doll from the rock pile somewhere else, I don't know if it was another doll or what, I never seen that other doll.
01:22:19.000I kick it, it seemed like it grabbed me, it's that same doll from earlier.
01:22:22.000Same thing with the cross on its forehead, the one eye cocked over, the other eye messed up.
01:22:28.000And so, you know, it's very, very weird to me.
01:23:38.000As we go through, there's all kind of different stuff.
01:23:42.000In one of the rooms, there's a sleeping bag with something inside of it.
01:23:47.000I don't think it was a body, anything like that.
01:23:50.000Police went out there and investigated it.
01:23:52.000I didn't investigate further past that.
01:23:54.000Something was inside the sleeping bag.
01:23:57.000And on the walls, there was, looked like red spray paint, and it said, she was only nine, we gave her to the devil, like, basically talking about sacrificing a child.
01:24:10.000And then you have this little girl's gown that's nailed to the wall with, like, a dark red stain on it.
01:27:51.000what year was this um 60s 70s cold water and then aerojet's still a still a thing too you know it's i think it's out in texas or i don't know what but bro this is a flat-out horror movie yeah yeah and there dude that rabbit hole goes way deeper way deeper the occult history behind nasa's jet propulsion laboratory So,
01:28:22.000Significant for satanic rituals, and that happened during the Easter moon, which is also, I found out, I didn't know this before, high activity for satanic rituals for whatever reason.
01:28:33.000They think that it's a better time to link, or I don't know what.
01:31:19.000Yeah, that's some terrifying shit, man.
01:31:21.000I had Paul Rosely on the podcast who spends a lot of time in the Amazon protecting the natural ecosystem.
01:31:30.000And he said he had encountered some natives at one point in time and he looked around a tree and he saw a guy with a bow with face paint on.
01:34:09.000But it also delves into the culture of the people that live there, and you go to see where they live and their homes, and it's like, wow, this is a completely different world.
01:35:59.000And really kind of trying to convey that message that we need those eyes and the ears out there to keep protecting and preserve that culture.
01:36:09.000Is there a good documentary on that culture?
01:36:55.000Have you ever got out on one of those real isolated roads where there's nothing but you and the two green lines on either side of the road?
01:39:22.000And have they had debates on this or any sort of a conversation where it can be explained to them the benefit of allowing people to continue to do that?
01:39:31.000Yeah, you know, I know there has been, but...
01:39:37.000You have this such outcry from, you know, the Gladesman, the average Gladesman is a blue-collar guy.
01:39:46.000They're the kind of guys that don't go to a lot of these meetings, and it's unfortunate, and that's a problem with us, you know what I mean?
01:39:56.000They don't show up to these meetings like the, forgive my language, tree huggers do for the people that are against it.
01:40:07.000You get all these Karens in there that don't know a thing.
01:40:10.000I've been to the meetings myself and we had one lady get up on there and her argument against allowing access was, what are the caterpillars going to do?
01:40:22.000And, like, I thought she's joking, but she's dead serious.
01:40:26.000She was worried that the caterpillars were going to suffer and the butterflies would suffer.
01:40:50.000You get this one side of the room that's against it because they don't really know why.
01:40:55.000And then you get us on the other side of the room where it's a few guys that know what we're talking about, but we're just the minority in a lot of these situations.
01:41:21.000That's why we do our best to work with the state.
01:41:25.000We work with FWC where we have these youth hunts where we can take youth hunters out, show them how to hunt alligators, show them how to harvest, make use of the alligators.
01:43:05.000When did the big change, when did it start to happen?
01:43:08.000I think we've really started to notice it this past 10 to 20 years, maybe.
01:43:14.000And you think that's just when all these populations that they dumped in there or however I think it's it's happened under our nose I think it's happened under our nose where the population is just so out of control now where we're seeing all the roadkill we're seeing all the wildlife has been decimated and and that takes a while to notice it's not like we're out there There's any really good way to count these animals.
01:43:39.000This is based solely off of sightings.
01:43:42.000So it's like, you know, after a couple years, or a year or two, people are starting to realize, I haven't seen a raccoon in months.
01:43:51.000Or, I haven't seen a raccoon in a year.
01:45:03.000Those islands are all limestone rocks stacked on each other so they'll row away little caverns and holes and then they'll get into them and use them.
01:45:23.000I've seen 16-footers hiding 8 inches of grass right in front of me where if I didn't step on it or know it was there, I would have never seen it.
01:45:32.000When the Conservancy of Southwest Florida GPS radio tags these pythons with a tracker, I'm sure you've seen it, and they release them back into the wild to gain data and to go during breeding season and hope to find breeding balls...
01:45:51.000Even though they're tracking this snake and know exactly where it is, a lot of times they don't find it until they step on it because it's just so hidden.
01:46:00.000Between their camouflage and just their shape of their body and where they are, they're very good.
01:46:17.000And we need to use new and old technologies to do that.
01:46:21.000And what I mean by that is I've been a part of taking out researchers and developing new types of cameras.
01:46:29.000that can actually spot pythons and how they do that is not with thermal because pythons are cold blood they do that with and forgive me some dude from the swamp I think they they read reflective properties off of snakes or the way light reflects off of different things a python and its skin is basically the most reflective and shiny thing out there besides water so if we use that camera With
01:47:00.000a drone and with software that we're already using in Africa to combat poaching and different things like that, we could fly that drone up at the start of a levee or out in the Everglades, fly it out, fly it around, and it would be able to show where it sees a piece of a python,
01:47:19.000mark it, and tell me, the hunter, where there's snakes and if this area is worth me spending time here tonight.
01:47:26.000Because, you know, there's pythons all over the Everglades, but essentially, Especially without a dog, you're looking for...
01:48:46.000They're scared about animal rights people.
01:48:48.000Also, too, every single state contractor they have hired now, nobody has hunting dogs or I don't think would know what to do with a python dog.
01:49:01.000Fund a dog detection team itself, aside from the python programs, where they have a team of trained dog handlers, trained dogs, and they go out into the Everglades, state-funded, and they find these pythons full-time.
01:52:05.000We are specifically trying to get some of that funding back into...
01:52:13.000Expanding my dog team, expanding more handlers, iguana removers, and everything like that, which again, I've already been self-funding and doing myself.
01:52:22.000And then in the process of that, we want to take veterans out, specifically combat vets, take them out and get them involved, give them a new purpose, and get them in on the battle.
01:52:35.000And we've just seen it with working with the different military charity groups we've worked with.
01:52:42.000Wishes for Warriors is the one we really like to work with a lot.
01:52:46.000And we just see how beneficial it is getting them out there.
01:52:49.000And I think if we tie those two together, we can help save our state and help save some veterans.
01:53:13.000That's where I book all my guided hunts and sell a lot of my leather products through there.
01:53:20.000I also have my website that I sell my leather products on, pythoncowboy.com.
01:53:25.000And all of that, every dollar we make from leather products, from my merchandise, all of that goes right back into trying to get out there Remove more pythons.