Florida Scientists Use Female Pythons as ‘Live Lures’ — and a Naples Team Just Broke a Removal Record

NAPLES, Fla. — It sounds like something out of a spy thriller: capture an invasive predator, implant it with a tracking device, release it back into the wild, and let it unknowingly lead researchers straight to its own kind. But that’s exactly the strategy Florida scientists are using against the Everglades’ most notorious invader — the Burmese python — and this year it produced the biggest single-season haul on record.

The technique relies on basic python biology. During the winter breeding season, female Burmese pythons release sex pheromones that male pythons can track from surprising distances. Researchers with the University of Florida’s Croc Docs program, working with the U.S. Geological Survey, the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, have leveraged that instinct by surgically implanting radio transmitters in previously captured pythons — including reproductively active females — and releasing them back into the Everglades. As the tagged females’ pheromones draw in wild males, the snakes gather into what biologists call “mating aggregations,” clusters of multiple male suitors circling a single female. Researchers follow the radio signal, locate the group, and remove the snakes before they can breed or lay eggs.

“Our study links python ecology with removal efforts,” said Melissa Miller, the UF/IFAS research scientist leading the program, when it launched. The approach cuts both ways: tagged females lure in wild males, while tagged males — nicknamed “scout snakes” — follow the scent trails of untagged females deep into terrain researchers could never search on foot. It’s worth noting the method only works with free-ranging, radio-tracked snakes. A 2026 U.S. Geological Survey study found that caged, captive female pythons used as stationary bait in fixed traps did not meaningfully improve detection rates — the pheromone trick appears to depend on the lure snake actually moving through the landscape like a wild python would.

Nowhere has that approach paid off more than in Collier County, where the Conservancy of Southwest Florida runs the longest-standing python tracking program in the state. The Naples-based nonprofit announced this month that its scientists and volunteers had just closed out the most productive season in the program’s history, removing 177 invasive pythons weighing a combined 8,080 pounds — four tons of snake — from a 200-square-mile stretch of habitat between November 2025 and April 2026.

“This was our first four-ton removal season,” said Ian Bartoszek, the Conservancy wildlife biologist who pioneered the program in 2013. “Our tagged scout snakes helped us locate large breeding snakes deep in the landscape before they had a chance to lay eggs. These science-based management efforts are suppressing local python reproduction. With continued pressure, we hope to see these removal numbers decline over time.”

The season’s numbers illustrate both the scale of the invasion and the toll it takes on native wildlife. The removed females averaged 95 pounds, with the largest — a 17-foot python tracked down through scout snake #93, nicknamed “Fenrir” — weighing 153 pounds. Females captured this season carried an average of 70 eggs apiece, and roughly a quarter of them had the remains of white-tailed deer in their stomachs, a stark reminder of pythons’ impact on the Everglades food web. In all, the team pulled an additional 4,100 python eggs out of the ecosystem before they could hatch.

The Conservancy currently tracks 40 tagged scout snakes — each with its own name, from “Vladi” and “Stuart” to “Snaquan” and “Lincoln” — as living GPS beacons pointing toward the invasive species’ most productive breeders. Since the program began in 2013, it has removed 1,750 pythons weighing more than 53,000 pounds from Southwest Florida and contributed to 25 peer-reviewed scientific publications on python biology and behavior, in partnership with Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, USGS, the University of Florida and the South Florida Water Management District.

“Without the Conservancy’s continued removal efforts, these invasive predators would still be out there decimating native wildlife and reproducing across the landscape,” said Rob Moher, the Conservancy’s president and CEO. “Every python removed reduces pressure on the ecosystem. No organization has done this much heavy lifting and boots-on-the-ground research and removal to address the threat of Burmese pythons in Southwest Florida.”

Wildlife officials say the public still plays a critical role in the fight. Anyone who spots a Burmese python in Collier County is asked to call 1-888-Ive-Got-1 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., or 911 after hours, and to keep an eye on the snake’s location — without approaching it — until a responder arrives. With breeding season now behind them, the Conservancy’s scout snakes are already back out in the sawgrass, quietly gathering intelligence for next winter’s hunt.

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