-Never would have thought, in a million years,
that I'd be traveling down a canal...
Stop the boat.
...shooting iguanas...
That one's fuckin' dead.
...and somebody wants to stop and take a picture with me.
-He's fast becoming a legend, man.
And he's definitely a legend around pythons.
-You got to be, like, crazy to do what he does.
-A lot of people around here just know who he is.
The python video where he took a chunk out of him...
-I think she got an artery.
...that was gnarly.
I get bit a lot.
Just kind of another day on the job.
There's other python hunters,
but there's no one hunting these islands.
Land of Dragons.
I like to get my dog, get out here on a boat,
and go where no one's really going.
We'll get off on these islands for a nighttime python hunt
in the middle of the Everglades.
I'm looking for that 20-footer
that is going to get me that world record.
And they can just disappear into the Everglades
and eat all of our native wildlife.
Hunting can be very good for the ecosystem.
Vegans, tree-huggers, people see what I'm doing
and they can get behind it.
Got you, son!
I'll make some beautiful products.
Most of your hunters, they love animals.
Got him.
It's really why they do it.
If I can make a new hunter, I'm all about it.
♪♪
My name's "Trapper Mike" Kimmel, better known as "Python Cowboy."
I'm a hunter and a conservationist
here in South Florida.
I own and operate Martin County Trapping & Wildlife Rescue.
I work for the state and different entities,
removing invasive species.
I've been born and raised here in Martin County for 33 years.
Definitely been making a little bit of a name
for myself here recently.
I would say what's gotten me the most notoriety
is probably me winning the Python Bowl last year
for most pythons captured.
I won this four-wheeler I'm on here.
I made the news for rescuing an alligator from a python.
It was actually the third time I'd done it,
but it was the first time I got it on video.
And probably even more than that is my viral video of me
capturing the almost-18-foot python by myself,
out in the middle of the Everglades,
on an island -- 135-pound snake.
I weigh 135 pounds, to give you an idea.
The snake is solid muscle. I sure as hell ain't.
I was dodging her strikes, no problem.
Usually, a snake that size
is going to be on the slower side for me.
Maybe her four strikes she struck, I dodged it.
And then she recoiled
about a quarter of a way, half a way back.
Aw, goddamn! Ugh.
The snake got me really good on my arm.
I think she got an artery.
Got me right where these veins all meet and right up here,
where another artery crosses over.
And I was quite literally spraying blood
all over the sawgrass.
This ain't good. My main thing was
just try not to black out from the blood loss.
It's 100 degrees. I'm exerting all my energy.
Thankfully, she let go.
She didn't try to wrap me up as she did.
It could have been bad. I was able to contain her.
I used the snake bag to tourniquet my arm,
and I was able to successfully drag her
all the way back to my boat alive.
Back at the boat, I euthanized her.
It was a battle, that's for sure.
The pythons have actually decimated
90% to 99% of our fur-bearing small mammals in the Everglades.
That's a huge deal.
This is Otto here. He's our iguana dog.
He loves his job, that's for sure.
Alright, we'll back her down. We're about to hit this lake.
We've been getting a lot of complaints and reports.
The iguanas are just running rampant.
We're trying to remove the big breeders,
remove the big rapid females, get them out the ecosystem.
We got Kat and Lance, and we got Allie over here
helping us out.
This area here, we've hit them real hard.
We've probably wiped most of them out through here.
But further down, we're just starting to hit that area.
The iguanas disrupt our native species.
They actually will take over
and destroy native burrows and nests.
Aside from that, millions and millions of dollars
in infrastructure damage.
They undermine sidewalks, seawalls, housing foundations.
And all the iguanas, they're in city limits.
We use air rifles out here.
That way, it's legal wherever we are.
Get to him, Ott.
Fetch him up.
Good boy!
Give him a thrashing.
♪♪
-[ Chuckles ]
-And that's that.
They usually like going up high in these trees,
and they can be pretty tricky to see.
30 caliber may sound like overkill for these lizards,
but these iguanas are so tough.
Body shots do nothing to them. You can shoot them
10 times in the body, and they're still going.
They are an invasive species, but at the end of the day,
it's not their fault they're out here,
and we need to respect them.
So headshots are crucial.
You got to hit them right in the brain.
And I'll tell you what -- their brain is not that big.
It's about the size of a pea.
With the boat moving in the water,
the iguanas moving, it makes it challenging.
[ Gunshot ] Get him, Ott!
Florida's really the invasive species capital of the world.
We got it all, and that's for a reason.
It's really the perfect habitat. We have the Port of Miami
where all these shipping containers
from all around the world come in,
where these different reptiles and animals
can sneak their way in.
And not only that, but the exotic reptile and animal trade
is huge down in Miami and South Florida.
Oftentimes, they were taking care of these animals
for the wrong reasons and irresponsible.
They'd escape, or they'd get too big
and they'd release them, where they can just disappear
into the Everglades and eat all of our native wildlife.
The state is just dumping money in repairing their burrows.
We have the rights, we're contracted to be out here,
but they don't pay me for any of the iguanas out here.
Got your, son. Here's a good one.
That's why, this area,
I normally bring out clients for guided hunts,
and I try to get my funding that way.
We'll take clients in there for maybe a week straight,
get anywhere from 20 to over 40 in a day,
and we definitely see a difference quick.
13 -- ugh -- 14.
Big old stud. Not bad for an hour's work.
Quickly get these back to the ranch,
get them skinned up,
let the hogs get some dinner from them.
-Ready? 1...
-I've really just started using social media
this past three years or so,
and it's definitely been an absolute game-changer for me.
Not only has it really helped my business,
I want to spread awareness,
I want to show people what we're doing.
I do all this 'cause I really love wildlife.
I enjoy it.
This is called Snake Road Ranch.
We got five acres out here
we've dedicated to rescuing different wildlife.
Think, right now, we probably got 20 separate rescues.
I got 18 dogs.
They're a pain in my ass, but I love them, you know?
-Mike and I, we've been together for about six years.
I've watched him take this little thought of, you know,
of owning our own business and make it a reality.
Everybody here around town just absolutely loves him.
They probably all think he's nuts.
-I'd say I get recognized probably every single day.
I mean, it's always a shocker for me.
I'll go in Publix, and be like, "Oh, you're that snake guy."
You can actually see one of his two penises hanging out.
A lot of people don't know they got two.
That actually is a part of how successful they are as breeders.
Females lay anywhere from 20 to 60 eggs in a clutch.
Usually, a male will have a harem of three to five females.
That's going to be pretty. With these skins,
I'll have anything from wallets, bracelets, purses.
You come up with it,
I'll damn sure try to make and sell it to you.
Man, people love iguanas. When I would post,
you know, me trying to sell this iguana meat,
I would get death threats.
I would get all kind of nasty messages.
I would get people sharing my posts,
call me a sicko, calling me a murderer.
So, even with all the education we've done
and all the awareness we spread, we still get people
here and there that just don't understand --
usually out-of-towners, people from New York,
New Jersey.
[ Dogs barking ] Hey!
I'll take y'all out for a nighttime python hunt
in the middle of the Everglades. We'll just kind of cruise along,
use some spotlights to hunt the banks of these islands,
and then we'll get up and off on these islands.
The reason we're hunting them at night is,
this time of year, it's just way too hot during the day.
They're tucked away, they're in the water,
they're not exposing themselves.
That's why I like to get my dog, get out here on a boat,
and go where no one's really going.
Let's check out this island here.
There could be a gator anywhere around here.
It's always a big concern for the dog's safety.
They're so much more than pets, so much more than even family.
I make my living with these dogs.
And you know, we don't got to worry
about just Moose running into a gator.
We got to worry about us running into a gator, as well.
And things can go south if you're not careful.
We just hit our first island.
It was a little bit thicker than I would have liked,
but we checked it out a little bit,
let Moose sniff around. Didn't seem real excited.
And we kept him moving from there.
The state pays a bounty for the pythons.
They pay state contractors $50 for the first 4 feet;
and $25, each additional foot after that.
For me, the bounty really isn't even compared
to what the skin is worth to me now.
♪♪
You can already see where something's tunneled out
a little bit in there.
♪♪
We got a snake.
Yeah, yeah, it's a python.
Take Moose. Take Moose, Allie.
It looks like he's in shed. I'm gonna get ahold of him
and try to bring him out in the open.
Because the skin over its eyes is shedding,
it can't see nothing, which can sometimes help,
but sometimes makes a snake a little more dangerous
'cause it just starts striking at everything.
Check that.
♪♪
What we're talking about. -[ Chuckles ]
-It's what we came for.
He's like, "Fuck that thing."
This right here is what it's all about.
There's no better feeling.
Not every night we come out here, we get paid.
So finding this snake is a paycheck for us,
and it also means that we're saving a lot of native wildlife.
We're gonna carry him out to the boat,
and we'll euthanize him and put a .22 to his head.
♪♪
Whoo-hoo.
Yeah, I got you, son. [ Chuckles ]
It takes a certain type of person
to come out here and do this.
Some call us dumb, crazy, whatever,
but you got to have a passion for it.
You got to love it.
I forgot my .22 back at the truck.
I don't think we're ever gonna get rid of these pythons.
They've made their home. They have 1.5 million acres
of impenetrable swamp of the Everglades.
We're never gonna get every single last one.
Now that we've been really hitting it hard
this past four or five years,
we're starting to see those populations come back.
Nothing like it should be,
but it is a light at the end of the tunnel.
♪♪