CAPE CORAL, Fla. — A woman in Cape Coral said her dog came face to face with a massive python in her backyard less than a week after another Cape resident spotted a 9-foot python coiled up outside his garage.
Pythons have been slowly creeping farther north from the Everglades since establishing a breeding population in the 90s. Within the past couple of years, they have reached the City of Cape Coral.
Lexi Pantelup said she could not even see the end of this snake; it was so long. She saw it face-to-face with her dog Tuesday afternoon.
She heard her dog Cane barking outside, which is normal. But then she heard him yelp. She immediately went to her backyard, where she saw her dog and a massive snake about to go head-to-head.
“He was face to face like this through the fence,” she said.
Who knows what would have happened if she got there a few minutes later, this snake was not like anything she had seen before.
“I’ve seen a little water moccasin,” she said. “I’ve had enough that are snakes like we’ve had some curled up in our lanai, you know, never anything that big. He was standing right there, and the end of his body was still in the grasses; you couldn’t see where he ended.”
Wildlife experts tell her this snake was an invasive Burmese python.
“It’s really scary, honestly, I’m about to put my house up for sale and go,” she said.
And it’s not the first one spotted in Cape Coral.
“It’s becoming more prominent, so it’s nerve-racking,” she said.
Just last week, a nine-foot-long python was caught curled up next to a northwest Cape Coral home.
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“If it’s a female, did it lay eggs? Am I going to see more,” she said.
Experts said it is hard to tell, but female pythons are typically larger.
Lexi called the FWC right away. But since she didn’t have picture proof. So, they told her they couldn’t help.
“You know that they’re starting to migrate up here, maybe start moving some resources up here, so you have called because, I mean, if something happened,” Pantelup said. “I don’t know what we would’ve done. We don’t know how to handle the situation.”
The FWC said their officers will only get dispatched if there is a threat to safety.
But they encourage the public to help out if they spot one of these Florida trespassers slithering in their yards.
“Maybe my property and a few other ones, you know we have that marsh grass on the bottom going into it, but I don’t know where this thing would’ve come from,” she said.
One thing is for sure, Lexi and her neighbors will be keeping their eyes open for this snake’s return.
“Take your fist, that was pretty much, but a little bit smaller than my dog’s head,” she said.
Lexi said she and her neighbors are searching for this python through the marsh But wants this sighting to serve as a warning: be aware of what could be lurking in your backyard.