Have you heard the one about the 19-foot Burmese python? It’s a story of man vs. wild making headlines across the nation. News 5 found out one of the famed snake wranglers who just broke a record in Florida is from Northeast Ohio.
Joe Sewell, a Medina native and Ohio State student, is set to start medical school in two weeks. With summer winding down, he got an enticing offer from his friend Jake Waleri.
Watch more video and an extended interview with Sewell:
“One last little vacation,” he said. You see, Waleri’s been acting as a bit of an amateur python hunter down in Florida for a couple of years now. He invited some of his friends from Ohio State to join him for a hunting trip. During his stay, Sewell and the team caught one 8-foot snake and one 4-footer. It was the night before Joe’s 6 a.m. flight home when they decided to go out one last time.
They hit the road around 8 p.m., “just as the sun was setting,” said Sewell. Hunts typically can last until 4 a.m. You might be picturing a bunch of 20-somethings clad in camo and rubber boots stalking through the swamps. It turns out python-hunting is mostly done by slowly driving around with lights pointed outward, hoping to spot something slithering on the side of the road. And that night, they did.
“Out of nowhere I see this like, head popping out onto the road,” Sewell said. Waleri wasted no time, jumping into action and telling Sewell to grab the net. For a while, the two of them wrangled the snake, Sewell holding onto the tail end while Waleri tried to safely grab the head.
“It looked like a WWE match,” said Sewell. As the snake was slithering back into the wild, a professional contractor approached, and the team knew they had to act fast, especially Waleri.
“His mind went, if I don’t grab this thing right now, that contractor is going to take it, and it’s going to be their catch,” Sewell explained. So Waleri lunged, grabbing the snake right behind its enormous jaw as it hissed and snapped at him. Sewell dutifully managed the back end to stop the snake coiling around his friend. The professional contractor stepped in to lend a hand, too, wrapping the snake’s mouth with tape while Waleri held it down. As the group posed for a picture with their prize, Sewell learned another fun fact about Burmese pythons. One of their defense mechanisms is defecating and urinating on attackers.
“I was holding the back end of the snake, so my entire back was just… yeah.”
Sewell said the snake’s neck was broken as he tried to keep it on the road. It was, he said, a quick and humane death for the invasive animal. And despite the mess on his back, “it was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he said.
Sewell was already back home in Ohio when Waleri called to let him know the snake was measured at 19 feet, setting a record by three inches. The massive python weighed 125 pounds.
“We brought the snake to the Conservancy to be officially measured and documented. We wanted to donate this find to science," Waleri said in a press release.
The Burmese python has become an invasive species in the Florida Everglades region. Florida wildlife officials say they have few predators in the wild and can prey upon native species.
It is why wildlife officials have been trying to limit the population of Burmese pythons in Florida.
Turning in the Burmese python is one way of helping the Florida ecosystem.
"It’s awesome to be able to make an impact on South Florida’s environment. We love this ecosystem and try to preserve it as much as possible," Waleri said.
Sewell definitely didn’t get any sleep before that 6 a.m. flight, but now has a memory that will last long past his 15 minutes of fame.
“This is a memory that I’m going to have for the rest of my life.”
