EVERGLADES

Jury deliberations have gotten underway in the South Florida double murder trial of rapper YNW Melly.

A week after 26-year-old Derek Diaz was shot and killed by an Orlando police officer the department has released body camera video of the shooting.

The longest documented Burmese python in Florida was captured in Big Cypress National Reserve on Monday.

Registration is now open for the 2023 Florida Python Challenge, giving participants a chance to win a share of more than $30,000 in prizes while removing invasive Burmese pythons from the wild.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced future plans for improving and restoring Florida’s waterways, including the Everglades.

In the darkness and despair wrought by Hurricane Ian, there were flickers of light and hope.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced registration had begun for the upcoming 2022 Florida Python Challenge.

Gov. Ron DeSantis touted more than $1 billion earmarked for Everglades and water resource investments in the upcoming state budget at a news conference in Fort Myers Beach Wednesday morning.

Bye, bye record warmth, for now. Behind a cold front Saturday morning, high temperatures will cool back to the upper 60s and lower 70s Saturday.

A large dog fatally mauled a longtime volunteer at a Florida animal shelter who was trying to help it acclimate to humans after it was found in the Everglades.

Do you ever stop what you’re doing and think to yourself, “We live in SUCH a cool state”? Florida is massive -- and packs an incredible amount of natural beauty.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, alongside other local and state leaders, discussed the recent progress Florida has made in its Everglades restoration projects at a news conference in Palm Beach County Monday afternoon.

Two hundred and twenty-three Burmese pythons were removed from the Everglades during a contest in July, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Governor Ron DeSantis kicks off the 2021 Python Challenge in the Everglades.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is making a ‘major’ environmental announcement Thursday morning, according to the governor’s office.

Drew Curtis Sikes, 37, faces attempted murder and firearms charges after authorities say he opened fire on park rangers Sunday inside Everglades National Park. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – A Florida man who opened fire with an AK-47 rifle on officers inside Everglades National Park is facing federal charges, prosecutors announced Tuesday. The FBI affidavit says the wife had visible marks and scrapes on her face. The FBI affidavit also says Sikes was charged earlier this month with a domestic violence charge of aggravated assault with a firearm involving his wife. The FBI affidavit says Sikes' wife told rangers he had held her in captivity for days and that he was going to kill her.

Ron DeSantis was in South Florida Tuesday to provide an update on the years-long efforts to restore the Everglades and clean up the state’s dirty waterways. DeSantis, along with other environmental state leaders, spoke about Florida’s water quality projects near the Miccosukee Indian Village in Miami-Dade County. Crews were working to remove roadbed from the old Tamiami Trail to help improve water flow. The governor said Florida’s leadership and coordinated efforts made it easier to ask the federal agencies for assistance to see projects through. As DeSantis touted Florida’s success under Frazier, he announced Florida’s top environmental scientist had accepted a role as dean of the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida.

But one South Florida python hunter has been experimenting with what some have dubbed “chicken of the Glades” — making meals, snacks and even sweets that could give the holidays that distinctive South Florida flavor. Siewe, a self-described herper — reptile and amphibian enthusiasts — moved from Indiana to South Florida to become a python hunter last year. The giant snakes are everywhere in South Florida, devouring mammals in the Everglades and disrupting the natural balance of predator and prey. In addition to the District’s paid python hunters, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also runs a python elimination program by employing contractors. Allowing the consumption of python meat might encourage more people to get involved in catching them, Kalil said.

But her favorite way to eat python is to pressure cook it for 10 or 15 minutes, sauté it with onions and garlic, and add it to pasta and sauce. Some of the Everglades pythons registered more than 100 times that. It always does this time of year, they stop moving around as much because of the cold.”Among those nine pythons Kalil says she’ll make jerky out of five or six. Even today she won’t eat pythons more than 7.5 feet long because she thinks there’s a bigger mercury danger in snakes that size. To make jerky, Kalil marinates the python meat in mojo sauce overnight and then puts in the dehydrator for 12 to 15 hours.

Less than a year after two state agencies decided to combine forces and remove invasive snakes from the Everglades, contractors caught a record number of Burmese pythons. The News-Press reported that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Southwest Florida Water Management District removed nearly 2,000 invasive pythons in the first eight months of 2020, surpassing 2019 totals. As of mid-October, the teams removed nearly 4,000 snakes bringing the total snakes removed since the program’s inception in 2017 to 6,278. Invasive Burmese pythons pose a great risk for small mammal populations in the Everglades. Female Burmese pythons can carry between 50-100 eggs.

OKEECHOBEE, Fla. – A Florida school named after Everglades State Park experienced a small portion of what the wetlands has to offer when a small alligator appeared on the school’s playground. The Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office said its deputies found the alligator Wednesday at Everglades Elementary School, according to a department Facebook post. A couple more pics of “Everglades” the alligator on the playground… Pictured are SRO D/S Tim “HiggyDunDee” Higgins, D/S Greis and D/S Chavez. Posted by Okeechobee County Sheriff's Office on Thursday, November 5, 2020The school’s mascot is an alligator clad in orange, which is a bit different then the 4-foot-6-inch alligator the deputies captured. Click here to subscribe to ClickOrlando.com’s Strange Florida newsletter, delivered every Friday.

A Burmese python measuring nearly 19 feet long was found in the Florida Everglades, and the massive catch was caught on camera. From the moment they saw this python, Ryan Ausburn and Kevin Pavlidis knew she was something special. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, that thing is massive,’” python hunter Pavlidis said. They were hunting the invasive species in the Florida Everglades when they spotted a Burmese python they suspected would break records. Florida Fish and Wildlife says the snake was 18-feet, 9-inches, beating the previous Florida record by 5 inches.

Confronting the likelihood of more distance learning, families across the country are turning to private tutors and "learning pods" to ensure their children receive some in-person instruction. The race to set up learning pods threatens to vastly deepen inequities in access to education. In some cases, parents are paying thousands of dollars each to include their children in pods, promising teachers $40 to $100 an hour or more. A Facebook group on learning pods attracted more than 30,000 members within three weeks of being formed and launched numerous offshoots in states and cities. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has called learning pods luxuries that are not an option for low-income parents.

Five thousand Burmese pythons have been removed from the Everglades, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. FWC Commissioner Rodney Barreto said experience counts when finding and removing Burmese pythons. Each invasive python eliminated represents hundreds of native Florida wildlife saved. DeSantis continued leadership, Florida is doing more than it ever has to remove pythons from the Everglades and protect this ecosystem for generations to come.The FWC said the public can report sightings at 888-483-4681. This can have a negative impact on Floridas native wildlife and habitat, according to the FWC.

A wildlife trapper known as the Python Cowboy caught a 17-foot python in the Florida Everglades, and he’s got the photos to prove it. Last week, Mike Kimmel went out to a secluded island where he spotted alligator droppings. He came upon what he said looked like an extra large python that made his heart pound. He said he will also receive a payment from Florida’s Python Action Team, which pays people to remove the invasive species. Now, wildlife officials estimate there might be as many as 100,000 pythons living in the Everglades.

Watching one animal eat another can be a gruesome sight, but not so much when the prey is an invasive snake wreaking havoc on the Florida Everglades’ delicate ecosystem. 🐊 This invasive Burmese python was no match for our mighty, native American alligator! “I love the fact that Florida’s native species is destroying the invasive species,” another woman wrote. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission regularly hosts events that allow participants to venture into the Everglades to remove the invasive species in exchange for cash prizes. Burmese pythons can be humanely killed without a permit year round with the property owner’s permission.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida is moving forward on a deal that would keep a piece of land in the Everglades from being used for oil production. Part of the land has been subject to years of litigation over the right to drill an exploratory oil well in the Everglades. The agreement gives the state 75 days to buy the land for $16.5 million, with the money coming from the Department of Environmental Protection or the South Florida Water Management District. “Legally they had, you know, the rights to do this on the land,” DeSantis said. “This land is part of our water supply.”Money for the land would come from Comprehensive Everglades Restoration funds or from other sources, including the Florida Forever program, Valenstein said.

ORLANDO, Fla. – A team of researchers at the University of Central Florida is developing a new camera to find invasive pythons lurking in Florida’s natural habitats. UCF scientists teamed up with the non-profit Interuniversity Microelectronics Center, IMEC, an international research and development company, to create the camera. In short, the camera can detect pythons better than the naked eye. Thermal imaging, typically used to detect animals in the wild, doesn’t work because snakes are cold blooded. Graf said pythons are a threat to the Everglades and native Florida species such as rabbits and squirrels.