A rollicking deep dive into the invasive spread of Burmese pythons, from their devastation of regional ecosystems to the eclectic group of scientists, hunters, and snake enthusiasts fighting to protect the South's last wild spaces

Somewhere in Miami in the 1970s, someone got tired of owning a very large snake. They drove west, opened their trunk, and let their pet slither off into the Everglades. One snake might have been fine, except it continued happening, until eventually this non-native species became an invasive one. By 1995, park rangers had found the first evidence of a newly hatched Burmese python in the mangrove swamps of South Florida.

Today, South Florida is very likely home to over 100,000 wild Burmese pythons—snakes that can stretch 19 feet long, lay 120 eggs in a clutch, and swallow a deer whole, in addition to driving the local mammal populations down by 98 percent in parts of the wetland. With fewer winter cold snaps to kill off the snakes, these apex predators are now poised to invade the Bible Belt—but Florida is not going down without a fight.

In The Serpent and the South, journalist Bill Kearney follows the band of personalities looking to slow the invasion and speed a solution, from the eccentric hunters who are yanking one snake at a time out of the Everglades to the passionate scientists developing biocontrols that might address the python crisis at scale. Kearney journeys through dark swamps with larger-than-life Florida Man characters, sifts through python stomach contents with cutting-edge researchers, and trails dogs being trained as snake hunters, revealing the many tools being put to use to find and stop the snakes.

What emerges is a wild tale of human folly and ingenuity—a story of threatened heritage, fascinating ecology, and the precariousness of the South’s natural splendor.