On tonight’s Guardians of the Glades, we get a lesson in trapping pythons by stalking their nesting areas and using flour or baking soda powder to encircle potential nests.
Scarily, to place this near the likely path the snake would take means going in and out of the den where they lay their eggs.
Glades’ star Dusty Crum and Jay Starr, his swamp guru best friend, give us a primer on catching a giant snake by hand, and we see the entire process in our exclusive clip!
Read our exclusive interview with Dusty Crum here!
Read our exclusive interview with Brittany Borges here!
In the clip, we see Dusty in the higher drier brush around the swamp, and there is a very good reason.
Noting why they are away from the water, he says to Jay: “Make a horseshoe right here… just in case something’s going in that hole right
there.”
He gives details on the current python situation: “It’s the beginning of nesting season, so all the snakes are coming up to the high and dry looking for spots to lay the eggs. They don’t want to lay them in the swamp because the rains are coming [and] they know that will flood them out.”
The two men spot a promising hole that is very deep and carved out, but what made it? We will find out. Dusty bravely puts his entire arm in the hole, reaching for something while Jay tells him to please be careful.
Jay says: “Oh look… look, look this is definitely a cave.
Dusty adds: “They’re going to really look and try to hide them in any little hole or in a protected spot that you got to check.”
Jay says: “Careful son,” watching as Dusty takes stock of the size of the hole and says it’s big enough for a snake to be in.
In a separate shot, we see Jay showing us how they trap the snake by seeing where the powder marks are disturbed.
He says: “You put this powder down and [then] that snake comes out [of] there, he will have to [cross through] and make your track and then you’re gonna know he’s here.”
He tells Dusty they need to keep going through the higher ground brush where the snakes want to be during nesting time.
Suddenly, Jay sees something. He says: “Oh, look! Oh look!” spotting some of the white powder tracks as Dusty says: “That’s a pretty good one… and the snakes gotta be right here somewhere.”
Jay notes that the track was four inches wide right away, and he says: “I knew it had to be a pregnant python.”
The men wrestle and grab the angry snake by the tail, and it circles back and tries to bite the men.
Attacking the back end, Jay says that the snake is too strong and it was trying to bite him. The two men are pulling the snake by the tail as it circles back to bite them.
That is when they capture the snake, and miraculously, no one was bitten. Jay says: “that’s a 13-footer! Come on, let’s get out of here!”
The best advice of the day!
Tune in to see what else is caught on tonight’s breakout hit series on Discovery:
Guardians of the Glades airs Tuesday at 10 p.m. on Discovery.