BLIND PYTHON CAN'T ESCAPE EQUALLY BLIND HUNTING DOG IN FLORIDA SWAMP

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

 

Blind python can’t escape equally blind hunting dog in Florida swamp, video shows

By Mark Price

December 11, 2024 9:42 AM

 

One of Florida’s best-known wildlife trackers defied logic by taking a blind dog python hunting, and the hound ended up catching a 9-foot invasive snake that was also unable to see, video shows.

 

The unusual hunt was orchestrated by Mike Kimmel, known as the Python Cowboy, who saw it as a chance for blind-from-birth Helen to prove her nose is a “super power.”

 

Even Kimmel seemed surprised when Helen led him through a dark swamp to a coiled-up Burmese python.

 

“Would you look at that. Blind Helen found a snake just as blind as her,” Kimmel says in a video of the hunt shared Dec. 9.

 

“She went right up to it. ... Who says a blind dog can’t hunt?”

 

Warning: The video shown below contains profanity.

 

Closer inspection revealed the annoyed python’s eyes were clouded and blue, an indication scales over its eyes were loose due to shedding, experts say.

 

“This is called ‘in the blue,’” Kimmel says in the video. “She can barely see through those eyes. All she see is shadows. Probably a little better than old Helen can see. ... It would be like putting a piece of paper over your eyes and trying to see.”

 

Kimmel snatched the snake just behind its eyes, preventing it from delivering a painful bite. It was euthanized, as required by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

 

“I’m always super impressed whenever a dog is able to find a python. It is extremely difficult. I have a bunch of good dogs and only a few of them can find pythons,” Kimmel says in the video. “And for a blind one to do it is even more impressive.”

 

Trapper Mike Kimmel adopted Helen as a blind puppy in 2022 and has been training her to hunt pythons.

 

Helen was adopted into Kimmel’s pack in 2022, after she was born without eyes, he noted in an Instagram post. Blindness “would generally be a death sentence” for hunting dogs, he says.

“But where most see too much of a challenge, I see potential. Living in total darkness, she will have to rely on her nose for everything,” Kimmel wrote.

 

“I’m hoping (blindness) will make that nose a fine tuned tool in my bag of tricks.”

 

Burmese pythons are native to Southeast Asia and are considered a threat to South Florida’s wildlife. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission encourages the snakes be humanely killed when captured in the wild.

 

The snakes made their way into the Everglades through the exotic pet trade, and were released or escaped from their owners, state officials say.