They’re eating the deer, they’re eating the cats: Large snakes invading Florida are eating the pets

A month after Donald Trump and his allies pushed baseless claims that Haitian migrants in Ohio were eating cats and dogs, biologists in Florida are warning that giant snakes there are, in fact, eating the pets.

The Burmese pythons have been eating the native wildlife of southern Florida, including white-tailed deer and alligators, according to a paper published in Reptiles & Amphibians.

Ian Bartoszek, a wildlife biologist and one of the paper’s authors, told ABC7 that in December 2022, his team witnessed a 15-foot female Burmese python consuming an adult deer.

“For us biologists, this was the most intense thing we’ve ever seen on assignment,” he told the outlet. “This was as primal as it gets.”

These creatures, considered an invasive species in southern Florida, are able to expand their jaws so wide that they can consume comparatively large prey, the paper says. For example, the smallest snake in the study ,which weighed about 115 pounds, was able to devour a deer that weighed about 77 pounds, the paper says.

“Knowing the size of prey that predators can consume facilitates understanding and predicting their ecological impact,” the paper reads.

But, it’s not just deer they can eat. The giant snakes can consume any woodland creature or domestic animal that gets loose.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Burmese pythons can consume meals equivalent to 100 percent of their body mass and are known to consume mammals, birds and reptiles.

The newest biological revelations come shortly after the former president, his running mate JD Vance and others accused, without evidence, Haitian migrants of eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio,

Springfield Police, city officials, and even the state’s Governor Mike DeWine have denounced these claims that inflamed anti-immigration rhetoric.

DeWine wrote in an op-ed in September: “Our people and our history deserve better than to be falsely portrayed.”

The Republican governor continued: “I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield…This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there.”