It’s the silence that’s irritating. No bird chirps. No frog croaks. There are no longer any squirrels or raccoons here, only the cutting grass rustles in the wind. Anyone who wades through the Everglades understands: In the fight for the original diversity of nature, things are bad in this huge swamp area. In front of us, only a few centimeters away and barely visible in the gray-green surroundings, a python over three meters long hangs between the robust blades of grass. One of many. The snakes have taken over the Everglades. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps even over a million, of them live here – and are in the process of wiping out South Florida’s unique wildlife.

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