MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Ron Magill was quick to defend a man he felt was being treated unfairly after he went out of his way to capture and surrender a python, an invasive species.<\/p>\n
Yatir Nitzany said he was hiking at Shark Valley in the heart of the Everglades National Park when he saw an opportunity to help protect the environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw one crawling across the trail,\u201d Nitzany said. \u201cThere were children around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nitzany said he captured the constrictor and contacted park rangers. A video shows that as he held it, a tour guide driving a tramp praised him in front of visitors. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt had a bulge in its belly,\u201d Nitzany said about the python. \u201cThe upper part of its body, indicating it just killed something, and I couldn\u2019t have it on my conscience just to leave it there and just let it go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The super predators, native to tropical regions in Africa, Asia, and Australia, have devastated Everglades wildlife since the exotic pet trade\u2019s introduction.<\/p>\n
Knowing he was doing the right thing, Nitzany said he didn\u2019t expect a park ranger, who also thanked him for the catch, to then hand him a $180 citation. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf I could have done things over again, I would have probably killed it and thrown it in the bushes,\u201d Nitzany said. <\/p>\n
Nitzany and Magill fought the citation, based on the federal Lacey Act<\/a> and a state law<\/a> that required prior authorization for capturing a python in a park.<\/p>\n \u201cMy goal now is to do whatever I can to change this law. To make sure there is a caveat in this law, so that people like [Nitzany] are not punished for doing the right thing in the environment,\u201d Magill said. <\/p>\n The case against Nitzany was dismissed on Friday before his court hearing. Magill was glad, but it shouldn\u2019t have happened. <\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, for me, it\u2019s common sense. Unfortunately, it\u2019s not too common anymore,\u201d Magill said. <\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Ron Magill was quick to defend a man he felt was being treated unfairly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-701205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}