WTSP-TV

Port St. Lucie, Florida — Officers caught a 12-foot python Friday that neighbors said had been eating the area's cats.

Sgt. John Holman arrived on the scene at about 7:20 a.m.and found a dead cat in an empty lot, police said. Holman walked through waist-high brush and spotted a Burmese python.

Holman called for backup officers to help him get the snake, which weighed about 120 pounds, out of the brush.

Holman, who recognized that this python was banned in Florida, found someone with a Florida Fish and Wildlife license to house the snake.

Pythons are an invasive species in Florida, where researchers think they are eating their way through populations of native mammals in the Everglades.

Florida now prohibits owning or selling pythons for use as pets, and federal law bans importation and interstate sale of the species.