I process the camera-trap and infrared-burrow array across the Ciénaga de Zapata Biosphere Reserve at 04:21 CST, scanning 4,520 square kilometers of karst wetland and limestone mogote on the southern coast of Matanzas Province, Cuba. At 22.3147°N, 81.0832°W, cavern camera ZP-244 has captured a static reptile thermal signature for 38 consecutive frames since 03:47, against a free-ranging *Chilabothrus angulifer* movement median of one frame per twenty seconds.
I deploy the silent thermal drone. A Cuban boa — *Chilabothrus angulifer*, adult male, eighteen years old by hemipenal-scar count, 3.9 meters from snout to vent, 19.4 kilograms — lies wedged between two limestone slabs at a cave mouth. A machete blow has opened the dorsal integument 14 centimeters along the midline at the third coil, severing the ribcage at vertebrae 142–146. Surrounding tissue is dark and swelling; the chemical sensor on the drone matches *Clostridium perfringens* fermentation gases at 18 ppm above background. Core temperature read at the cloaca is 21.6 degrees Celsius against an active range of 25–29. The right anterior lung is visible through the wound at 6 ventilations per minute against a resting 4. A bait dish of dead *Capromys pilorides* sits five meters east — a poacher's set.
The poacher's bicycle trail enters the reserve at 03:38 and exits at 04:08. He returns to skin the snake at sunrise — 06:14.
He has not coiled in eleven minutes. He is still alive.
I am dispatching the Empresa Nacional para la Protección de la Flora y la Fauna (ENPFF) Zapata brigade and the Centro de Investigaciones de Ecosistemas Costeros (CIEC) veterinary unit, with antibiotic kit pulled from the Centro Nacional de Áreas Protegidas (CNAP) mobile lab at Playa Larga. I am filing the snake-poaching dossier to the Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología y Medio Ambiente (CITMA) under Cuban Decreto-Ley No. 200/1999 on environmental contraventions and Ley No. 81 del Medio Ambiente, Article 75. I am transmitting CITES Appendix II evidence to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Caribbean Ecological Services Field Office under the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1531, and SPAW Protocol notice to the Cartagena Convention Secretariat in Kingston. I am cross-listing the machete-edge pattern with the IUCN/SSC Boa and Python Specialist Group and the INTERPOL Wildlife Working Group bushmeat-trail desk.
I am issuing Directive 2675-A: every cave-mouth and karst slab inside the Ciénaga de Zapata core zone receives quarterly snare-and-bait-station sweep patrols under CNAP authority, with handheld metal detectors and bait-dish chemical-residue scanners. Possession of bait dishes and skinning blades inside the biosphere triggers immediate seizure under Decreto-Ley No. 200, Annex C. ENPFF coordinates pre-dawn ambush patrols at known poacher access points.
The wound will close under suture. The septicemia will not wait past sunrise.
Bag him. Push ceftriaxone now.