in the Carlton Reserve, a side-by-side vehicle drives along a path with trees alongside it and a stormy sky
Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission officers ride up a private road near the entrance of the Carlton Reserve during a search for Brian Laundrie, on Sept. 21, 2021, in Venice, Florida.
AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack
  • A Florida rancher told Fox News he doesn't think Brian Laundrie is in the swamp police are searching.
  • The 25,000-acre Carlton Reserve is unsurvivable for more than a few days, Alan McEwen said.
  • He added Laundrie likely isn't dead in the reserve because he hasn't seen buzzards flying overhead.
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A Florida cattle rancher told Fox News he doesn't believe Brian Laundrie is dead or alive in the swamp police are searching.

Laundrie went missing on September 17, just two days after he was declared a person of interest in the disappearance of his fiancée, Gabby Petito. Her body was found in Wyoming, where the couple had been on a cross-country road trip.

Laundrie's parents told authorities he was camping in the Carlton Reserve, a 25,000-acre recreational preserve in Florida.

Alan McEwen, a rancher who has been helping the North Port Police Department in their search, remains doubtful that Laundrie would have made it more than a few days in the swamp-like woods, let alone two weeks. And if he were dead in the reserve, they'd have found the body by now, McEwen said.

"Anything dead you find in the woods, you're gonna look up, you're gonna see buzzards flying like crazy," he told Fox News. "No buzzards, no body is my theory. And I haven't seen any buzzards flying."

Brian Laundrie in the desert with a cop behind him
This police camera video provided by The Moab Police Department shows Brian Laundrie talking to a police officer after police pulled over the van he was traveling in with his girlfriend, Gabby Petito, near the entrance to Arches National Park on Aug. 12, 2021.
The Moab Police Department via AP

Since Laundrie went missing, storms have flooded the woods and parking lot where Laundrie left his car, Fox News reported.

If he were somehow able to brave the wet conditions, the Carlton Reserve is habitat to major predators, including alligators, panthers, black bears, feral hogs, and rattlesnakes.

Plus, McEwan told Fox News it's easy to enter the reserve and go off in a number of directions that lead to major highways or other wilderness areas.

"I've been in the woods in and out all my life … I have learned a lot in my life, and one thing I know is no one is gonna survive out there for two weeks on foot," McEwen said.

North Port Police Department spokesman Josh Taylor told Insider on Monday that the search for Laundrie in the reserve is going to be "scaled back" this week and the FBI is now leading the search.

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