Want to hunt pythons in Florida this summer? This professional has tips

[Diamond_Dog]

That picture of DeSantis, Lol

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Starting later this summer, hundreds of hunters will disperse across Florida's Everglades.

Their target? An apex predator known to grow up to 18 feet that hunts animals as large as an alligator and sometimes as small as a woodrat.

These hunters are going after the Burmese python — one of the largest species of snakes and a major nuisance to Florida's wildlife.

Native to Southeast Asia, these snakes were first introduced to the Florida wild in the late 1970s, and they have reproduced at an astronomical level since.

Starting Aug. 5 and continuing for 10 days, those hunters (both professional and novice) will fan out in South Florida to humanely capture and kill these snakes for the state's annual Python Challenge.

Registration for the 2022 challenge opened last week. Anyone interested in competing must first register and take a required online training that covers humane killing methods and ways to identify these snakes.

It's an important program that will help restore Florida's ecosystem, according to Donna Kalil, a Florida-based python hunting professional. Last year's competitors removed 223 invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades

More

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/22/1105639143/florida-python-hunting-challenge

[LoisB]

1. No, I don't.

[ripcord]

2. Fighting against invasive species is tough

These pythons started pets that idiots just let go when they got too big or too dangerous to care for. Then there are the people that are against eradication for many mistaken reasons including that the animals have a right to live, I hear this stuff all the time when I am hunting wild pig on public lands.

[leftyladyfrommo]

12. It's impossible to erradicate these species once they

get established.

I think thete are also some big lizards that have gotten to be a real problem for Florida, too. They're kind of like miniature komodo dragons.

[onethatcares]

3. if you look close at the first picture in the article

you'll see the elusive floriduh weasel snake holding a burmese python.

[Joinfortmill]

4. Hope you get a ton of volunteers. Wrote a bit about this in one of my mystery books.

[Zambero]

5. Hopefully not too late

Eradicating an invasive species once established is no easy task. Keeping the python population at a low enough level to protect native species viability might be the more achievable objective.

[elias7]

11. Maybe 10 days is not a long enough hunting period

I was thinking more like M-F year around

[A HERETIC I AM]

17. It is

They’re snakes, after all.

And the Everglades is a big place.

[Hekate]

6. If some fashion entrepreneur would just start a fad for snakeskin everything, they'd be extinct...

Just sayin’.

[leftyladyfrommo]

13. PETA would be all over that idea in about 10 seconds.

I don't think that's a bad idea. Or promote eating roasted python with a nice chianti.

[Hekate]

14. Ah, to hell with PETA. The Burmese pythons are destroying the Florida ecosystem...

… and if there’s one thing we humans are good at, it’s wiping out species we find economically desirable, like beaver pelts and whale oil. Why not turn this to some good for a change?

I’ve thought of this before when it comes to ecological pests. Both kudzu and invasive carp are edible — so why aren’t we eating them in mass quantities? All it takes is a fad.

Roasted python with a nice chianti sounds pretty good. Python boots, python purses, python belts — very attractive in the right hands, and very expensive, too. Someone should be making a buck off this.

[Wounded Bear]

16. What's wrong with PETA? I'm a member of People for Eating of Tasty Animals...

PETA has gone overboard in many areas. Eradicating invasive species is good for the environment.

[DBoon]

7. Are they edible?

Could someone sell python fillets? Python chili?

[ripcord]

8. Wild pigs are edible

And they are a plague in many areas, I shoot them on my own tags and for land owners who have trouble with them. I wish they would change the laws so I could donate the meat to homeless shelters, I would gladly pay the cost of the butchering.

[jeffreyi]

15. And the meat is delicious.

[Hekate]

19. Same with Canada geese that winter over where they shouldn't, creating slippery public spaces...

…with their poop. They are a very numerous public nuisance in some states,

Some years back I read that a New England town proposed catching and processing them for human food for the poor — yummy! Christmas goose like Charles Dickens! — but that the proposal was met with a horrified outcry, as though it were being proposed that the poor be given dog food.

I frankly failed to understand the problem in having these critters turned into food and given to the poor (now called the food insecure), who could use them in their diets. Hunters shoot them, right? People eat them, right? What the hell is wrong with this picture?

[markie]

9. ok

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

10. Blame Hurricane Andrew, I've read where 1000s escaped from demolished exotic breeding facilities

[A HERETIC I AM]

18. "Humanely capture and kill"?!? Fuck that bullshit.

Cut their damned heads off at the first opportunity and feed the hunks to the nearest alligator so they get a taste for it.

Being nice to an animal that is destroying the ecosystem of the Glades is complete bullshit.

Kill the fucking things with extreme prejudice.