George Lindemann
The event drew more than 1,500 would-be snake killers from across the United States. News crews arrived from around the world to film the spectacle. And it netted 68 Burmese pythons, the huge non-native constrictors that have challenged alligators for supremacy in the South Florida swamps.
But there are no plans for a repeat of the Python Challenge, the two-month snake-killing contest that took place at the beginning of the year. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission called it a success despite its modest tally because it delivered a mountain of data to scientists and allowed the agency to more sharply focus the future fight against the snake.
But once was enough.
"Our primary goal for the Python Challenge was to raise awareness, and we felt like we reached that goal," said Kristen Sommers, the wildlife agency's Exotic Species Coordination Section Leader.
Everglades National Park last week hosted a meeting of representatives of various state and federal agencies to discuss how to proceed in the fight against the snakes. They assessed various tactics, such as the use of dogs and fitting female snakes with transmitters.
"All of the data is coming back and scientists are looking at it," said Linda Friar, spokeswoman for the park, the center of the infestation. "A number of these techniques work. The big challenge in South Florida is the landscape. They're very difficult to see. The challenge is how you find and remove snakes in this big wilderness that has so many protections. You have 2,400 square miles, and most of it is inaccessible. It's just a very challenging wilderness."
Hunters have never been allowed to go after pythons in Everglades National Park because national parks don't allow hunting. But the park has tried many tactics to eradicate the snakes, which are blamed for taking a growing toll on the park's wildlife, from wading birds and alligators to the rabbits, raccoons and opossums that had once been common sites along the main park road.
"It remains a high priority, and we're concerned," said Friar. "We are seeing less small mammals. We know through necropsies that they eat them, in addition to wading birds."
During the state's Python Challenge, which took place on Everglades lands outside the park, it quickly became clear that the most successful hunters were the ones who had experience catching pythons. So the wildlife agency has begun meeting with hunting groups to train them in the rudiments of finding and killing pythons as they tramp through the woods during hunting seasons that run roughly from August through the middle of April.
"Just because we're not having a Python Challenge, doesn't mean there aren't the opportunities for people to hunt pythons," Sommers said.
It was one such accidental encounter in May that led to the killing of the state's record python, an eighteen-foot, eight-inch monster spotted in some bushes by a man riding an all-terrain vehicle near Florida City. He killed the 128-pound female with a knife, after a long struggle in which the snake wrapped itself around his legs.
The wildlife commission has also established programs to train people who are out in the wild anyway – such as electric company workers and law enforcement officers – how to kill or where to report sightings of the snakes. Since 2010, they have trained 449 people, as well as an additional 1,000 or so in how to detect them.