How many pythons could you catch in ten days?
In the Florida Everglades, the Burmese python is the ecosystem's enemy. Initially introduced to the Sunshine State as exotic pets, the snakes grew too big to be good housemates and were released (or escaped) into the state park. There they feasted on native wildlife and bred rapidly. Today pythons are responsible for a 95% drop in the number of furry animals in the Everglades. No local species is immune: the snakes, which can grow up to nearly 20 feet long, are known to strangle alligators and swallow them whole. Without a natural predator to speak of, the Florida man has stepped in.
For ten days in July the state hosts the Python ChallengeTM, an annual open competition aimed at culling snakes. This year over 900 people descended on the swamps, battling to take home $25,000 in prize money. Most were Floridians; many were military men. The pursuit takes place in the dead of night when the snakes leave their nests to forage. Hopeful hunters sit atop slow-moving pickup trucks and shine flashlights into the grasses to scan for slithers. When they spot a snake they wrestle it with their bare hands. At the end of the night the snakes are killed, their brains scrambled with a metal rod to ensure they don't regain consciousness. 'It's like war: hours of sheer boredom punctuated by seconds of exhilaration,' says an ex-marine training to do it professionally.
Ronald Kiger, a bearded chap from central Florida, clinched the grand prize last year with a bounty of 20 pythons. The longest snake, caught by another amateur, was nearly ten feet. This year's winners have yet to be announced. The challenge does not represent a 'bloodlust for pythons', says Michael Kirkland who works for the state. It is instead a publicity stunt for Florida's conservation project. The python elimination programme, managed jointly by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the South Florida Water Management District, employs 100 year-round contractors. Since 2017 they have removed 16,000 snakes from the Everglades.
Contractors are paid $50 for the first four feet of a snake and $25 for every foot after that. Some choose to sell the carcasses to companies that make the skins into handbags and the vertebrae into jewelry. (They are working on making the meat into dog food.) Dusty Crum, a self-described 'python wild-man', sells python-fat soap out of his pizza parlour on the edge of the park. For many of the hunters the job is about far more than money. Kristine Bartish, a biologist employed by the state who hunts pythons five nights a week, says the mission itself becomes addictive: going out to remove snakes for a good cause is 'like an Easter egg hunt for adults'.
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Hindustan Times
18 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
How many pythons could you catch in ten days?
ALL AROUND the world conservationists are killing animals. To preserve red squirrels in Britain an army of volunteers shoot grey ones with air rifles. In the Caribbean fishermen are encouraged to catch and eat the lionfish that are destroying the coral reefs, despite their venomous barbs. Western Australia's government has set up 'felixer grooming traps' that spray feral cats with toxic gels that they instinctively lick off. In the Florida Everglades, the Burmese python is the ecosystem's enemy. Initially introduced to the Sunshine State as exotic pets, the snakes grew too big to be good housemates and were released (or escaped) into the state park. There they feasted on native wildlife and bred rapidly. Today pythons are responsible for a 95% drop in the number of furry animals in the Everglades. No local species is immune: the snakes, which can grow up to nearly 20 feet long, are known to strangle alligators and swallow them whole. Without a natural predator to speak of, the Florida man has stepped in. For ten days in July the state hosts the Python ChallengeTM, an annual open competition aimed at culling snakes. This year over 900 people descended on the swamps, battling to take home $25,000 in prize money. Most were Floridians; many were military men. The pursuit takes place in the dead of night when the snakes leave their nests to forage. Hopeful hunters sit atop slow-moving pickup trucks and shine flashlights into the grasses to scan for slithers. When they spot a snake they wrestle it with their bare hands. At the end of the night the snakes are killed, their brains scrambled with a metal rod to ensure they don't regain consciousness. 'It's like war: hours of sheer boredom punctuated by seconds of exhilaration,' says an ex-marine training to do it professionally. Ronald Kiger, a bearded chap from central Florida, clinched the grand prize last year with a bounty of 20 pythons. The longest snake, caught by another amateur, was nearly ten feet. This year's winners have yet to be announced. The challenge does not represent a 'bloodlust for pythons', says Michael Kirkland who works for the state. It is instead a publicity stunt for Florida's conservation project. The python elimination programme, managed jointly by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the South Florida Water Management District, employs 100 year-round contractors. Since 2017 they have removed 16,000 snakes from the Everglades. Contractors are paid $50 for the first four feet of a snake and $25 for every foot after that. Some choose to sell the carcasses to companies that make the skins into handbags and the vertebrae into jewelry. (They are working on making the meat into dog food.) Dusty Crum, a self-described 'python wild-man', sells python-fat soap out of his pizza parlour on the edge of the park. For many of the hunters the job is about far more than money. Kristine Bartish, a biologist employed by the state who hunts pythons five nights a week, says the mission itself becomes addictive: going out to remove snakes for a good cause is 'like an Easter egg hunt for adults'.
NDTV
a day ago
- NDTV
Florida Man Earns Rs 87,000 Reward After Capturing 87 Pythons In A Month
A Florida man bagged 87 invasive Burmese pythons in a month and earned a $1,000 (approx Rs 87,000) reward through the state incentive system. Aaron Mann won the monthly prize money as part of the South Florida Water Management District's (SFWMD) Python Elimination Program, reported The New York Post. The program encourages knowledgeable Sunshine State citizens to catch and kill as many of the state's invasive Burmese pythons as possible. The incentives include by-the-foot compensation and monthly prizes for the highest catch count. Mann won the reward for July. The annual Florida Python Challenge attracted a large number of participants last year. However, they managed to kill only 200 of the reptiles throughout the 10-day hunt. The winner of the challenge last year took home a $10,000 (Rs 8.7 lakh) incentive after removing 20 pythons, which is a small portion of Mann's total. In addition to the winner, specialised python removal workers are also compensated $50 (Rs 4,400) for each snake they capture. They get an additional $25 (Rs 2,200) for each foot for snakes longer than the typical 4 feet. According to SFWMD, the Python Elimination Program aims to reduce the invasive python population, which poses a significant threat to the ecosystem by preying on native birds, mammals, and reptiles. The reptiles can measure as long as 18 feet in length and are capable of swallowing an entire deer whole. They also have no natural predators to keep their numbers in check. The program is part of the state's efforts to control the snake population in the Everglades, which has grown significantly since the 1990s. While the officials aren't sure what the precise count is, the state continues to implement new measures, including a tracking program using "cartoonish robot rabbits" to detect pythons and dispatch removal agents. Once a python is detected through the tracking system, officials send a removal agent to capture and eliminate the snake, who would then receive compensation for their efforts. Roughly 19,000 pythons have been removed from the Everglades since 2000, reported Fox Weather Service.
Hindustan Times
03-08-2025
- Hindustan Times
The soul on ventilator support
Artist Kulwinder Singh was driving from his village in Sangrur to Chandigarh when he observed road accidents caused by the obscuring smoke screen of paddy stubble infernos. Though hailing from a farmer's home, the young man's sensitivity liberated him from the corral of his ancestry. A thought flashed in his inner eye: 'Burning does not just adversely affect us farmers by way of health hazards, environmental pollution, destruction of biodiversity helpful to soil such as worms and the earth's destruction. But also people unconnected to farming.' Wildbuzz | The soul on ventilator support Singh is of the conviction that art must reach beyond the decorative to 'disturb' and send ripples through a stagnating social conscience. He conceived a painting from that 'driving' thought. It smoulders, and arrests the gaze. It was on prime display at the annual exhibition of the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi. It is of an elderly farmer with an oxygen mask. The scarecrow behind him also clamped with a breathing filter. Wisps of burnt stubble settle on the wizened farmer's white kurta, like indelible black curses. 'It is an aesthetic depiction of a warning: that the farmer is on ventilator support. The terminal stage. If not heeded, we will have committed suicide,' Singh, an art teacher in a Chandigarh school, told this writer. The painting is rich in cultural symbolism. In the kurta's upper pocket is a bulging wallet depicting a man of wealth. 'However, my artwork evokes the message: wealth will not be able to prevent the looming destruction to the self and to environment,' Singh added. The young artist is critical of the self: 'It is not enough to say farmers burn stubble because it is cheap and Government provides no alternative. We must evolve from the destructive paddy cycle, which has also depleted the water table.' The artwork whispers of the ironies that wrack the soul of contemporary Punjab: obsessed with blasphemy but oblivious to the scriptures steeped in the vision of environmental preservation, of symbols and rituals accorded precedence over principles. Burmese python turns turtle and pretends it is dead! (Santosh Bhattarai) The python's drama of death The Chhatbir zoo has recently acquired a much sought-after species: three Burmese pythons. This giant serpent is curated by only seven of the 156 zoos in India. In captivity, its behavioural diversity is limited because of the confines but in the wilderness it can be quite an enigma. One of the most interesting aspects of the Burmese python is a unique field observation of it feigning death. This is a behaviour more associated with smaller snakes, mammals and amphibians not at the apex of the food chain like the python. Death feigning or thanatosis is the self-inducement of a state of temporary paralysis to avoid predators, maximize probability of survival and avert risk of damage against external stimuli. Santosh Bhattarai, one of the rare researchers who has consistently expended time and energy on Burmese pythons, shares an observation with a photograph of a mighty python which preferred to play possum, twice. This was when a female python was rescued from the hen coop of a house nearby to Chitwan National Park (CNP), Nepal. 'During the rescue, the python was quite aggressive as the poultry owner had tried to chase it from the hut. After rescue, the python was placed in a plastic sack and taken to the National Trust for Nature Conservation--Biodiversity Conservation Center for photographic documentation and release. When removed from the sack, the body of the python was found to be stiff and it was not hissing or indulging in any other aggressive action. When the python was placed on the ground, it did not move and appeared almost catatonic or dead. Upon gentle stimulation to its dorsum (upper part), it suddenly inverted its body, exposing its venter and remained immobile in this posture with a closed mouth for about four minutes,' Bhattarai told this writer. 'Later, it returned to the upright position, began to crawl and attempted to escape. The python was recaptured and it again imitated death. However, on this occasion, the (death) behaviour lasted only 1.5 minutes. Afterwards, the python was returned to the sack for another one hour. On the third occasion of release, the python did not feign death but crawled and was released into the CNP,' added Bhattarai. vjswild2@
