Florida python hunt winner removes 96 invasive snakes from Everglades
Tom Rahill, winner of Florida's annual Python Challenge, captured and euthanized 96 Burmese pythons in the Everglades over 10 days. The event drew 907 participants and resulted in 280 snakes being removed.
The winner of Florida's annual Python Challenge has captured and humanely euthanized 96 invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park. The contest is part of a broader effort to remove hundreds of snakes from the area each year.
During the 10-day competition, participants try to catch and humanely kill as many invasive snakes as possible in eight designated hunting areas. The winner receives a cash prize of $10,000. The event is organized by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the South Florida Water Management District, the National Park Service and other partners.
This year's competition attracted 907 participants from 30 U.S. states, plus Canada and Vietnam. The winner, Tom Rahill, collected all 96 snakes from the Everglades. A professional python hunter, Rahill founded SwampApes in Broward County, an organization that takes veterans suffering from PTSD on python hunts in Florida's wetlands.
Speaking at an FWC meeting in Panama City, Rahill said he had been on a mission to catch a big snake for one of the veterans. After achieving that, he went deeper into the Everglades, where he found 96 snakes.
Over 10 days in July, 280 snakes were removed in total. Before the competition, 1,400 pythons had already been taken out this year. The contest also awards other prizes, including $1,000 for the longest python killed; Rahm Levinson won that prize with a snake measuring 16 feet 5 inches.
Burmese pythons are native to Southeast Asia and have caused major damage since they were first detected in the Everglades in the 1990s, consuming prey and sharply reducing native wildlife populations. Because the snakes are extremely hard to detect, conservative estimates put their numbers in the tens of thousands.
Females can lay dozens of eggs, sometimes up to 100 a year, and there are concerns they are reproducing faster than they can be caught. To improve capture rates, the challenge is now held during the summer hatching season.
The event aims to raise public awareness about invasive species and involve the public in conservation efforts. Since 2017, more than 1,600 pythons have been removed through the challenge, and when combined with year-round work by FWC contractors, the total exceeds 19,000.
Sarah Funck, program coordinator at the FWC, said there is no "silver bullet" for solving Florida's python invasion, but stressed that removing even one python is "a win for Florida's native wildlife."
