Florida Won’t Repeat Ineffective, Hilarious Amateur Everglades Python Hunt

What happens when you arm 1600 average, normal Floridians, put no real restrictions on beer consumption, and send them into the Everglades to try to hunt down invasive Burmese Pythons for bounty in a contest with big prize money?  State officials thought that it would result in a huge bounty of dead snakes, and that the month-long hunt would do work that professional trappers (who cost money) could do in years.

While most of the world recoiled in horror at the thought of drunken Floridians tromping around the swamp, being eaten by the pythons they were trying to catch, the alligators, or the drunken feral hogs, not much happened.

Instead, the pythons apparently hid, like huge snakes can do, the alligators slept, and the feral hogs had their whiskey and beer and relaxed out of sight until the amateur swamp people left covered in mosquito bites, without their snakes or pride. 1600 hunters got 68 snakes.

TheTampa Tribune reports that the State of Florida has decided to send it back to the professionals.

The state wildlife commission already allows people with special permits to remove pythons and other non-native snakes from designated wildlife management areas. A partnership with The Nature Conservancy and Everglades National Park will continue to train people who regularly work in areas known to contain pythons – such as law enforcement officers, utility workers and students doing research – to kill or report non-native snakes, Segelson.

The state also will reach out to licensed hunters to train and encourage them to harvest pythons while they’re out in search of other animals during open hunting seasons on designated lands, Segelson said.

Last week we reported, in the post titled, Becoming Cat Food, about large wild cats (Tigers, Lions, Mountain Lions) being imported as cute, cuddly cubs for pets and rap videos, then dumped in sanctuaries, and eventually killing their handlers.  Floridians imported not-cute, not-cuddly Burmese Pythons, perhaps for rap videos and instead of sending them to snake sanctuaries, dumped them in the Everglades, where they are a huge problem for alligators, but may be helping the feral hog problem. Thankfully, Floridians didn't dump their tiger cubs in the Everglades or we’d really have Thunderdome in the swamp among invasive, former rap prop species. 

In a measure of sensibility, Florida prohibits possession or sale of the pythons for use as pets, and federal law bans the importation and interstate sale of the species.  A bit late, but good form.