(Miami, FL) — The Florida Python Challenge is officially underway. The ten-day competition kicked off just after midnight on Friday. The Florida Fish and Wildlife’s Python Management Coordinator says the person who nabs the most pythons will take home ten-thousand dollars, with smaller prizes for the longest python caught and other categories. More than 700 people have already signed up. Nearly 200 pythons were removed from the Everglades during last year’s challenge. Overall, more than eleven-hundred have been killed since the first Florida Python Challenge in 2013.
It’s been a record-breaking Burmese python season in southwest Florida. 63-hundred pounds of the invasive snake, marking a milestone for its python program. Biologists target adult female pythons to stop reproduction. Since 2013, the team has stopped 20-thousand python eggs from hatching.
