Who's ready to meet me in Florida? (From: Curious.com)

Who’s up for a challenge? The state of Florida has just announced the dates for the 2022 Florida Python Challenge, a hunting contest to see who can remove the highest number of invasive Burmese Pythons from the wild. This year’s contest will take place between August 5 to 14. For those 10 days, any hunter can participate as long as they pass an online training course. The Python Challenge is organized by a partnership between the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida, the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). While some animal lovers might be put off by the idea of declaring open season on snakes without limits on the number of kills, The Florida Python Challenge is actually part of an ongoing effort by the state to help local wildlife, especially in the Everglades.

Originally introduced to Florida through the exotic pet trade, the pythons have wrought immense destruction on the local ecosystem. In fact, in the three decades since they established a breeding population, they have decimated the population of marsh rabbits, opossums and several other small animal species. The snakes will eat anything they can fit in their mouths, and considering that Burmese pythons can reach lengths of 20 feet and weigh up to 200 pounds, that covers a lot of wildlife. What makes invasive pythons so hard to manage is that they are perfectly suited to the climate and environment of Florida; their cryptic coloring helps them blend in and they thrive in the warm, humid conditions of the Everglades. They are so efficient and well-suited to their adopted hunting range that in a 2013 study tracking marsh rabbits fitted with radio transmitters, 77 percent of them were found to have been killed by pythons. Currently, there is no accurate data on the population of Burmese pythons in the Everglades, largely due to their excellent camouflage. Estimates range from anywhere in the tens to hundreds of thousands. It’s enough to make your skin crawl.