The Everglades Burmese python might finally meet its match, if this agency gets its way
Burmese pythons might finally face a formidable foe in the Florida Everglades.
The South Florida Water Management District wants to double the number of its snake hunters and expand other aspects of its nearly three-year-old Python Elimination Program.
The proposal would cost $750,000, the Naples Daily News reported. That’s $525,000 more than the agency is spending annually now on removing the invasive species that has, on eye-catching occasion, devoured big Florida gators in their own environment.
Program director Mike Kirkland told the Daily News it will ask for 25 more paid hunters at Thursday’s board meeting at its headquarters in West Palm Beach. That would bring the total of snake hunters up to 50.
The program, Kirkland told the Daily News, “has been the most successful program in the history of the issue by a wide margin in terms of snakes caught and cost effectiveness.”
After its pilot program began in March 2017, district hunters have captured 2,486 pythons through Sept. 2. That figure represents 29,274 pounds worth of pythons captured.
The group hit the 1,000 mark in May 2018, according to a Python Tracker chart on the South Florida Water Management District’s website.
This story was originally published September 11, 2019 at 12:15 PM.
