With football made of python skin, Florida aims to tap Super Bowl hype for 2020 snake hunt

Florida wildlife managers hope to tap the country’s biggest sports event for help with one of the state’s biggest environmental threats.

The Florida Python Challenge, a competitive hunt for the Burmese python — an invasive snake that’s decimating small mammals and birds in the Everglades — plays off Super Bowl hype in Miami with something called the 2020 Python Bowl.

As part of promoting the snake hunt, the state even had a football made from python skin, which Gov. Ron DeSantis posed with while pitching the event to assembled media in the Everglades.

“Who gets the longest? Who gets the heaviest? Who gets the most? We want to get that competitive spirit going,” DeSantis said.

The state hopes that pro football’s premier event will draw attention to the threat the invasive snake poses to the Everglades, and to hopefully attract more funds for research and innovative technologies to get the python population under control. The Python Bowl will run from January 10 to January 19 and will award cash prizes and two all-terrain vehicles to hunters who catch the biggest snakes.

Winners will be announced on Jan. 25 during the opening of Super Bowl Live, a weeklong fan fest event, at Bayfront Park. The registration period started Thursday. More python footballs will be produced to be used as a gift to VIP guests, according to Rodney Barreto, chair of the Super Bowl Host Committee and a commissioner at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The challenge, which was held every three years since it started in 2013, will now be organized on an annual basis by the South Florida Water Management District and FWC. The agencies have removed more than 3,600 snakes through their programs — FWC’s Python Action Team and the District’s Python Elimination Program — as wildlife managers step up the fight against the voracious exotic reptiles.

DeSantis also announced Thursday that more access to federal lands will be given to python hunters. The Department of Interior gave the green light for 150 miles of secondary trails at Big Cypress National Preserve to be accessible for python removal work.

Burmese pythons, which first appeared in the Everglades in 1979, pose a huge threat to the delicate ecosystem as they have no predators and reproduce very successfully. Females can lay up to 100 eggs. They have adapted perfectly to the environment and can easily move around the marshes and tree islands, finding ample sources of food in the populations of native animals such as marsh rabbits, raccoons, deer and opossums. Pythons also eat wading bird eggs and even small alligators.

Scientists believe that pythons that were kept as pets and were released in the wild started breeding, quickly expanding their range in the Everglades in the late ‘90s. Others speculate that the python’s spread began after Hurricane Andrew smashed into a breeding facility in 1992.

Their numbers have grown exponentially ever since, to as many as an estimated 300,000. They are now considered the top predator in the Everglades, capable of devouring adult deer and blamed for nearly wiping out the population of small mammals at Everglades National Park.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said the species is now making its way east and moving into more populous areas. Pythons have even been found swimming in Biscayne Bay. Last month, a male that was nicknamed “Pete” slithered its way aboard a catamaran anchored in Biscayne National Park off Elliott Key.

The aim of the 2020 Python Challenge is to engage the public in participating in Everglades restoration through invasive species removal, Barreto said.

Bass Pro Shops is sponsoring the event with a $20,000 contribution for prizes and two ATVs. Ron Bergeron, a longtime Everglades activist whom DeSantis named this year to a board seat at the District, announced his foundation would contributed $10,000. Participants must register online and complete training, which can be done during online sessions or in person.

More details available at FLPythonChallenge.org.

Follow Adriana Brasileiro on Twitter @AdriBras

This story was originally published December 6, 2019 at 8:29 AM.