Posted on 10/26/2022 1:26:37 PM PDT by Red Badger
VIDEOS AT LINK.............
A 19-year-old South Florida man captured 28 Burmese pythons during a 10-day competition that was created to increase awareness about the threats the invasive snakes pose to the state's ecology.
Matthew Concepcion was among the 1,000 participants from 32 states, Canada and Latvia who participated in the annual challenge, which removed 231 of the unwanted pythons, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said in a news release.
For his efforts, Concepcion was awarded the $10,000 Ultimate Grand Prize courtesy of the Bergeron Everglades Foundation. Dustin Crum won a $1,500 grand prize for removing the longest python, at just over 11 feet.
Earlier this year, a team of biologists hauled in the heaviest Burmese python ever captured in Florida. That female python weighed 215 pounds, was nearly 18 feet long and had 122 developing eggs, according to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
Burmese pythons aren't protected except by Florida's anti-cruelty law, so participants had to document that each one was killed humanely.
Concepcion told the South Florida SunSentinel he's been hunting pythons for about five years, and typically looks for them at night because that's when they're on the move, seeking the warmth of roads. He uses his vehicle lights to spot them.
This year, however, he only spotted one on the roads in the Everglades, so he changed strategies.
"I worked a levee, caught a couple hatchings, and was like, 'Dang, this might be the ticket!' So every single night from then on, I went out there — just before sundown to sunup."
Concepcion says he walked the canal, using a flashlight to probe the underbrush. Smaller snakes are so well camouflaged that he looks for their shadows cast by the flashlight beam, he told the newspaper. But larger snakes are easier to find.
"They will have a slightly purple tint to them. They're really beautiful."
Concepcion said he may use some of his earnings to buy a powerful lighting setup for his truck, which will help him spot more snakes.
"Our python hunters are passionate about what they do and care very much about Florida's precious environment. We are removing record numbers of pythons and we're going to keep at it," South Florida Water Management District Governing Board Member "Alligator Ron" Bergeron said in a news release.
Captive Burmese pythons let loose by Hurricane Andrew's destruction in 1992 have flourished in the southern Florida ecosystem, decimating local species in the process.
Today the Everglades are overrun with the giant snakes and it's had devastating consequences. A 2012 study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that after Andrew exacerbated the Burmese python invasion of the Florida Everglades, populations of raccoons and opossums dropped roughly 99 percent and some species of rabbits and foxes effectively disappeared.
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probably just bought 28 and came out ahead.
Was the prize awarded posthumously?
I saw a recent thread about capturing rats in Vietnam.
They put a bounty on the rats.
People opened up rat farms.
Take a look at the guy’s house to make sure he’s not raising them.
“They put a bounty on the rats.
People opened up rat farms.”
LOL! I can totally see that happening.
“Weights In Snakes!”
Now, onto the pit of vipers in DC!
“probably just bought 28 and came out ahead.”
Don’t quit your day job.
They need to add democRAT reptiles to this list. They are invasive, destructive and predatory too.
No more rabbits? No more raccoons? How horrifying!
What!! Florida has surrendered before the war has even begun.
I've been told that a good way to catch a python humanely is to use a PETA member or "animal rights" activist for bait.
the guys in the fishing contest were stuffing the fish with weights.
the guys at the gun buy backs are 3d printing gun to sell to cops.
is it really a stretch to think this guy could have just purchased them and pocketed the difference in cost vs prize money?
LOL! Just like the guys who 3D print guns for buyback programs.
Turn wild python into a delicacy and that will solve the problem.
Apparently in India they once placed bounties on Cobra’s. And people started breeding cobras to collect the bounties.
When they stopped paying bounties, the breeders released their crop and they were worse off than when they started.
Don’t quit your day job.
Dittoes. For the total, eradicating that many snakes is a HUGE effort. An ongoing effort.
“could have” is a far cry from “probably”.
“Take a look at the guy’s house to make sure he’s not raising them.”
This was actually a plot point on the recent (fictional) tv show “Killing It” that was about python hunters in Florida. Nobody could figure out how the hunter in the lead was beating them until they broke into his house and found he was raising snakes.
How does one kill a snake humanely.?
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