Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 Let's go hunting our prey, pythons.
00:03 For two weeks, the Florida Fish and
00:05 Wildlife Conservation Commission
00:07 not only allows the hunting of
00:09 Burmese pythons, they encourage it.
00:11 The person who removes the most pythons wins.
00:14 It's $30,000.00.
00:15 Prize it that prize money has about
00:18 1000 hunters stalking their slithery
00:20 prey through the Everglades.
00:22 Amy Seway calls herself the Python huntress.
00:25 She and her fiance Dave Roberts lead
00:28 Python hunting tours. Seway told W I NK
00:30 every single Python that we're taking
00:33 out of the Everglades is saving the
00:35 lives of hundreds of our native species.
00:38 Burmese pythons are a nonvenomous
00:40 species of constrictor.
00:41 They're an invasive species that
00:43 have been damaging the wetland
00:45 ecosystem of Florida since the
00:47 early 2000s. If I see a python,
00:49 I yell Python.
00:52 And then I can jump down and run out and
00:56 catch it. The snakes are not native to
00:59 Florida, but likely got there because of
01:01 people letting their unwanted pets go free.
01:03 With no natural predators around,
01:05 pythons have flourished in the wild.
01:07 According to Florida Fish and Wildlife,
01:09 a female Burmese python may lay
01:11 50 to 100 eggs at a time.
01:13 It takes an average of 12
01:15 hours to catch one python.
01:17 During the Florida Python Challenge,
01:18 participants may not use drones or
01:20 off-roading vehicles to capture the snakes,
01:22 but they can keep the snake skins
01:25 after the competition is over.
01:27 There are an estimated 100 to 300,000
01:29 undesirable Burmese pythons around
01:31 the state of Florida.
01:33 That state is going to need as
01:35 many hunters as it can find.
01:38 For Inside Edition Digital, I'm TC Newman.
01:43 [Music]
01:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]