Killing Pythons for Cash Lures Hunters to Florida Everglades
Killing Pythons for Cash Lures Hunters to Florida’s Everglade
More than 550 hunters from 30 states have signed up for a contest called the “Python Challenge,” which begins Jan. 12 and offers $5,000 in prize money for those who slay the longest and largest number of the invasive snakes. Source: South Florida Water Management District via Bloomberg
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A flourishing population of Burmese pythons in South Florida is devouring animals such as bobcats and opossums, and threatening endangered species. So the state devised a solution: offer cash for hunters to kill them.
More than 670 hunters from at least 30 states have signed up for a contest called the “Python Challenge,” which begins Jan. 12 and offers $5,000 in prize money for those who slay the longest and largest number of the invasive snakes. They’ll trawl 1.3 million acres (526,091 hectares), including part of the Everglades National Park, looking for snakes that the state says threaten the ecosystem and native wildlife.
“It sounds like a fun thing to do,” said Adam Danker-Feldman, 24, a New York financial analyst who said he’s never hunted and signed up based on a friend’s suggestion. “He said, ‘Book your tickets, this is going to be an adventure.’”
Burmese pythons, native to Southeast Asia, eat endangered animals in and around the Everglades, including the Key Largo woodrat, a brown and white rodent with a hairy tail found only in the Florida Keys.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-10/killing-pythons-for-cash-lures-hunters-to-florida-s-everglades
