10-day Everglades python hunt kicks off

A 10-day python hunting contest opened Friday in the Everglades, with cash and prizes for those who do the most to rid Florida of the snakes that are wiping out native wildlife.

The Florida Python Challenge held a kickoff event in Markham Park in Sunrise, as members of the public prepared to head into South Florida’s watery wilderness to root out snakes that are capable of consuming full-grown deer.

Bass Pro Shops donated two Tracker Off Road 570 ATVs as prizes for those who catch the most pythons, in pro and rookie categories. Other prizes include $2,000 for catching the longest python and for catching the heaviest python. Special prizes will be awarded to veterans and active-duty military contestants.

Burmese pythons, native to southern Asia, came to the Everglades through the exotic pet trade. They established breeding populations and took a terrible toll on native animals, especially mammals such as marsh rabbits. Extremely difficult to detect in the dense vegetation of South Florida marshes, they have confounded attempts to eradicate them.

Although more than 9,500 have been removed, many times that number remain. No one knows how many pythons there are, but estimated have been in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. The largest snakes removed have been more than 18 feet long.