Flanked by an enormous writhing snake, Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced on Thursday that the annual prize-winning hunt for invasive Burmese pythons within the Florida Everglades will start Aug. 5.
Individuals should register to take part and full a web based coaching course for the occasion, which usually attracts a whole bunch from throughout the nation. Final yr's "Python Problem" concerned greater than 600 folks from 25 states, DeSantis mentioned at a information convention within the Everglades.
Behind the Republican governor, it took three folks to carry a stay, 10-foot feminine python as an indication. The snakes have nearly no pure enemies within the Everglades and have decimated native populations of mammals, birds and different reptiles.
"These pythons are a risk to the Everglades," DeSantis mentioned. "Let's reel in some pythons."
The hunt begins Aug. 5 at 8 a.m. and ends Aug. 14 at 5 p.m. Prizes embrace $2,500 for probably the most pythons captured and $1,500 for the longest snake. Final yr, the first-prize winner captured 223 pythons, whereas the $1,500 winner bagged a snake that was greater than 15 ft lengthy. Snakes should be killed humanely.
DeSantis mentioned this yr's state funds contains $3 million particularly for python elimination within the Everglades, together with expertise equivalent to infrared sensors to find the hard-to-see snakes within the wild. A key level of the snake occasion, the governor mentioned, is to lift consciousness concerning the risk and allow folks to participate.
"We view this as a problem," he mentioned. "We actually needed to supercharge these efforts."
Since taking workplace, DeSantis has budgeted $3.3 billion for the Everglades Restoration Undertaking, CBS Miami reported. He introduced that his administration has launched 48 tasks associated to Everglades restoration.
Captive Burmese pythons let unfastened by Hurricane Andrew's destruction in 1992 have flourished within the southern Florida ecosystem, decimating native species within the course of.
As we speak the Everglades are overrun with the large snakes and it is had devastating penalties. A 2012 research by the U.S. Geological Survey discovered that after Andrew exacerbated the Burmese python invasion of the Florida Everglades, populations of raccoons and opossums dropped roughly 99 % and a few species of rabbits and foxes successfully disappeared.