Florida Teen Wins $10,000 for Hunting Invasive Pythons | Smart News

Nineteen-year-old Matthew Concepcion killed 28 invasive snakes this yr through the annual Burmese python hunt in Florida, incomes him the $10,000 Ultimate Grand Prize, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced. 

“Still on cloud nine,” Concepcion tells Jessica Vallejo of NBC 6 South Florida. “Couldn’t believe it.”

The ten-day competitors was created in 2013 to assist rid the Everglades of the invasive snakes, which have few pure predators and are decimating native species. 

Burmese pythons have been launched into the U.S. from Asia as a part of the unique pet commerce. Between 1996 and 2006, about 99,000 pythons have been introduced over. Experts imagine that house owners launched the snakes after they grew too massive to deal with, and the reptiles started breeding within the wild. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew destroyed a python breeding facility, and subsequent storms have probably continued to let snakes escape their enclosures and get unfastened within the Everglades.

The pythons have since wolfed up mammals, birds and reptiles, even preying on animals as massive as deer and alligators. Between 1997 and 2012, raccoon populations dropped 99.3 p.c, opossums plummeted 98.9 p.c and bobcats declined 87.5 p.c within the southern area of the Everglades. Marsh rabbits, cottontail rabbits and foxes nearly disappeared. 

To make issues worse, the voracious snakes breed rapidly: Females can lay 50 to 100 eggs at a time, per the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. 

“The challenge is designed to remove as many pythons from the area as possible,” Michael Kirkland, a biologist with the South Florida Water Management District, informed CNN’s Sara Smart in August. “Human detection and removal are the most efficient and effective tools in the toolbox right now.” 

Altogether, about 1,000 members from 32 states within the U.S., Canada and Latvia culled 231 pythons this yr. Per the problem guidelines, hunters might be disqualified for killing a python inhumanely or for killing a local snake.

“It’s all about our ecosystem,” Concepcion tells NewsNation’s Morning in America. “I love Florida. I love the Everglades. I love to see it grow, and these snakes aren’t letting that happen.” 

Concepcion tells Bill Kearney of the South Florida Sun Sentinel that he’s been looking pythons for about 5 years. Usually, he makes use of his truck lights to identify snakes which are trying for heat from the highway. This yr, nevertheless, he shifted methods after discovering a number of hatchlings in a levee. 

“So, every single night from then on, I went out there—just before sundown to sunup,” he tells the publication.

Throughout his python-hunting profession, Concepcion has been bitten 4 or 5 occasions, per the Sun Sentinel. He’s additionally needed to dodge different hazards, together with black widow and brown recluse spiders, writes Kendall Beebe of Fox 35 Orlando.

“Every time I am out there, I am scared to be out there,” Concepcion tells the publication. “You don’t know what’s going to crawl in the truck.” 

This yr’s prize for the longest snake went to Dustin Crum for a python that stretched simply over 11 ft. 

The 231 invasive snakes culled this yr may simply scratch the floor of Florida’s python inhabitants. Some consultants imagine there could possibly be greater than 100,000 of those creatures within the state, as Newsweek’s Jess Thomson wrote in June. But the hunters aren’t planning to cease anytime quickly, officers say.

“Our python hunters are passionate about what they do and care very much about Florida’s precious environment,” South Florida Water Management District Governing Board Member “Alligator Ron” Bergeron says in a statement. “We are removing record numbers of pythons, and we’re going to keep at it.”