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A 19-year-old South Florida man has won $10,000 after he hunted 28 Burmese pythons during an annual contest to see who can catch the highest number of the invasive snakes in the Everglades.
Matthew Concepcion was among 1,000 participants from 32 states, Canada and Latvia who participated in the annual challenge, which saw 231 pythons removed in total.
Concepcion, who’s been hunting the snakes for five years, was awarded the Ultimate Grand Prize, while Dustin Crum won a $1,500 grand prize for removing the longest python, at just over 11 feet.
Concepcion told NBC News that he was on ‘cloud nine’ and ‘couldn’t believe he’d won.’
‘They’ll spot you from 50 yards away and they’ll turn around and foomph they’ll be gone,’ said the snake hunter, who’s been bitten five times.
‘It gets rough out there that’s for sure and you’ll start hallucinating out there just looking.
‘When they’re stretched out and they don’t know you’re there it’s the best way to grab them by the neck.’
While Florida is trying to get rid of the snakes, they’re still protected by state anti-cruelty laws, so hunters must be able to prove they’ve dispatched the animals humanely.
Matthew Concepcion (left), 19 has taken home $10,000 after he captured 28 invasive reptiles during a 10-day competition
The 19-year-old South Florida man has been hunting Burmese pythons for five years
Concepcion said that he was on ‘cloud nine’ and ‘couldn’t believe he’d won’
When explaining his history with pythons, Concepcion said if you ever find yourself in a hairy situation getting the slithery creatures to loosen their grip is as easy as offering them a drink
Typically Concepcion looks for pythons at night because that’s when they’re on the move, seeking the warmth of roads, but changed tactics during the challenge
When explaining his history with pythons, Concepcion said if you ever find yourself in a hairy situation getting the slithery creatures to loosen their grip is as easy as offering them a drink.
‘Their teeth retract backwards so you have to let them bite you and either pour alcohol in their mouths or pray that it lets you go,’ he said.
Typically Concepcion looks for pythons at night because that’s when they’re on the move, seeking the warmth of roads – usually using his vehicle lights to spot them, he told South Florida Sun Sentinal.
This year, however, he only spotted one on the roads in the Everglades, so he changed strategies and targeted levees instead.
‘I worked a levee, caught a couple hatchings, and was like, ‘Dang, this might be the ticket!’ So every single night from then on, I went out there — just before sundown to sunup,’ he explained.
‘They will have a slightly purple tint to them. They’re really beautiful.’
Captive Burmese pythons let loose by Hurricane Andrew’s destruction in 1992 flourished in the southern Florida ecosystem, decimating local species in the process.
It’s estimated that 98 per cent of many of the Everglades local mammals have been killed by the predators, with populations of fox and rabbits effectively extinct.
It’s also thought that the reptiles, indigenous to Southeast Asia, slithered their way into the Everglades during the 1990s because of the exotic pet trade.
Captive Burmese pythons let loose in the 1990s flourished in the southern Florida ecosystem, decimating local species in the process
The pythons aren’t protected except by Florida’s anti-cruelty law, so participants had to document that each one was killed humanely
Concepcion was among 1,000 participants from 32 states, Canada and Latvia who participated in the annual challenge, which saw 231 pythons removed.
Governor Ron DeSantis (center) said he was impressed by the results on the challenge and hopes the results will help the ecology of the area
Today the Everglades are overrun with the giant snakes and it’s had devastating consequences on the environment – the largest ever recorded in Florida was 18 feet long.
They prey on deer, racoons, possums, alligators and other indigenous species and in a release from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Governor Ron DeSantis said he was impressed by the results on the challenge.
‘Once again, the Florida Python Challenge has yielded impressive results with hundreds of invasive pythons being removed from the wild,’ said Governor Ron DeSantis in a release from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
‘Removing these snakes is one of the many efforts we are employing to restore and maintain the Everglades ecosystem.’
The U.S. Geological Survey reported in 2012 that there are ‘tens of thousands’ of the snakes in Florida, with some estimates being as high as 300,000.
Females can lay as many as 100 eggs per clutch and the state has said that more than 17,000 of invasive animals have been removed from the wild since 2000.
