Florida never ceases to amaze. Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the state’s latest effort to control the Burmese python problem in the Everglades involves turning the snakes into handbags, belts, and other “ethical exotic” leather goods. It’s the rare government program that’s both environmentally responsible and aggressively fashion-forward.

Before you draft an angry letter to Miami-based leather manufacturer Inversa, remember these snakes aren’t the garden-variety. Not only are Burmese pythons an invasive species, but they can grow over 15 feet long and consume everything from rabbits to deer, gutting Florida’s delicate ecosystem in the process.

“These things will take out a deer,” DeSantis said, according to WESH. “It’s unbelievable what they’re able to do.” Between May and July 2025, the state removed 1,022 pythons. That’s nearly three times more than the same period last year.

From Invasive Species to Luxury Snake Leather

Inversa, which launched in 2020, doesn’t breed or farm the animals. Instead, the company works with roughly 50 professional python hunters, many of whom came from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC) Python Action Team.

Each hide, the company says, represents the survival of hundreds of native animals that would have otherwise become python snacks.

“We’re removing as many pythons as possible while defraying the taxpayer’s burden,” Henri Ferré, Inversa’s head of development, told The New York Post. According to the governor’s office, the program has also reduced FWC’s administrative workload by 89 percent and boosted hunter pay by 60 percent. That might be the only time a government project has managed to make everyone—hunters, fashionistas, and accountants—happy.

The luxury world, naturally, has already sunk its teeth in. Inversa python leather has shown up in runway collections from Gabriela Hearst and KHAITE, where models strutted in coats and handbags that were, until recently, swallowing alligators whole.

Hearst called the company a “game-changer” in Vogue, crediting its use of invasive species for giving sustainability an actual bite.

Florida found a way to make conservation fashionable, which is about as unexpected as it gets for the Sunshine State. If it takes a python purse to keep the Everglades alive, that’s a trade the planet might have to live with.