{"id":335399,"date":"2026-07-10T06:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T06:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/335399\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T06:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T06:17:08","slug":"burmese-pythons-meet-their-match-as-florida-python-challenge-begins-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/335399\/","title":{"rendered":"Burmese pythons meet their match as Florida Python Challenge begins | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

LEE COUNTY, Fla. (WINK)\u2014The Florida Python Challenge begins overnight, sending hundreds of people into the Everglades to hunt\u00a0invasive\u00a0Burmese<\/a>\u00a0pythons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last year, 294 invasive Burmese pythons were removed from the Everglades during the Florida Python Challenge. With the 10-day challenge beginning tomorrow, WINK News spoke with the South Florida Water Management District to find out how much this contest is helping.<\/p>\n

For 13 years, hunters have entered the Everglades looking for pythons. Mike Kirkland with SFWMD said the fight continues despite the challenges ahead.<\/p>\n

“Eradication is not a reasonable objective at this point,” Kirkland said.<\/p>\n

However, that’s no reason to quit. In fact, it’s the reason Kirkland says the challenge must go on.<\/p>\n

“I am optimistic, however,” Kirkland said. “Full eradication is not the goal right now, but we, you know, we’re certainly not giving up the fight by any means, and I really think that we are going to start to, to at least make some progress against this issue.”<\/p>\n

Kirkland says to understand the python problem, don’t look at the snake \u2014 look at where deer, foxes and possums used to be.<\/p>\n

“If you go to Everglades National Park, you’d be hard pressed to find a single mammal right now, and that is all attributed to the Python invasion,” Kirkland said.<\/p>\n

When asked what the Everglades would say if it could speak for itself, Kirkland had a stark answer.<\/p>\n

“I think the Everglades would be crying for help right now,” Kirkland said.<\/p>\n

Kirkland stresses the challenge isn’t about python bloodlust. Instead, it’s not just removal but humane removal that is critical during the challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEE COUNTY, Fla. (WINK)\u2014The Florida Python Challenge begins overnight, sending hundreds of people into the Everglades to hunt\u00a0invasive\u00a0Burmese\u00a0pythons.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[12509,138151,209,211,210,3879,28,116511,356,33613,807],"class_list":["post-335399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-burmese-python","tag-burmese-pythons-in-florida","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-everglades","tag-florida","tag-florida-python-challenge","tag-lee-county","tag-python","tag-south-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}