myfwc.com\/get-involved\/volunteer\/contact\/<\/a><\/p>\nPythons, Thompson noted, are nonnative and are not protected in Florida apart from animal-cruelty laws.<\/p>\n
They can be captured and humanely killed year-round without a permit or hunting license on 32 commission-managed lands in South Florida, with no bag limits, Thompson said.<\/p>\n
In Rotonda West last year, resident Wade Gardner caught one of the large reptiles and reported it to FWC.<\/p>\n
Gardner was able to catch a python that was 11 feet and 9 inches long with a 15-inch girth just four houses down from his Rotonda West residence.<\/p>\n
After capturing the snake, he contacted FWC.<\/p>\n
Gardner and two friends had a photo taken of them holding the captured python.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to call the other two to come over because we bulls— each other so often, neither one of them would have ever believed me,\u201d he stated. \u201c(We\u2019re just) three old guys that live off of making stupid pics with ChatGPT.\u201d<\/p>\n
FWC urges people wanting to get involved in the removal of Burmese pythons to have the knowledge and training to do so safely and humanely.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did what needed to be done, but I\u2019m far from a snake hunter by any means,\u201d Gardner said in a message. \u201cIt was a one-and-done experience for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every year, the state holds a contest against the pythons.<\/p>\n
Participants in the 2026 Florida Python Challenge removed 280 invasive Burmese pythons from South Florida during the 10-day event in July, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said.<\/p>\n
Tom Rahill won a $10,000 ultimate grand prize after removing 96 pythons, all from Everglades National Park.<\/p>\n
The competition drew 907 participants from 30 states and from Canada and Vietnam. Everglades National Park returned this year as one of eight official competition locations. The longest python taken in the event measured 16 feet, 5 inches and was removed by Rahm Levinson in the park.<\/p>\n
Burmese pythons prey on native species while reproducing quickly. A female can lay 50 to 100 eggs at a time.<\/p>\n
Since 2000, nearly 28,000 wild Burmese pythons have been removed from Florida and reported to the FWC.<\/p>\n
To learn more about invasive Burmese pythons visit: myfwc.com\/wildlifehabitats\/nonnatives\/python\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROTONDA WEST \u2014 Experts say Burmese pythons are in Charlotte County. But is it unclear if they\u2019ve slithered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[12509,209,211,210,853,8659,4747,33613,12689,150350],"class_list":["post-372162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-burmese-python","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlotte-county","tag-florida-fish-and-wildlife","tag-fwc","tag-python","tag-pythons","tag-wade-gardner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372162","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=372162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}