A 10-day contest held to raise awareness of the dangers the invasive snakes bring to the state's ecology saw a 19-year-old South Florida resident capture 28 Burmese pythons.
The yearly challenge attracted 1,000 competitors from 32 states, Canada, and Latvia, including Matthew Concepcion, according to a news release from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The competition resulted in the removal of 231 undesirable pythons.
Concepcion received the $10,000 Ultimate Grand Prize as thanks from the Bergeron Everglades Foundation for his work. The longest python was removed by Dustin Crum, who received a $1,500 grand prize. It measured just over 11 feet (3.3 meters).
A group of researchers caught the largest Burmese python ever recorded in Florida earlier this year. According to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, that female python measured approximately 18 feet long (5 meters), weighed 215 pounds (98 kilograms), and had 122 developing eggs.
Since Florida's anti-cruelty legislation is the only protection for Burmese pythons, participants had to provide documentation that each snake was killed humanely.
Since pythons are active at night and seek out the warmth of highways, Concepcion told the South Florida SunSentinel that he has been hunting them for approximately five years. He spots them with the help of his car's lights.
However, this year he only saw one on the Everglades roads, so he changed tactics.
"I noticed a few hatchings while working a levee and thought, Dang, this might be the ticket! So starting that day, I went outside every single night from just before sunset to just before sunrise.
Concepcion claims to have walked the canal while probing the bushes with a torch. He told the newspaper that because smaller snakes are so effectively concealed, he looks for their shadows cast by the flashlight beam. Larger snakes, though, are simpler to locate.
"They will have a little hint of purple. They are extremely lovely.
Concepcion said he might spend some of his cash to outfit his van with bright illumination so he can find more snakes.
"Our python hunters are dedicated to their work and deeply concerned with Florida's fragile ecosystem. In a news release, South Florida Water Management District Governing Board Member "Alligator Ron" Bergeron stated, "We are removing record numbers of pythons and we're going to stay at it."