How Much Do Florida Python Hunters Get Paid?
McKayla Spencer, with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation as the Interagency Python Management Coordinator, works with a Burmese python used to train dogs to detect them in the Florida Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The Python Challenge is currently happening in the Florida Everglades and more than 800 python hunters are out there hunting, trying to score prize money. NY Post reports “Cash prizes of up to $2,500 are available in both the professional and novice categories for those who remove the most pythons”
Python hunting isn’t just a once a year thing.
So, The South Florida Water Management District sponsors an ongoing ‘Python Elimination Program’ and is searching for “a limited number of public-spirited individuals to humanely euthanize these destructive snakes which have become an invasive apex predator in the Everglades. The program provides access to python removal agents on designated lands in Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward, Collier, Hendry, Lee, and Palm Beach counties.”
So how much do you get paid to hunt the Florida Python?
- An hourly rate ($10.00 per hour or $15.00 per hour depending on the area) for up to ten (10) hours each day while actively searching for pythons on designated lands.
- An additional incentive payment of $50.00 for each python measuring up to four (4) feet plus an extra $25.00 for each foot measured above four (4) feet. See example below:
- An additional $200.00 for each verified active nest.
South Florida Water Management District
You want in? Apply Here
As you can see, you CAN make this into a full time job. This guy gets paid + it looks like he’s monetized a You Tube channel. His videos are insane.
Python Cowboy Found An Everglades Python Nest With A Large Snake Guarding 45 Eggs
Pythons are a huge problem in the Everglades, which is why the state has 25 state-contracted invasive python hunters in the Florida Everglades. One of them being Python Cowboy. I’ve seen enough of these videos to know that hunting pythons in the swamp is completely insane. There’s just so many things there that want to kill you. So to go in, hunt, and capture these gigantic pythons is insane. Even better is when they bring along cameras to capture it all for their Youtube channel. The channel “Python Cowboy” has 132,000 subscribers and provides some amazing footage. In his latest video his hunting dog, Moose, comes across a nest. A giant mama python guarding 45 (or more) eggs. When you watch the video you’ll probably have the same question I have, which is “why doesn’t he use some kind of hook or tool?”. Dude literally reaches into the nest and grabs a monster snake by the neck. The video description is “We Found The Biggest Python Nest With Over 45 Eggs On Python Island. Allie, moose and I are heading out to python islands to check out the GPS locations I’ve marked over the last year to see what we can find. This trip did not disappoint. We ended up finding a python nest. It was one of the biggest python nest I’ve found. ”
The Everglades are so crazy we actually have a category for it on our website. The other question I had on this video was “what does he do with the eggs?” He freezes them and sells them for educational purposes. My money would have been on frying them up. I wonder what a python egg would taste like? Like chicken? I put so much hot sauce on my eggs I doubt that I’d even notice the difference.
Joe Winner spends his days combing through memes and off beat stories to bring you the side of Florida not always seen.
