Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was in Miami-Dade County to kick off the 2021 Python Challenge on Thursday.
DeSantis held a news conference to begin registration for the annual event just west of the Miccosukee Resort and Casino in southwest Miami-Dade.
The 10-day event will run from July 9 to 18, with prizes going to participants who catch the most and the biggest pythons.
"These things will eat everything," DeSantis said. "If they're just running roughshod over all the other species, that's not what we want."
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DeSantis said 2020 was a record year for python removal, and hopes that will continue in 2021.
"There's people from all over the world that want to come do the Python Challenge," he said.
The event began as a way for hunters to help control the population of the invasive Burmese python in the Florida Everglades.
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Florida has made several efforts to increase hunting of the giant snake, including making the hunt a yearly event instead of three years while holding other events such as the Python Bowl.
That 10-day contest was held around the same time as Super Bowl LIV in Miami Gardens in 2020 and gave out gifts and cash to the hunters who killed the most and biggest of the non-native snakes.
“We hope we can minimize the python's impact until sometime in the future when some sort of silver bullet will be available,” Kristen Sommers, a wildlife impact manager for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said in 2020.
Each adult female lays between 60 and 100 eggs per year. Once the snakes reach adulthood in about five years, they have no Florida predators besides armed humans and the occasional sawgrass death match with an adult alligator.
To register for the 2021 Python Challenge, or for more information, click here.
