Wildlife officials believe the new python population started because of snakes that were released or escaped from captivity ...

On July 10, hundreds of professional and amateur snake hunters entered the annual Florida Python Challenge, a 10-day race to remove as many of the invasive animals as possible from the Everglades. The ...

Ahead of the 2025 Florida Python Challenge, the Naples Daily News and The News-Press interviewed Zac Chejanovski, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Python Management Coordinator.

A ball python, also called the royal python, is a less troublesome cousin to the Burmese, and has been eating its way through the Everglades for decades. Ball pythons are native to west sub Saharan ...

Years of snake-tracking data reveal the conditions that boost success and that could be incorporated into an app to aid in hunting Burmese pythons.

The annual Florida Python Challenge is only a few weeks away, but participants will have trouble matching a new record set earlier this month. Between November 2025 and April 2026, researchers removed ...

The 2025 Python Challenge removed a record 294 invasive Burmese pythons from Florida ecosystems. The winner, Taylor Stanberry, removed 60 Burmese pythons and took home a $10,000 prize. The 10-day ...

The News-Press and Naples Daily News asked Kodiak Hengstebeck of the FWC 10 questions about this year's Python Challenge.

It's important for new or wanna-be python hunters to understand the basics when it comes to eliminating the invasive ...