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" Time to check on the progress of Florida&amp;#039;s first-ever Python Challenge. That&amp;#039;s the great snake-hunting contest launched last weekend to kill off the non-native Burmese pythons that invaded the Everglades. So far, 21 snake corpses have been handed over to authorities. But it&amp;#039;s not too late to get in on the competition. No snake experience necessary (except for passing an online course that explains how to identify a python.) Plus, there are cash prizes in two categories. When the hunt ends at midnight Feb. 10, the person who nabbed the longest snake wins $1,000, and the person who bags the most pythons wins $1,500. The opportunity to thrash around the fringes of the giant swamp in search of these elusive exotics and then kill them has attracted some 1,141 hunters from 30 states, who plunked down $25 each to join the fun, but will the Python Challenge succeed? Esquire consulted Robert Reed, a python expert in charge of the U.S. Geological Survey&amp;#039;s invasive species branch at its Fort Collins, Colo. science center. A year ago, Reed was in Florida tracking the migration of pythons \u2014 they&amp;#039;re the Michael Phelps of invasives \u2014 down the Keys. More recently, he&amp;#039;s begun monitoring the python incursion to the west as they close in on Naples. &amp;quot;Having a bunch of people go out and search for pythons is fine,&amp;quot;&amp;#039;he said. &amp;quot;Removing pythons is great, the fewer the better. But it&amp;#039;s not going to result in a severe decline in python numbers.&amp;quot; By now, anyone who hasn&amp;#039;t heard that the Burmese Python established a beachhead in south Florida a couple of decades ago isn&amp;#039;t keeping up with the plethora of reptile-hunting shows on the cable channels. Hurricane Andrew gets blamed for redistributing the contents of a couple of reptile warehouses over the Everglades in 1992, although most snake experts say the Everglades Burmese python colony was more likely founded by abandoned pets that had outgrown their welcome. (Note to Python Challenge contestants: if you kill a pet python by mistake you will be disqualified. No explanation for how to make that determination.) At any rate, these invaders have been swallowing alarming numbers of raccoons, opossums, rabbits and the occasionally deer \u2014 and have no effective predators, never mind those gator-versus-python videos on YouTube.  Scientists don&amp;#039;t like to talk numbers because they really have no idea how many pythons now inhabit the Everglades: &amp;quot;You won&amp;#039;t find anyone who would say fewer than 10,000,&amp;quot; Reed said. &amp;quot;But between 10,000 and 100,000? That&amp;#039;s anyone&amp;#039;s guess.&amp;quot;  The more relevant point is that the snakes are &amp;quot;established,&amp;quot; meaning, there&amp;#039;s no getting rid of them. The best hope now is for population &amp;quot;control.&amp;quot; Success on that front has been limited. Efforts to thin the numbers include snake-sniffing dogs, traps baited with live mice, and &amp;quot;Judas&amp;quot; snakes equipped with GPS devices that lead hunters to other pythons. A contingent of state-licensed volunteer snake wranglers works year-round. Combined, all these methods net a few hundred a year. Maybe 350 tops. Far more lethal was a cold snap a few winters ago. But with climate change, what&amp;#039;s the Sunshine State to do? Enter Florida&amp;#039;s quirky Gov. Rick Scott. He gets the credit for dreaming up the idea of a python &amp;quot;round-up,&amp;quot; although his original concept made it sound more like a cattle drive. (Contest rules stress killing the snakes humanely and recommend as the weapon of choice a captive bolt \u2014 a device used to euthanize heifers on the way to slaughter.) To some, the notion of dispatching a posse of armed out-of-staters to shoot up the Everglades in pursuit of large, deadly snakes sounded a little too quirky, even for Florida. Reed thinks the greater risk is venturing into the Everglades itself, where the competitors are more likely to blunder into poison wood, fall into holes, or get lost than they are to actually come face-to-face with a python.  &amp;quot;You hear a lot of people saying that we nearly eliminated bison from the Great Plains so we should be able to eliminate pythons from a much smaller area,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;But a python in the Everglades is absolutely nothing like a bison standing on a prairie. We only see them rarely when they cross a road or bask on a levee.&amp;quot; In any event, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is making the best of the situation. The commission folks describe the python challenge not as a killing contest, but a &amp;quot;public awareness campaign&amp;quot; about the threat exotic species post to Florida \u2014 and that has a distinct upside. &amp;quot;If people have a raised awareness about invasive species maybe they&amp;#039;ll be less likely to dump their kids&amp;#039; fish tank in the nearest canal,&amp;quot; Reed said. Pet piranhas love Florida, too. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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