Hunters hit Everglades for annual Florida Python Challenge

It takes a special breed of person to hunt pythons. As much as $30,000 in prizes and the title of best hunter await in this year’s Florida Python Challenge.

If you think hundreds of people are trudging through the South Florida swamps in a frenzy, pulling out pythons left and right? Think again.

WINK News talked with Amy Siewe, also known as the “Python Huntress,” and her fiancé Dave Roberts. They track and kill pythons nearly every night in the Florida Everglades.

“All the time; this is our life,” said Dave. “This is our… not just our livelihood. This is our life.”

But how does a couple from Indiana end up hunting big snakes in Florida?

“I could tell when she’s holding the snake. The very first one standing on top of the truck. I’m looking at her, and I took a picture. You can see the look on her face. We were going home to pack,” said Dave.

What was supposed to be a brief trip to Florida and a mere python-hunting experience became Amy’s passion. Giving up her career in real estate, Amy took the leap of faith and moved to Southwest Florida to pursue her passion. It didn’t take long for Dave to follow suit.

“We started guiding the Python hunts,” said Amy.

The pair are competing in the Florida Python Challenge and hopes to find some big pythons and win some big prizes. Nevertheless, the main goal is improving the ecosystem in the Everglades by reducing, and hopefully, one day eliminating the invasive species.

“Every single Python that we’re taking out of the Everglades is saving the lives of hundreds of our native species,” said Amy.

“I think it’s a real eye-opener for people when they come out here expecting that,” Amy said, “and then they see they’re out here for, you know, the first five days, and they don’t see a python at all.”

On Friday, WINK News joined them on their hunt and used lights to search for the invasive snakes. While Amy and Dave didn’t snare a python from the swamp, the couple told WINK News that is common during the first few days of the Florida Python Challenge.

“Because there are so many people out there and it’s not necessarily the other people aren’t catching it’s that there’s so much vibration and activity out there that pythons just aren’t coming out the way that they normally would,” said Amy.

It usually takes an average of 12 hours to catch a python. However, adding the fact that there are more than a thousand others out in the Everglades hoping to cash in, it can prove difficult to find that big python they’re all searching for.

All it took was catching one python on her trip to Florida for the couple to pack up their lives in Indiana and move to Southwest Florida. Ever since then, they have loved going out every night to do their part to eliminate the invasive threat to the Everglades ecosystem.

Click here for more information about the Python challenge.