Python Challenge Begins with Pizza in Everglades City

Snake hunters gathered in Everglades City’s famous pizza shop - Wildman’s Pizza, Pasta and Pythons - to kick off the 2025 Python Challenge on Friday, July 11. 

Marco Island’s Gator Nate played tunes fitting of the geographic and the demographic. 
Competitive hunters of the invasive snake gobbling up the Everglades’ native animal species met up with celebrity invasive Burmese python hunter Dusty Crum at what he described as the "officially unofficial" meetup spot of the annual Challenge, Wildman’s Pizza. 

“The meetup allows people to join in on the discussions, strategies, and overall camaraderie of this mission,” Crum announced. 

Crum buys, sells, and trades in pythons as well, making it a great place for hunters to enjoy a pizza. Python topping won’t be a menu option, unless a customer brings their own, warning that the mercury is likely too high, Crum has said. 

First-time hunters Austin Hatfield and Luis Carrasco signed up for the 10-day competition at the last minute, finishing the 45-minute online training course just in time, they said. 
The two new Burmese python hunters are from Leesburg, Florida, which is South of Ocala. They were drawn by adventure and a mission to protect the Everglades’ native animals. The hunt competition, which offers a $10,000 grand prize for the person who catches the most snakes, draws hundreds of people from throughout the state and beyond each year. 

“I’ve watched a lot of these shows,” said Hatfield, with "Guardians of the Glades,” starring Crum on the Discovery Channel, replaying on a large-screen TV behind the live-edge bar. 

Some of the longtime professional snake hunters are not allowed to speak directly with media if they are contractors with the government, including Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and South Florida Water Management District, which host the event. 

Still, anyone can talk with them as they holler at the new arrivals in friendly fun, wishing the newbies luck. 

“Just know that when they [poop] on you, you’re going to throw up,” one of the pros says while sitting in a booth. 

“I’ve got two kids, I’m used to it,” replies Carrasco, as he stands in the center, taking in the scene of Wildman’s place. 

“It’s way worse,” the experienced hunters reply about python excrement. 

Carrasco and Hatfield are U.S. Army recruiters. They’re wearing Crocs. 
“The old lambrofeeties,” Hatfield said, referring to his Florida footwear. 

They brought plenty of bug spray, he said. 
“Just bathe in it, you’ll be alright,” a long-timer scoffs. 

Bobby Radical of Marco Island was a snake wrangler with Crum for years. His footwear included python skin slippers with soft wool lining, allowing him to still be grounded and connected to the Earth, unlike if wearing rubber soles, Radical says. 

His ankle holster is for holding his cell phone, which he tucks back in place after reminiscing over old python catching highlights caught on camera. Radical has caught several snakes on Marco Island, he recounts. 

Steve Trodick, another hunter and designer of merchandise inspired by - but not made of pythons- shares images of himself from a magazine. “I’m the centerfold of Snake Skin magazine,” Trodick says, half-joking about it. 
“It’s going to be a challenge, it really is,” says Radical of the hunt as the rain and lightning continued outside. 

There are so many variables and so many people along U.S. 41 during a Challenge that it is even tougher to know how long it may take to catch a snake, but it’s easy to spend 10 hours and get one snake or often none, hunters say. 

Dogs and drones are not allowed in the Challenge. 

Participants pay $25 to register as either novices or professionals. 

Though python hunting has become big business with some big celebrity opportunities, most say they’re in it for the real mission - to save the Everglades and protect native animals. Others spend more on lodging and gas than they’ll ever see back. 
Professionals, in a sense, have advantages not just of experience but also they get a key to get on the levies, which allow for covering more ground. Sadly, the animals, escapees of the pet trade, are endangered in their native habitats, but can’t safely be sent from Florida to repopulate there. 

“Pythons are very fast in the water, whereas on land they’re very slow,” Radical says. 
When there’s a big hunt like this, it may be best to wait until about 2:00 AM to begin serious hunting, when many families have to get home, he suggested. 

Burmese pythons can bite, but the bite isn’t the most hurtful. Instead, they’re constrictors, with two muscular systems, and they defecate and get an awful-smelling musk on hunters as their defense, Radical describes. 

Jeffrey Campbell of the Seminole Tribe is one of the few Indigenous hunters and he hunts in a specific way, respecting his culture and also defending the Everglades, given the invasive species that began populating the Glades and eating almost all the native mammals since the 1980s. 

Campbell’s ancestry includes Creek Indians and Black Seminoles, who include African American people who fought in the Seminole Wars and hid out in the Everglades, escaping slavery, described by Thomas Lockyear, who put together an exhibit of the snake hunting history for the Museum of the Everglades in 2024. Campbell prefers to hunt deer, he says, but he hunts the python to protect the remaining animals and the Everglades ecosystem. 

Campbell is married to a Seminole tribal woman and lives near the Miccosukee Indian Reservation, requiring him to take extra care to return home without any of the hunt on him, he said. 

Since 2000, more than 23,000 Burmese pythons have been reported to FWC as removed from Florida’s environment. 
They are to be killed in a specific manner, including a shot to the head, at the time of the capture. 

While some hunters are out there to grab as many snakes as quickly as they can, some participants, such as professional hunter Donna Kalil, are out to protect native wildlife in any way they can, which for her meant getting roadkill out of the road to protect scavenger animals from getting injured on opening night. 

Like many of the participants, the first night was more about getting started, enjoying an unusually fiery red sunset following a rainstorm for Kalil, who shares occasional updates on social media. 

Last year, 850 hunters caught several hundred snakes within the 10 days. 

This year’s winners and Challenge details will be announced August 15, 2025.