The serpent killing competition culminated on the most romantic day of the year.
More than 600 snake hunters migrated down to the Everglades in January to compete in Florida's month-long Python Challenge.
Edward Mercer / Via Facebook: PythonChallenge
Teams of families, lovers, and friends spent their Valentine's Day finishing up the snake killing challenge.
In total, 102 Pythons were captured and killed by the 14th – far more than the 68 killed in the first and only other competition in 2013.
The team that killed the most – or the longest – pythons, will win up to $16,000 cash prizes, to be awarded in a ceremony at the end of February.
Devin Belliston / Via Facebook: PythonChallenge
The challenge began in 2013 when the Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission realized that the tens of thousands of Burmese pythons slithering through their state's subtropical wilderness were beginning to threaten the existence of other native mammals.
The population of foxes, raccoons, rabbits, and even the famous Florida panthers, were at risk of decreasing past the point of recovery, the website for the event says.
The commission decided to deal with the overpopulation crisis by inviting teams of human snake hunters to compete in a python-killing spree for money.
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1OapXlJ
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