MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Steve, you are a well-traveled person.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
I guess.
MARTIN: So did you know about the Florida Python Challenge?
INSKEEP: No, this is a challenge of pythons, I assume, like a big python race.
MARTIN: No, it is not.
INSKEEP: OK.
MARTIN: It is held every year in the Florida Everglades. Members of the public are invited to hunt...
INSKEEP: Ah.
MARTIN: ...And then humanely kill Burmese pythons.
INSKEEP: OK, doesn't sound good. Go on.
MARTIN: Well, not for the pythons. Donna Kalil was one of more than 800 people who participated this year.
DONNA KALIL: I wound up catching 19 pythons. That won me the first prize in the professional category.
MARTIN: She was one snake behind the grand prize winner, who bagged 20 snakes out of the 200 that were captured.
INSKEEP: (Laughter) The professional category...
MARTIN: Professional category.
INSKEEP: So there's an amateur category, too. Go on.
MARTIN: Well, clearly - probably a youth category, too. I don't know about that. But Kalil says the scariest moment of her hunt came when she encountered a 12-foot python in a swamp.
KALIL: I was able to get behind it and straddle it. And as soon as it noticed that I was there, I grabbed it behind the head and then started wrestling. And as I started wrestling, it started coming out of the swamp because I really only saw about 3 or 4 feet of it. And as it started coming out of the swamp, I saw, you know, how big it was.
INSKEEP: OK, why do people do this?
MARTIN: Well, it turns out that Burmese pythons are an invasive species. Florida wildlife officials say they disrupt the local ecosystem.
INSKEEP: OK, so thanks to this year's competition, that's 200 snakes down. And how many to go?
MARTIN: Think a couple hundred thousand more...
INSKEEP: What?
MARTIN: ...Is what I hear. Yes.
KALIL: If you want to come out and help remove them, we have programs that you can do that with. And if you go out on your own, please go out with a friend, be careful and stay safe.
INSKEEP: You know, I'm willing to try just about anything, but I ain't going out there on my own.
MARTIN: Yeah, no, they don't need to tell me twice either.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
MARTIN: But if you do, Steve, if you just happen to change your mind, resist the urge to take one home. And I really mean this since we live near each other.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
MARTIN: Transporting live pythons is illegal in the state of Florida.
INSKEEP: And if it's not illegal elsewhere, it ought to be.
MARTIN: And don't eat them. Don't eat them.
INSKEEP: OK.
MARTIN: It's legal in Florida to eat a Burmese python. You shouldn't 'cause they might contain mercury.
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