Florida is known for sunshine, beaches, and wildlife. But deep in the Everglades, an unwelcome guest has made itself at home: the Burmese python. These snakes are not native to Florida, and they are widely believed to have arrived through the exotic pet trade.Once in the wetlands, these snakes grow quickly because a female can lay 50 to 100 eggs at a time. But the real trouble is what they eat.According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), they prey on birds, mammals, and other reptiles, harming the native fauna of the area.A 2012 study in Everglades National Park suggested they caused the 85 to 100 per cent decline in medium-sized animals like raccoons and rabbits. Since 2000, more than 23,000 wild pythons have been removed and reported to the FWC, yet they are still a major problem.Florida began hunting pythons fully around 2012, and the first Python Challenge followed in 2013 as a month-long contest.It included inviting everyone, from beginners to professionals, to help remove pythons and get involved in Everglades conservation. After the paid challenge launched in 2017, captures rose sharply, and today it runs as a ten-day hunt.But in 2025, Taylor Stanberry, who participated in the challenge, broke more than one record, and she isn’t the kind of person you might expect to see wrestling a snake that is nearly twice her size.
Meet Taylor Stanberry: the 4-foot-11 hunter who became the first woman to win Florida’s Python Challenge
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), Taylor Stanberry won the Ultimate Grand Prize at the 2025 Florida Python Challenge after removing 60 Burmese pythons during the 10-day competition, which earned her $10,000, being just 4-foot-11 and 29 years of age at the timeAccording to FWC, 934 participants removed a record 294 pythons from South Florida. The year before, only 195 pythons were removed, and the winner caught 20, according to the Naples Daily News. On the contrary, this time, Stanberry’s 60 snakes, 33 were female, and 27 were male, the FWC says.This wasn’t her first time around pythons. According to Flamingo magazine, she has hunted them for about ten years, since the age of 19, and catches more than a hundred each year. The 2025 challenge was simply her first time entering the challeng. “I didn’t realize I was the first female ultimate grand winner,” she told Flamingo. She also said she likes showing that women do this work, “I think it’s unique and cool that I can show that women do this.“
Her style is hands-on.
According to National Geographic, she even took off her shoes to hunt barefoot, which helped her move more easily through the cypress swamps. She usually grabs a python by the back of its head and the middle of its body, and her husband, Rhett, helps when a snake is extra large. It isn’t a good-smelling job, either, because pythons release a foul-smelling musk when threatened.
Burmese pythons impact the population of the native species
These snakes can grow up to 20 feet long and feed on native animals such as marsh rabbits, wood storks and Key Largo woodrats. They also compete with the endangered Florida panther for prey and brought Asian lungworm parasites that harm native reptiles.The FWC says more than 23,500 pythons were removed from Florida’s natural areas between 2000 and April 2025. Still, research assistant scientist Melissa Miller of the University of Florida says current tools are not enough to wipe them out, though she sees promise in gene-editing technology. Until then, FWC Chairman Rodney Barreto says, collective efforts are the key.
