Should you become a snake bounty hunter?
No, but you will look cool doing it.
In Florida, where I live, we have a problem with Burmese Pythons. Introduced by people whose pets outgrew their ability to care for them (or by mistake), they’re now an invasive species.
If you’ve ever been to the Everglades, you know how difficult it would be to estimate their population, but the best guesses range from 30,000 to 300,000 animals. They’re starting to show up in backyards. I’m told they’re not a danger to humans. I’m suspicious.
To help stem the tide, the state has introduced a bounty program. You need a license, but the state will pay you for every snake you bring in.
To summarize, the Burmese python population is out of control, and Florida will pay you to catch them. (Dead, not alive, so you don’t need to bring a cage with food and water on your hunting trip.) There are plenty of snakes out there to catch.
Should you do it? Should you become Snake the Bounty Hunter?
There are two ways to make this decision. Let’s start with the first. You already sport a mullet, drive an F-150, enjoy toting around a 12-gauge shotgun, and regularly wear a machete on your hip. C’mon. Don’t try to hide it. I know you’re thinking about this. Everyone else? Probably not so much. (You’re no fun.)
But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’ve made the (hope-it’s-not-rash) decision to trek into the Everglades and bring home some dead snakes. How do the numbers add up?
Let’s ignore the supplies—the aforementioned gun, machete, and pickup truck. You’ve got those. Let’s also ignore the cost of the license (it’s $79 for five years if you’re a resident).
Instead, let’s begin with the end in mind and ask the rational question: Can you make a living doing this?
The median annual income in Florida is as good a benchmark as any. In 2023, that was $45,070. Sure, most people would like to make more than that, but I think we can agree that getting to the income midpoint is a good first goal.
The question then becomes, how many snakes do you need to catch to make just over $45K each year?
To answer that question, we need to know how the state of Florida’s bounty program works. It’s all about the length of the snake.
Ignore the $13-$18/hour. That’s only appropriate if we’re looking for part-time work. That hourly rate works out to $27,000-$37,000 per year and is well below the median income. We can do better. Let’s also assume you find no nests. That’s a nice bonus, but nests are hard to find. We’re sticking with dead snakes.
The question we need to ask here is how long is the average python we’re likely to catch?
According to the Florida wildlife experts, most are between 6 and 9 feet. Some whoppers get to 18 feet, but they’re probably not the norm, and they’re the ones most likely to try to catch you. Let’s try to avoid them. Remember, we’re maximizing income, but we want to ensure a reasonable level of safety.
(Though the Everglades can be a dangerous place, often from mosquitoes, not alligators or snakes. Let’s assume you’ve got plenty of bug-repellant.)
Our average kill should measure about 7 feet long and net us a cool $125.
To find out how many snakes we need to kill to reach a median income, simply divide $45,070 by $125. When you do, you get 360.56. That’s about one snake per day for the entire year, assuming you take Christmas, New Year, and your birthday off.
Want to make this a regular 9-5 job? That’s a little tougher. Here’s how you’d do it. Instead of 365 days per year, most people’s “work year” is 260 days. Rerun the math, and you need 1.34 snakes per work day, on average, to make your number.
That doesn’t sound so hard, does it?
Not so fast.
In addition to the year-round bounty program, Florida runs a “Python Challenge” each year. Here’s the gist:
Nearly 1,000 participants from 32 states, Canada and Latvia came together to remove hundreds of Burmese pythons from south Florida as part of the 2022 Florida Python Challenge®. Participants removed 231 invasive Burmese pythons during the 10-day competition created to increase awareness about invasive species and the threats they pose to Florida’s ecology.
This guy won the $10,000 grand prize for nabbing 28 pythons:
Had our mulletless winner gone on his snake-killing spree off-contest, he would have netted only $3,500 (28 times $125). Not bad for 10 days. If that’s two work weeks, he averaged two snakes per day—well above the 1.35 he needed to reach the median income. For a full year, he would have cleared $65,000. That’s enough to afford the axle work on his truck, though seemingly not enough to buy a pair of shoes for his kid. Priorities.
But he was the best. What about the rest?
The other 999 people brought in 203 snakes, or about one for every five people. Lots of people only brought back mosquito bites.
For a better comparison, let’s look at the 2023 contest runner-up. He brought in 14 snakes in 10 days, or roughly 1.3 snakes per workday.
In other words, to make a decent living as a snake bounty hunter in Florida, and you’re not as good at branding or expanding business opportunities as the Python Huntress, you need to be the second-best hunter in the state. Hope springs eternal, I suppose.
Although you’d probably be better off working at Burger King, “Snake Bounty Hunter” is more likely to impress (certain types of) prospective partners on your dating app.
Worth a shot?
That’s up to you.
Since you won’t find me hacking through the Everglades hunting for Pythons, I’m more interested in a different question:
Will Florida’s program (as it’s currently designed) work?
No. Probably not.
Let’s forget about how difficult it is to clear out an invasive species, especially one that likes to hide and is very good at it.
The best historical parallel we have is for birds, not snakes, who (a) are much easier to find—often on purpose, and (b) tend to flock and roost together—especially during the breeding season.
What made birds in the Everglades so vulnerable in the early 1900s wasn’t that they were invasive but rather that they were fashionable. Well, the birds weren’t. Their feathers were. Mostly for hats. And the birds didn’t give up their feathers voluntarily.
In fact, the situation became so bad that hunters would routinely import birds as domestic supplies couldn’t keep up with demand.
The lesson here for Florida’s snake problem? They could try upping the bounty amount, but that would be just as likely to incentivize captive breeding. The real trick is to make snake meat, skins, or fangs fashionable.
Ideally, the better solution would be a crazy flash-in-the-pan sort of trend, like George Clooney wearing snakeskin briefs in a new movie.
(Please don’t ask Dall-E to generate that image, but if you do, please share it widely.)
That would force hunters to move into the area quickly to meet intense demand, disrupting the breeding cycle and crashing the population on purpose. And ideally, the Clooney snakeskin banana hammock craze would fizzle out just as quickly. We don’t want to create a perverse incentive to keep the invasive snakes around, and I suspect snakeskin briefs would chafe.
Other than that, I think we’re going to need to get used to pythons the same way us Floridians put up with iguanas and cane toads—just part of the scenery.
When I said "snake leather bikinis" were part of the answer for the Burmese Python invasive species program, I was joking. Apparently not...
https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/2024/06/26/burmese-pythons-florida-invasive-snake-gifts/73924522007/