PYTHON NUMBERS SLIDING DOWN

For $8 an hour plus bonuses, amateur hunters wrangle the reptiles out of the Everglades

Your tax dollars are being put to work to kill gigantic Burmese pythons invading the Everglades.

Hunters paid by the state to kill the predators have nabbed 81 snakes so far.

If you put those snakes end to end, they would span the length of more than two football fields, said Rory Feeney, land resources chief for the South Florida Water Management District.

The largest snake killed measured nearly 16 feet, 10 inches and was carrying 73 eggs in her belly.

Dusty “The Wildman” Crum, the hunter who nabbed the snake, told a Miami television station that catching such an impressive snake is not easy.

“It’s like Andre the Giant vs. Hulk Hogan, WrestleMania!” he said.

In a program launched March 25, the water district sought “to incentivize a limited number of public-spirited individuals to kill pythons,” according to the agency’s website.

Crum is among an elite squadron of snake hunters selected for the job. Only 25 of 1,000 applicants made the cut to hunt snakes on the district’s lands.

They are paid $8.10 an hour while hunting, along with bonuses for each snake they kill and additional bonuses for snakes with eggs. The district pays $50 for pythons up to 4 feet and $25 for each additional foot beyond that.

The pilot program is set to end on June 1. Just over $32,450 has been spent on the project, amounting to a cost of about $413 per python.

Officials say those costs are reasonable, given the threat the snakes pose to the Everglades.

“While the $413 per python seems like a big number, it is dramatically less than if we would have to go out there and catch all those pythons from those eggs,” district board member Mitch Hutchcraft said.

Estimates on how many Burmese pythons live in Florida vary widely, spanning from 10,000 to as many as 100,000.

Money and the thrill of the hunt aren’t the only perks for the state’s python wranglers: They also get to keep the carcasses.

Python skin can be tanned and fashioned into wallets, purses and gun holsters. While it’s not illegal to eat python meat, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has found it can have levels of mercury not safe for eating, and health officials have not declared it safe to consume.

JOEY WAVES, ISLAND MEDIA GROUP/COURTESY Dusty “The Wildman” Crum got the largest Burmese python of the two-month hunt so far, almost 17 feet and 130 pounds. He compared the endeavour to a WrestleMania match.

JOEY WAVES, ISLAND MEDIA GROUP/COURTESY Dusty Crum of Myakka City poses with the giant Burmese python he caught as part of the official state hunt in the Everglades. Of 1,000 applicants, only 25 hunters made the cut.