Custom trophies

Once the necropsies are complete, the hunters can reclaim their dead snakes. About a third of them have been turned over to Brian Wood of All American Gator in Hollywood.

Half the hunters want him to make something from the pythons they caught — a wall hanging, a pair of boots, or a purse for the wife at a fraction of the cost of a python clutch bearing a luxury designer logo.

The other half are selling him their dead snakes for up to $150 apiece — about the same price Wood pays for fully processed, tanned and dyed python skins imported from Asia. (In Wood’s store, swatches show python skins dyed teal, rose pink, pale yellow and metallic gold, among other hues.)

Wood also turned about 20 pythons caught during the 2013 Python Challenge into accessories. Pythons that once slithered through the Everglades now slide out of pockets as black-andwhite billfolds or hang off arms as roomy purses. A couple now stride down sidewalks, transformed into pairs of Chuck Taylor sneakers.

“It’s kind of cool to be able to get something that’s invasive, not something that’s endangered,” Wood said.

He says he regularly supplies European luxury brands with alligator skins, but they aren’t interested in Florida’s pythons. The state’s invasive snakes aren’t tracked by international trade conventions, and the volume can’t compare with the hundreds of thousands of python skins supplied each by about 10 countries in Southeast Asia.

They’re also looking for sustainable sources of python skins, while Florida just wants to be rid of its python supply.

Unfortunately, pythons are not Wood’s only supply of invasive species leathers.

“I’m trying to promote this lizard we have that’s taken over,” he says, meaning iguanas, which his sons are hired to hunt in South Florida’s urban and suburban environments.