Python hunter, fashion designer join forces
call himself a hunter. His girlfriend challenged him to catch pythons to protect his passion for Florida wildlife.
“I used to go hunt with a camera and take pictures of wildlife, but this is an invasive hunt,” Crum said. “It's an environmental hunt. These snakes are destroying our ecosystem.”
Burmese pythons were first brought to Florida as pets but were released, either intentionally or accidentally, into the wild when they grew to an unmanageable size.
“Miami has always been a hub for exotic pets and trade,” Crum said. “There was a breeding facility in Homestead that got leveled by Hurricane Andrew. We know for a fact there were 900 baby pythons that literally got blown into the Park.”
The snakes began to reproduce and wiped out about 95 percent of the mammal population in parts of the park, according to Crum, who said pythons eat marsh rabbits, raccoons, gray squirrels, bobcats, deer, birds and sometimes alligators.
Hawks can eat python hatchlings, but the larger snakes have no local natural predator. They can travel long distances and females have been found carrying over 100 developing eggs.
Python growth could cause irreversible damage to the Everglades, said Crum, who first participated in the Python Challenge in 2013. He caught nine snakes the first time out and 33 in 2016. Everglades National