Kicker: Snake hunting side gig

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Looking to earn a little extra money in a side gig? 

Here’s an idea. Florida is hiring snake hunters as part of its Python Elimination Program. The South Florida Water Management District is hiring 25 more snake hunters in the Everglades. They’re offering base pay of just under $9 an hour plus bonuses.

You’ll get $50 per python up to four feet and $25 for each additional foot. If you nab a python guarding a nest of eggs, that’s another $200. 

Animal lovers may cringe, but python hunter Mike Kimmel told WPTV that we must consider the big picture.

KIMMEL: They automatically think killing an animal’s bad and they don’t realize that there’s no other choice. We have to kill this invasive species to save our native wildlife.

How’d this happen? Well, over the years people would buy Burmese Pythons, get tired of them, and release them in the Everglades. The snakes thrived in that environment.

But the massive snakes are literally eating away the ecosystem, harming native species. 

So far the python program has eliminated more than 2,500 of the invasive snakes.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

(Photo/Python Elimination Program)

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