Florida wants you to kill as many of the invasive Burmese pythons as you can during the 10-days contest in July. But you can't shoot them.

The 2025 Florida Python Challenge, a competition to remove invasive Burmese pythons, runs from July 11 to 20. Ahead of the 2025 Florida Python Challenge, the Naples Daily News and The News-Press interviewed Zac Chejanovski, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Python Management Coordinator.

With $25,000 of prizes in play including a $10,000 grand prize, the effort targets invasive Burmese pythons, seeking to protect traditional Floridian wildlife from the slithering scourges introduced to the state as pets in the 1980s only to develop a foothold in South Florida after Hurricane Andrew’s historic destruction in 1992.