![]() It would be a good thing for people to hunt and eat them but we need to make sure they’re safe first.” “This would be a wonderful way to get more people involved with helping us remove pythons from the environment. She also likes turning the snakes into jerky.Ī post shared by Donna Kalil really good when you cook it right,” Kalil told CNN. Later, she adds pasta sauce, chili or stir fry. ![]() First, she uses a pressure cooker to make the meat soft and tender. She then turns their white meat into food. When she catches smaller ones, about 7 feet long, she uses a mercury testing kit she bought online to confirm they’re safe to eat. Kalil is the first female hunter in the python removal program, according to Kirkland, and she has so far captured and euthanized 473 pythons. When pythons are safe to eat, they can actually be quite delicious, says Donna Kalil, one of the program’s python hunters. “We expect the results are going to discourage the public from consuming pythons, but if we can determine that they are safe to eat, that would be very helpful to control their population,” he said. “Mercury bioaccumulates in the environment and you will find high levels of mercury at the top of the food chain where pythons have unfortunately positioned themselves.” ![]() “Mercury is a natural occurring element in the environment and it is high in the Everglades,” Mike Kirkland, the Python Elimination Program manager, told CNN. Python hunters Kevin Pavlidis, left, and Ryan Ausburn hold their record-breaking 18-foot, 9-inch python caught as part of Florida's Python Elimination Program. The objective of the study is to develop and share “consumption advisories for Burmese pythons in South Florida to better inform the public,” Neel said, with the hope that Floridians could soon eat pythons to help manage their populations So far, more than 6,000 pythons have been removed from the Everglades through the program. The contractor program – The Python Elimination Program – is led by commission and the South Florida Water Management District, which is funding the new mercury study. “The plan is to have most of these samples come from pythons that are caught by our contractor program.” We are currently in the tissue collection stage of the project, and Covid has pushed our timeline back a bit,” wildlife commission spokeswoman Susan Neel told CNN. “It is early on in the process for the mercury study. The FWC encourages residents to remove and humanely kill pythons when they can at any time during the year, and to report any sightings to officials. The snake is not native to the state, and began appearing in the Everglades in the 1980s when it was likely introduced as an escaped or released pet. Pythons are nonvenomous constrictors primarily found in south Florida where they have posed a serious risk to native wildlife in the region. Florida putting squeeze on invasive snakes with 'Python Challenge' hunt
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