The hype surrounding Florida’s python hunters and the annual Python Challenge has attracted rocker Ozzy Osbourne and chef Gordon Ramsey, who caught and prepared a python for his show “F Word.”
Florida Python Challenge: Want to hunt Burmese pythons? What you should know
Here you can find information about the Florida Python Challenge, a 10-day competition in Florida.
Python hunter Bayo Hernandez likes to eat his snake like ground beef with ketchup, mustard and mayo. Another hunter likes to eat the slippery plague of the Everglades in a stir-fry or chili.
And there is always celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s recipe for diced python in a lettuce wrap with shallots, pineapple and jalapeño.
But the Florida Department of Health recently issued a warning not to eat “any pythons” caught in the state – regardless of the size of the snake – because the meat may contain harmful levels of mercury.
The recommendation, which angered at least one scientist who said pythons caught in the state’s southwest had lower mercury levels, means a nascent plan to aid the culling of these apex predators by putting them on the table as food cannot go ahead.
“It’s unfortunate. I don’t know how much it would have helped if people had eaten pythons, but it certainly doesn’t hurt,” said Darren Rumbold, a professor of marine and earth sciences at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Similar to fish, the agency could have issued portion recommendations or indicated regions where the consumption of animals caught there would no longer be safe due to mercury levels, Rumbold said.
“I think the health department was overcautious when they said no one should eat it,” he said.
It is unclear when the python consumption warning was issued. Multiple calls and emails to the Department of Health went unanswered. However, the toxicology results from 487 snakes examined by the department that led to the warning were explained in a March 8 letter to McKayla Spencer, the FWC’s non-native wildlife coordinator.
The letter, obtained through a request from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, was from Michael Mitchell, the health department’s director, and noted that the python tests used the standard 8-ounce diet for fish because there is no known food size for snakes.
Mitchell said that in addition to testing mercury levels in freshwater and saltwater fish, the FWC also examined mercury levels in pythons because “consumers are asking whether the meat is safe to eat.”
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The result of the health department’s collaboration with the FWC was a warning: “Do not consume pythons.”
This does not mean that eating python is illegal, but it is not recommended, according to the FWC’s Python Challenge website.
Why is mercury harmful if it is found in python meat or fish?
Government agencies monitor mercury levels because the naturally occurring chemical element is a neurotoxin that can impair brain function, damage the kidneys and harm the nervous system, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It is especially harmful to unborn babies and young children.
Hernandez, who hunts pythons as a contract hunter for the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), said he knows pythons can have high levels of mercury. Pythons are not his everyday meal.
“But there are many recipes and you can experiment,” he said. “If you make it in pieces, it is very hard and chewy. How you season it determines the taste.”
Florida’s Python Challenge is underway and hunters are vying for a grand prize of $10,000
Hernandez is participating in this week’s Python Challenge. As of Monday, he had caught six snakes and planned to hunt every night until the deadline on Sunday at 5 p.m.
In the fall of 2020, an initiative to issue recommendations on the safe consumption of pythons was mentioned at a SFWMD board meeting. Eric Sutton, then-FWC director, discussed the proposal during an update on the state’s response to Governor Ron DeSantis’ call to find new ways to control the invasive snake.
The state had already launched the annual Python Challenge, hired contract hunters, invested in near-infrared technology to better see the snakes, trained python-sniffer dogs, tried to catch the snakes in cages and track them with radio transmitters, and in 2017 brought in members of the Irula tribe from India to track the predators.
“The only method that works efficiently is the human catcher,” Hernandez said.
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Studies show that some pythons in Florida have lower mercury levels depending on the region
Rumbold studied mercury levels in pythons in areas near Naples. In 2019, he published a paper on the results in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. His co-author was Ian Bartoszek of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
Their study found that snakes in southwest Florida have lower mercury levels than snakes in Everglades National Park. Pythons in the park were found to have “astonishingly high” mercury levels in a 2012 study by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Much of Florida’s mercury comes from air pollution. It rains down from high clouds and is trapped in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Burning coal, oil and wood can release mercury into the air.
In Everglades National Park, the mercury can mix with sulfur from agriculture further upstream. The sulfur oxidizes to sulfate, which activates microbes that convert mercury into methylmercury, which accumulates in the food chain.
Because southwest Florida is drier, fewer fish containing mercury are consumed by other animals, which in turn are eaten by pythons, Rumbold said.
“Mercury is biomagnified as it moves through the food chain. The more integrated pythons are into an aquatic food web, the more likely they are to contain mercury,” Rumbold said.
The 2019 study also found that there is little correlation between python size, age and mercury levels. In the ocean, the largest and oldest fish that feed on smaller prey generally have the highest mercury concentrations.
Rumbold believes the health department could have specifically allowed the consumption of pythons caught in the southwestern part of the state, similar to how catch warnings for fish are issued based on where they were caught.
“They don’t want to have to monitor pythons over a long period of time, so they don’t want to release anything that’s region-specific,” Rumbold said.
In Florida, python hunting began in earnest around 2012. In 2017, the South Florida Water Management District and the FWC began a more structured program to employ python hunters.
Since the FWC and the county joined forces to combat the invasive species, more than 14,500 pythons have been removed. The most pythons removed in a single year was 2020, 2,629.
The hype surrounding Florida python hunters and the annual Python Challenge has attracted rocker Ozzy Osbourne, who participated in a hunt for his show “Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour.” Chef Gordon Ramsey caught and prepared a python for his show “The F Word.” Ramsay said the python was dry and stringy, so he added bacon fat and ground it up the way Hernandez likes it.
Hernandez said he also eats invasive iguanas.
“When my kids come over, I always surprise them,” Hernandez said. “If you ask my oldest son what the weirdest thing he’s ever eaten is, he says, ‘I don’t know, ask my dad.'”
Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate and how growth is affecting the environment in South Florida. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to [email protected]. Support our local journalism and subscribe today.
