Florida ponders letting people eat pythons

Roast python could soon be on the menu in Florida as officials carry out a review of whether the snakes are safe to eat.

The number of Burmese pythons in the southern part of the state has grown exponentially over the past four-decades. It is believed that the first specimen took to the Everglades as a released or escaped pet in the early 1980s.

The snakes are considered pests and have inspired regular python hunts and other events that seek to track down and exterminate as many as possible.

To that end, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) already encourages locals to humanely kill any of the massive reptiles — among the largest snake species in the world, commonly 16 to 23 feet in the wild — that they come across. Mike Kimmel is one of the state’s best known snake hunters.

Until now, the idea of eating the pythons has been off the table. But that could now change. The FWC and Florida Department of Health are reviewing whether mercury levels in the snakes are low enough for human consumption.

“We are currently in the tissue-collection stage of the project, and COVID has pushed our timeline back a bit,” FWC spokeswoman Susan Neel told CNN.

“The plan is to have most of these samples come from pythons that are caught by our contractor program.”

The government’s “contractor program” includes paying people for every python they bag. Officially called the Python Elimination Program, it is co-run by the FWC and South Florida Water Management District and has thus far removed more than 6,000 pythons from the Everglades, Neel said.

The goal now is to develop “consumption advisories” for the locals, Neel told the outlet.

Still, Mike Kirkland, the program’s manager, said that snake-starved Floridians might not want to get their hopes up.

“Mercury is a natural occurring element in the environment, and it is high in the Everglades,” 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.

“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.”

Mercury-free pythons are good eating, Donna Kalil, one of the program’s hunters, told CNN, noting that she likes to throw the meat into a pressure cooker or turn it into jerky.

“It’s really good when you cook it right,” she said. “This would be a wonderful way to get more people involved with helping us remove pythons from the environment. It would be a good thing for people to hunt and eat them, but we need to make sure they’re safe first.”

Kalil called pythons “magnificent creatures” but said they must be hunted for the good of native wildlife, including rabbits and raccoons.