Florida’s deadliest python hunter is a conservationist at heart
Last year, Taylor Stanberry caught 60 Burmese pythons with her bares hands—a state record. But this self-taught hunter says she doesn't enjoy killing the snakes, she just knows it's a necessity.
“I don’t like killing snakes,” Taylor Stanberry says.
Stanberry might not like it, but she’s exceptionally good at it. The professional python hunter caught 60 Burmese pythons with her bare hands during the 2025 Florida Python Challenge, breaking the annual hunt’s record and smashing its glass ceiling. The 30-year-old became the first woman to take home the grand prize.
“I think it’s unique and cool that I can show that women do this,” Stanberry says. In photographs from the challenge, she stands in the pitch-black swamp illuminated only by her headlight, with her prey—pythons nearly twice the size of her four-foot-11-inch frame—draped over her shoulder.
While Stanberry captures pythons every day, last year was her first time taking part in the challenge, effort by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to curb the state’s invasive python problem.
The constrictors have been wreaking havoc on Everglades National Park’s fragile ecosystem for over a decade. A python can grow up to 20 feet, feasting on native animals like marsh rabbits, wood storks, and Key Largo woodrats. With jaws that stretch four times wider than their skulls, the pythons can even swallow whole alligators. More harmfully, they threaten the endangered Florida panthers by hunting their prey, like feral hogs and white-tailed deer, starving the big cats and upsetting the Everglades’ biodiversity. “I have to remind myself that I do this for other wildlife, for the reptiles, the birds, and mammals,” Stanberry says.
That’s not the only damage the pythons do: They also brought Asian lungworm parasites which kill amphibians and native reptiles like pygmy rattlesnakes—to the peninsula. Though they used to be plentiful, pygmy rattlesnakes are now a rare sight. Researchers often find their dead bodies riddled with lungworm.
“The tools we have and the methods we have at our disposal today are not adequate to eradicate Burmese pythons across the landscape,” says Melissa Miller, a research assistant scientist at the University of Florida who specializes in invasion ecology. Still, “there are tools on the horizon that hold a lot of promise,” she says, pointing to CRISPR gene-editing technology, which could limit python reproduction by skewing the population toward birthing more males.
But until science catches up, Florida relies on the pythons’ only natural predator to slow down the damage: human hunters.
On the hunt
Burmese pythons are fully established in the Everglades—rooting them out entirely is impossible—but conservationists hope to prevent them from expanding to new territory. With that goal in mind, Florida launched its first Python Challenge in 2013, a 10-day event that’s become as much a spectacle as an environmental necessity. Every year, enthusiasts descend on the Everglades looking for a few minutes of fame. Most of the participants are amateurs—the state estimates about 95 percent—including tourists, wannabes, and thrill seekers, who pack the typically quiet roadways eager for just one snapshot with a 200-pounder, and hoping for one of the many cash prizes. In 2020, one hunter nabbed the money and set the record for longest snake ever caught: 18 feet nine inches. Hunters are sometimes stuffed 10 to a car or piled in the beds of pickup trucks, all hoping to spy a python slithering across their path. They creep along in their vehicles as a cacophony of cricket, frog, and bird calls swells in the damp night air.
A smaller number of hunters, roughly a hundred or so, aren’t there for the glory; they’re professionals who keep the snakes at bay all year round, working for a patchwork of government-affiliated agencies dedicated to capturing invasive reptiles, including pythons. That includes Stanberry, who works with the Python Action Team Removing Invasive Constrictors (PATRIC), a contractor overseen by FWC. (Both the PATRIC program and the Python Challenge are run by a private leather company that is contracted by thestate.)
While Burmese pythons are only one of 60 invasive reptiles and amphibians overrunning the Everglades, they get the most hype, in part because of the ever-growing annual event. “The hunt is a great flagship for the media to focus on the threats that the natural world suffers due to invasive organisms,” says Tom Rahill, a professional python hunter.
Before 2021, the challenge was typically held in the winter, but the FWC decided to move it to July to align with python hatchling season. Pythons mate in late winter and lay eggs in the spring. Females have been known to abandon their eggs if the nest is disturbed or there’s flooding, but they typically wait until a few crack open before slithering away for good. But moving the challenge’s dates also placed it in the middle of Florida’s rainy season, when daily torrential rainstorms and stifling humidity make the 90-plus-degree days and nights practically unbearable. The bugs don’t help, and neither does the Everglades' unpredictable terrain.
Stanberry, however, was undeterred last year, kicking off her shoes to hunt barefoot, giving her more maneuverability in the cypress swamps. When she’s on any hunt, her adrenaline still spikes at the sight of the tip of a scaly tail in the bush.“Every catch really is different,” she says. “You just have to expect the unexpected.”
Some pythons are easy to collect, while others can coil around the hunter’s arms.“That’s when you get into some trouble,” she admits. Typically, when catching pythons, she does what most hunters do: grabs the back of their heads and mid-body. When extra-large serpents require more power, her husband, Rhett, steps in to help.
“I just grab them with my hands and put them in the pillowcase and … expect to be really smelly by the end of the night,” Stanberry says.
Python hunting is indeed a stinky business. The snakes have a nonvenomous bite, and they defecate on predators and musk them with an aroma that, according to Stanberry, resembles “dead fish.” It’s a defense mechanism that discharges a foul-smellingsubstance from their cloaca that either startles or disgusts a predator long enough that the python can slither away.
Beyond the landscape and the smells, python hunting’s most intense test may be one of patience. “A lot of people think it’s going to be just pythons smacking you in the face, just everywhere,” Stanberry says, “but honestly, you can go out for 12 hours a night and catch nothing.” The Stanberrys opted to take out their small fishing boat to navigate canals, using only the boat’s light bars and flashlights to ward off the Everglades’ inky night.
Stanberry’s first sense that she might win the challenge came toward the end of the hunt when she found two python nests. The Stanberrys had spent about seven hours hiking the numerous tree islands that dot the landscape where native birds nest. The grass there grows as tall as Stanberry, and the air is thick with swarming gnats and mosquitoes. Still, she persevered, ultimately capturing 60 of the snakes.
“When I found out that Taylor won, I was so happy for her and Rhett,” says fellow python hunter and Everglades guide Amy Siewe. “They’re very good hunters, they have a keen eye, and they also know a lot of off-the-beaten-path places to find pythons.” Siewe was relieved that a professional won the hunt rather than amateurs, adding that “we know 100 percent that they did not cheat, that this was all legit.”
Python fever
This was Stanberry’s first run at the Python Challenge. “I never entered before because it just brings in so many more people,” she says, indicating that the amateurs who pack the Everglades disturb and endanger wildlife. She only signed up for the 2025 contestbecause she happened to be in South Florida, already out catching pythons for her work with PATRIC.
Rahill describes “a really hypercompetitive mentality” and tension between the amateurs and professionals during the challenge, sometimes to the point of harassment. He coined the phrase “python fever” to describe the bad behavior he’s seen during the competition. Stanberry and Siewe have seen or been involved in tense altercations between competitors on the roads.
Before the Python Challenge gained national attention, Siewe says the python hunter community was tight-knit. They all knew each other and often ran into one another out hunting at night on the roads, sharing helpful information on where to find pythons. “Apparently, we make it look very easy. Everybody now thinks that they can do it,” Siewe says. She says the increase in amateur hunters has made for more traffic and less community.
“I just wish there was more training involved for the new people,” Stanberry laments. The bar for entry is low: a $25 entry fee and completion of a 45-minute online training course, and then anyone can join the hunt. Although hunters who misidentify and harm native snakes or their eggs are disqualified, it’s a persistent problem. In 2025, five native snakes were turned in during the competition.
“The python hunters who dedicate their time and their skill to removing Burmese pythons, it’s not easy to do. And folks who come to South Florida during events like the Python Challenge will find that out,” says Miller. “It’s a huge sacrifice and commitment that they’re making to help save the wildlife and the ecosystem in the Everglades.”
No school for python hunters
Stanberry is a self-taught snake expert who has been handling and identifying snakes since she was a child in Orlando. Her father, who passed away when she was six years old, was the first to nurture her interest in animals. Rhett says the couple were recently looking through old photos and found a cartoon her father drew of himself and Taylor catching snakes.
“Obviously I was never scared of snakes,” she says.
“She’s not afraid of anything,” Rhett adds. “Except cockroaches.”
Stanberry started hunting pythons about 12 years ago. Always out in nature looking for wildlife and snakes, she found so many pythons that she decided to apply to be a contractor. It’s laborious and grueling work. A full-time python contractor will spend seven nights a week out in the swamp all summer.
“I don’t know anyone who hates snakes that’s in the program professionally,” says Miami-based professional python hunter Donna Kalil, who took second place in the 2025 competition, catching 56 pythons. She’s competed in the python hunt since its inception, and in her years as a python hunter, she’s caught a total of 1,235 pythons.
“We’re out there trying to save the environment,” Kalil says.
Python hunting is largely self-taught, though increasingly professionals are mentoring newcomers. Rahill founded Swamp Apes, a nonprofit that helps veterans use their military skills to track pythons—some even become professional hunters. Siewe moved to Naples, after just one hunt with Kalil in 2019. After catching a python, she went home to Indiana, sold her real estate business, and moved to Florida to become a full-time python hunter.
“Snakes have been a part of my whole life,” Siewe says. “Once I heard that there was a python problem in Florida, I came down to see what it was all about. I can take this passion that I have that was a hobby and help with this problem.”
Living on the edge
South Florida lives on the edge of the Everglades, where the line between nature and civilization blurs. When Stanberry isn’t hunting pythons, she and her husband relocate native venomous snakes driven out of their habitats by new developments, an increasingproblem in the heavily populated and ever growing state. Snake relocators like the Stanberrys play an essential role in protecting both humans and native wildlife.
“In these new golf communities, people are getting rattlesnakes on their front porches. Where else are they supposed to go?” Stanberry asks. “People want to kill them, so we offer free relocations—tips accepted,” she laughs. They return the native snakes to the Everglades, and exotic venomous snakes come home to live in the Stanberrys’ backyard in Naples in a snake house for the venomous and the non-native.
It's not uncommon for snakes to find their way into a toilet or a swimming pool. Recently, the Stanberrys were called to remove a rattlesnake from an area outside a dentist’s office. Their social media post shows a scene unique to Florida: A child watches the couple through the window as a dentist works on his teeth.
(The question to protect the Florida wildlife corridor gains ground.)
An opportunity for sanctuary
Stanberry used the $10,000 prize money from the 2025 Python Challenge to transform her backyard into a proper sanctuary. There are former pet monkeys—two capuchins, two cottontop tamarins, a marmoset, and an owl monkey—and about 50 rehomed tortoises, including red-footed and leopard tortoises, all fenced in on a third of an acre. The tortoises roam freely and feed off the avocado, jackfruit, and mango trees. The food bills for the animals are high: The monkeys are picky, and the tortoises are ravenous.
“Everything in our life revolves around saving wildlife,” Rhett says.
The sanctuary includes an outbuilding with 95 rehomed exotic venomous snakes that they gathered during the snake removals or found while out on regular python hunts. The Stanberrys breed them for zoos and venom labs.
They are planning to expand the sanctuary and take in nuisance alligators that need to be relocated from developed areas. (When an alligator lives in a residential area, has been fed by people, and becomes too comfortable around humans, FWC considers them a “nuisance.” Smaller ones are relocated, but nuisance alligators longer than four feet are euthanized.)
The Stanberrys are in the process of incorporating as a nonprofit with the dual mission of allowing primate rescues to live full lives and educating the public about native venomous reptiles. Their desire to change attitudes around snakes and reptiles is reflected in their social media content, which minimizes wildlife drama in favor of education.
“Snakes aren’t scary if ‘little old me’ thinks that they’re cool and can handle them,” Stanberry says. “Then the big macho man should be able to see that they don’t have to kill them because they’re ‘scary.’”
Stanberry isn’t sure if she’ll have the time this year to enter the Python Challenge, but she’s tempted to take a chance. “How embarrassing, though, if I enter and don’t win!” she laughs. Either way, it’s not about the attention, it’s about results. “The python work,” she says, “is purely for conservation.”
