Florida Python Challenge Winner Removes 96 Snakes

Ryan and Dana discuss the winner of the 2026 Florida Python Challenge, who captured 96 invasive pythons, and the ongoing effort to reduce the species' impact on the Everglades.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Ryan Gorman Show podcast presented by Verah and Farah
accident attorneys from Tampa.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
This year's grand prize winner of Florida's Python Challenge is
sixty nine year old Tom Rayhill, who captured almost one
hundred pythons.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Like veterans do, we clear the area after a capture,
and I went deeper in the glades and that's when
I found those ninety six.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
And this guy is the champion despite some serious health challenges.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
I had two hip replacements in the past nine months.
Two months ago. Is this one my pt My doctor
is saying you can't go out there. I did go
out there and I got that seventeen foot big female.
Then I got those other snakes.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
God gets hip replacements, goes out and captures ninety six pints.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
Insane. Yeah, that's ridiculous, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yes, So ray Hill gets ten thousand dollars for winning
the challenge. Overall, almost one thousand people participated from thirty
different states, along with people from Canada and Vietnam, and
two hundred and eighty pythons were removed. So another successful
Python challenge. The problem is, we've talked about this before.

(01:09):
When these pythons lay eggs. They lit like one hundred eggs.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
Yeah, they have so many babies. That's why there's so
many of us, right, and it's crazy that there were
so many people that participated and this guy got ninety
six and what did you say.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
The total was two eighty eighty. Yeah, totals, like.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
Most people probably get one, maybe two, and then this
guy gets ninety six.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, when we talked to Amanda Holly from news Channel eight,
she went down there and went on a python hunt,
and she said it was like a whole night because
usually you go on tonight. It was like a whole
night of really nothing until towards the very end when
they were about to pack it up, and then she
spotted one and they captured one. So you can imagine.
You know, it's not that the Everglades are huge. Yeah,

(01:48):
it's not that easy. And not only that. Uh, the
thing that stood out to me when we talked to her,
it was just all the other stuff you have to.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
Deal with, the mosquitos, other creatures.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
I would love to go in the Everglades and see
this whole thing, see the pythons, but I would want
to do it from like an air conditioned and closed
in a bubble. That would be nice.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
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