A 19-year-old won the top prize in an annual competition in Florida which aims to remove invasive Burmese pythons from across the state.
Matthew Concepcion was credited with removing 28 snakes, and won the $10,000 grand prize, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission said in a news release.
“Still on cloud nine,” Concepcion told WTVJ. “Couldn’t believe it.”
Concepcion spent 10 days hunting from sundown to sunup, he told WTVJ.
“Gets rough out there that’s for sure,” he told the station. “You’ll start hallucinating out there just looking, just looking.”
Concepcion told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that he has loved being outdoors for his entire life, and has been hunting pythons for the last five years.
“If I can’t go out and fish, then I’m out hunting [python] all night,” Concepcion told the newspaper. “It’s a love-hate relationship. Sometimes you’re out there for like 15 hours and you don’t even see one snake. And then next night you go out for the first five minutes you see three back-to-back. It’s definitely a mental game.”
Concepcion told the Sun-Sentinel that he’s been bitten by the snakes four or five times.
“You can’t just pull your hand out … you have to let the snake lose interest in you, or pour alcohol in its mouth to get them off.”
The FWC said in its news release that nearly 1,000 people took part in the annual competition, including people from 32 states, Canada and Latvia.
“Every one of the pythons removed as part of the Challenge is one less preying on our native birds, mammals and reptiles,” said FWC Chairman Rodney Barretto. “This is a win for the Everglades and a win for the people of Florida.”
Concepcion told WTVJ he will likely use the $10,000 prize to buy new lights for his truck.
Other winners from the competition include Dustin Crum, who won $1,500 for the longest python, which measured 11 feet, 0.24 inches.
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