{"id":165560,"date":"2025-08-22T04:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T04:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/165560\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T04:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T04:24:10","slug":"swamp-queen-makes-history-in-record-breaking-florida-python-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/165560\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Swamp Queen&#8217; makes history in record-breaking Florida Python Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"AccuWeather.com\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"632\" height=\"448\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/05d2a0582e13f8e4bda4feccef2656f2.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>(Photo credit: Florida Fish and WildlifeConservation Commission)<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Taylor Stanberry just became the first woman to win the Florida Python Challenge, and she did it in spectacular fashion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In her very first time competing, Stanberry removed 60 Burmese pythons from South Florida, more than any other participant and over 20% of all pythons caught during the 10-day event. Her record haul earned her the $10,000 Ultimate Grand Prize, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/myfwc.com\/news\/all-news\/python-challenge-winners-825\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The annual challenge, held to raise awareness about invasive species, drew 934 participants from 30 states and Canada. In total, they removed a record 294 pythons-making this year the most successful since the event began in 2013.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Stanberry, dubbed the &#8220;Swamp Queen&#8221; by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gulfcoastnewsnow.com\/article\/florida-woman-history-python-everglades\/65811297\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Gulf Coast News;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Gulf Coast News<\/a>, told the outlet, &#8220;This is not about trophy hunting or just killing pythons&#8230; I actually want to save the native wildlife.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">She plans to use her winnings to expand her exotic animal sanctuary in South Florida.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;These record numbers highlight the importance of citizen engagement as we tackle one of the toughest conservation challenges of our time,&#8221; said Everglades National Park Superintendent Pedro Ramos in an FWC statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Photo credit: Florida Fish and WildlifeConservation Commission) Taylor Stanberry just became the first woman to win the Florida&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3198,47792,95262,159,7049,95263,95261,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-165560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-burmese-pythons","9":"tag-florida-fish-and-wildlife","10":"tag-florida-python-challenge","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-south-florida","13":"tag-spectacular-fashion","14":"tag-taylor-stanberry","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115070518260250986","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}