Florida
Snake hunters will wrangle invasive pythons during Florida's 10-day challenge
Friday marked the start of the annual Florida Python Challenge, where hunters head into the Everglades to track down invasive Burmese pythons in hopes of grabbing a share of $30,000 in prizes.
The annual 10-day hunt, which started more than a decade ago, promotes public awareness of issues with invasive species in Florida while engaging the public in Everglades conversation, said Sarah Funck, the wildlife impact management section leader with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“They are a well-established invasive species across much of South Florida, unfortunately, in our natural areas,” Funck said of Burmese pythons. “A huge part of this challenge is to make sure that people understand about this issue and understand that in general, when you have a non-native species present in the state for whatever purpose, don’t let it loose, that can be really detrimental to our environment.”
Over the past decade, the python challenge has grabbed headlines for its incentive-based, only-in-Florida style of hunting as well as celebrity participation. This year, more than 600 people registered for the event, with two coming from Canada and 108 from other states.
During the challenge, hunters will linger around designated areas spanning through western Broward County to the Tamiami Trail in the Big Cypress Wildlife Management Area, including other management areas like Southern Glades, Holey Land and Rotenberger.
The goal for the competition is to bring an incentive for hunters to remove Burmese pythons from the environment, especially in the late summer when python eggs hatch. The competition is also meant to educate the public about pythons and their danger to Florida’s ecosystem, because they affect native snakes, can spread diseases among native animals and have high mercury levels that could be dangerous for native animals and for human consumption, said Zachary Chejanovski, an interagency python management coordinator with the Florida Wildlife Commission.
“The python problem, it’s a big problem,” Chejanovski said. “We want to make sure to get the word out as much as possible, because we can’t do this alone.”
Each category has its own prizes, with $2,500 going to the person or team that kills the most pythons, $1,500 going to the runner-up for most kills and $1,000 going to whoever kills the longest python. The grand prize for the most kills in all categories gets a $10,000 prize.
Each person can only win one prize, so if someone is tops in two categories, they will end up with the highest-valued prize and the next qualifying hunter gets the remaining prize.
During the competition, participants must turn in humanely killed Burmese pythons to any of the competition’s three check stations in South Florida. Hunters can also choose if they want to get the snake carcass back after the contest’s judging if they’d like to use the skin to make wallets, belts or bags.
Michael Huckabee and Jay Kattalikis attended the safety training Friday morning, after driving in from Mississippi to participate in the Florida Python Challenge. Kattalikis said this is his first time doing the state’s python challenge, but that he’s not worried since he and Huckabee are used to “wrangling gators” and handling copperheads and rattlesnakes.
Kattalikis said he and Huckabee came here on a whim after another friend told him about it, and he gave Huckabee only 15 minutes to get ready before driving down to South Florida.
“All I could think was, ‘Holy crap, this is what I’ve lived doing my entire life, and there’s a tournament doing it. I want to do this,’” Kattalikis said.
In 2017, the South Florida Water Management District and the state began hiring contractors to handle its invasive python problem year round. According to the wildlife agency’s website, through 2023, more than 11,000 pythons have been removed by these contractors.
Last year’s challenge brought in 209 pythons and the grand prize winner was Paul Hobbs, who bagged 20 pythons. Also during 2023, Florida wildlife agency and district contractors removed about 2,200 pythons.
Amy Siewe, the self-named Python Huntress, won a prize last year for catching a Burmese python measuring 3.27 meters. This year, she won’t be participating in the challenge due to a knee surgery but said she’s not a fan of the annual challenge.
Siewe, who used to work as a state contractor catching invasive pythons, said she believed the initial intent of the challenge was to bring awareness to the issue. Now, it’s drawing large crowds of hunters, potentially scaring off pythons and potentially killing native snakes they mistake as pythons, like corn snakes, brown water snakes or cottonmouths.
“Pythons don’t take on their normal behavioral pattern because there’s so much traffic and they’ll come up and then they’ll go back into the swamp,” Siewe said. “I feel for myself, it’s counterproductive.”
Participants are required to undergo an online training, including information on how to identify Burmese pythons versus other snakes, Funck said. She said there’s also an additional optional in-person training participants can attend to properly identify Burmese pythons.
“That’s a huge part of what we do, is try to get the word out on how to identify these pythons, how to safely and humanely capture it,” Funck said.
Florida
Florida woman accused of gunning down two ex-husbands on same day
Authorities in Florida are accusing a 51-year-old woman of shooting and killing two ex-husbands on the same day this week.
Susan Erica Avalon was arrested on Thursday on charges of second degree homicide in Manatee County, where her first ex-husband lived, according to Sheriff Rick Wells.
Police in Tampa, where Avalon’s second ex-husband lived, said detectives are working with the State Attorney’s Office to determine “what charges, if any, are applicable in the case.”
It all started on Wednesday afternoon when the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office received a call to respond to a shooting in the Heritage Harbor neighborhood, according to Wells. When deputies arrived, they saw a 54-year-old man with two gunshot wounds.
He was shot in the abdomen, Wells said in a press conference Thursday. “The victim at the time is still alert and is speaking to us.”
When deputies asked him who could have done this, the man responded, “possibly my ex-wife,” Wells said.
The man’s 15-year-old daughter was at the home and heard the shots, according to Wells. When she looked out the window, the teen spotted someone wearing a gray sweatshirt and a mask getting into a silver Honda Odyssey and driving off.”
“I want you to understand how traumatized she is,” Wells said of the 15-year-old, who is also Avalon’s daughter.
The 54-year-old man was taken to a local hospital, where he died of his injuries Wednesday night, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office. Before dying, the man told authorities he was shot upon answering the door to his home.
Authorities believe Avalon showed up at the victim’s home posing as a food delivery driver, Wells said.
Court records from the Manatee County Clerk’s Office show Avalon and the 54-year-old man had been divorced for nearly a decade and had long been dealing with issues of child custody as well as child support disputes.
On Wednesday, investigators later located Avalon in her home in Citrus County, where they saw her wiping the silver Honda Odyssey vehicle with cleaning rags and bleach, Wells said.
When investigators told her they are there to speak to her about her ex-husband, she responded, “which one?” Wells said.
Investigators then began digging into Avalon’s second ex-husband, who lived in Tampa. The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office requested the help of the Tampa Police Department to check on the man and found he had been shot and killed in his home.
In a news release Thursday, the Tampa police said they believe the incident is related to “an ongoing homicide investigation being conducted by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.”
“Investigators are working to determine a motive, but it’s believed the shooter and victim are known to one another,” the news release reads.
Authorities believe Avalon first went to Tampa to kill her second ex-husband before heading to Manatee County and shooting her first ex-husband, the 54-year-old man, Wells said.
Avalon was arrested on Thursday by sheriff’s deputies in Citrus County, where she lives, on an out-of-county warrant, jail records show.
NBC News could not find an attorney listed for Avalon as of Saturday.
Wells said his office’s ongoing investigation is focused on finding the murder weapon and searching Avalon’s vehicle for evidence.
“That’s our goal right now,” he said.
Florida
Florida divorcee, 48, accused of gunning down both of her ex-husbands in same-day fatal shootings
A crazed Florida divorcee was thrown behind bars after allegedly gunning down both of her ex-husbands in separate broad-daylight shootings on the same day, police said.
Susan Avalon, 48, was cuffed Wednesday and slapped with murder charges after blasting one ex-hubby with bullets in Tampa, then traveling more than 50 miles to Manatee County to fatally shoot the other later that day around 3 p.m., according to Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells.
Investigators said Avalon was embroiled in bitter custody battles with her former spouses, which they believe may have sparked the cold-blooded killings.
“It doesn’t get anymore brazen than this,” Wells told reporters at a press conference Thursday.
“We believe this was premeditated. She knew what she was doing, it was planned and she came here to kill her ex-husband.”
Police said the alleged murderess targeted her first husband — a 54-year-old man she divorced roughly 11 years ago — at his Manatee County home around 2:55 p.m., luring him to open his front door with stolen food from a Panera Bread before shooting him twice.
The unidentified man was rushed to a nearby hospital, but succumbed to his injuries later that day.
Surveillance footage captured Avalon walking into the nearby bread eatery and swiping food from the delivery pickup shelf without paying before heading to her ex-husband’s home, authorities said.
Her live-in boyfriend allegedly told police she had recently tracked down her ex-hubby’s address.
The ex’s reportedly had ongoing custody disputes and about $4,000 in unpaid child support, with Avalon facing a looming deadline to pay $200 or lose her driver’s license.
Investigators tracked her silver Honda Odyssey back to her Citrus County home after the shooting and found her scrubbing the minivan with bleach and rags. But when asked by police about her ex-husband, she chillingly replied, “Which one?”
“We only know of one,” Wells said.
“We start to dig into this second ex-husband that we know nothing about, and we find she was married again after the marriage to our victim, and that this ex-husband lives in Tampa.”
Wells said investigators alerted Tampa authorities, who conducted a welfare check at the second husband’s Frierson Avenue home and found him dead inside with multiple gunshot wounds. The back door was also damaged, suggesting forced entry, he added.
Officials have not disclosed the second victim’s name or age, but believe Avalon allegedly killed him first.
The alleged killer, who was previously arrested on child abuse charges in Virginia in 2004, was charged with second-degree homicide in Manatee County. Wells said he is working with prosecutors to have that charge upgraded to first-degree murder and the death penalty.
Avalon, who reportedly has five children between both slain ex-husband’s, also faced two other child abuse cases in Tampa and Pasco County that were later dropped.
She has not yet been charged in the Tampa shooting as police continue their investigation.
Avalon is currently being held at Citrus County Detention Facility in Lecanto.
Florida
Pope names pro-immigrant pastor bishop of Florida diocese where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago is located
Pope Leo XIV on Friday named the Rev. Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez, currently pastor of a predominantly Hispanic church in the Queens borough of New York City, as bishop of Palm Beach, Florida.
The diocese is home to the Mar-a-Lago estate of President Donald Trump, whose get-tough immigration policies have drawn objections from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Rodriguez has been a staunch advocate for migrants, which make up most of his 17,000 congregants at the Our Lady of Sorrows church — the largest parish in the Diocese of Brooklyn, which also oversees churches in Queens.
“I never, never, never expected anything even close to this,” Rodriguez told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Friday from Palm Beach, where he was visiting a homeless shelter.
“I’m even a little bit scared. But I trust in God’s assistance,” he said. “One thing I can tell you is that this diocese is a diocese of hard-working priests and hard-working people, and I’m here to help.”
The Diocese of Palm Beach comprises about 260,000 Catholics and 54 parishes and missions. On its website, the diocese said that Rodriguez will be ordained and installed at a future date during a Mass at the Cathedral of St. Ignatius Loyola.
A Dominican native
Rodriguez was born in the Dominican Republic and ordained to the priesthood in 2004, in the capital, Santo Domingo. He led the Our Lady of Sorrows parish in the mostly Latino Corona neighborhood of Queens when more than 100 of its parishioners died from COVID-19.
Earlier this year, Rodriguez joined numerous faith leaders across the U.S. expressing their concern about how the immigration crackdown launched by Trump’s administration had sown fear within their migrant-friendly congregations.
In his new assignment, he will lead the diocese where Mar-a-Lago — Trump’s vast south Florida estate — is located. Trump has called the resort the “Center of the Universe.”
“The president is doing really good things, not only for the United States, but for the world. But when it comes to the migrant, the immigration policy, we want to help,” Rodriguez said. “We want to assist the president as a church because we believe that we can do better … than the way we’re doing this right now.”
Some church leaders have condemned Trump’s immigration crackdown, saying it targets parishioners without a criminal record who are now too scared to leave home to attend Mass, buy food or seek medical care.
At many immigrant parishes, U.S.-born children have parents in the country illegally. Some of these parents have signed caregiver affidavits, which designate a legal guardian, in hopes their children stay out of foster care in case they are detained.
“When it comes to enforcing immigration laws, we shouldn’t be enforcing them by focusing on deporting 5-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 9-year-old kids, people that have never committed any crime. So, we’re here to help. We’re willing to help, and God willing, we will,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said he’s in line with the Catholic Church, which staunchly defends the rights of migrants, even as it acknowledges the rights of nations to control their borders.
“The Church’s position about this important and urgent matter has been made crystal clear by the bishops of the United States,” he said.
Immigration a challenging issue for Catholic bishops
The Vatican announced Rodríguez’s appointment the day after it shared that Pope Leo had accepted the resignation of conservative Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan who led the New York archdiocese and also had ties to Trump, including praying at his inauguration earlier this year and being appointed to his Religious Liberty Commission.
On some issues, such as greater inclusion for LGBTQ+ people, U.S. bishops are divided. But on immigration, even conservative Catholic leaders stand on the side of migrants.
During their general assembly earlier this year, U.S. bishops issued a rare “special message” criticizing the Trump administration’s mass deportation of migrants and their “vilification” in the current migration debate. It also lamented the fear and anxiety immigration raids have sown in communities, and the denial of pastoral care to migrants in detention centers.
U.S. Catholic bishops shuttered their longstanding refugee resettlement program after the Trump administration halted federal funding for resettlement aid.
Rodriguez said the church will always be ready to defend the dignity of poor people and migrants, who over generations, “have contributed to the growth of the United States.”
“Migrants are not to be demonized … Good migrant people that are here to work hard for their families — they share many of our core values,” he said. “They’re to be not to be rejected and treated harshly but instead, they’re to be treated respectfully and with dignity. So, that’s the idea, and Pope Leo is backing us up in this.”
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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