By KAREN CYPHERS
On Aug. 5, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and its partners recently announced the results of the 2026 Florida Python Challenge: 907 registered participants from 30 states, Canada and Vietnam removed 280 Burmese pythons over 10 days.
Three days later, our team at Sachs Media put a python questionnaire into the field, surveying a random sample of 1,000 Florida voters Aug. 8 to 10 (margin of error +/- 3.4 percent).
What we found is that the hard part of python policy is not persuading Floridians. It is finding them.
FWC has something most agencies never get: a settled public
Burmese pythons have hollowed out the Everglades food web, driving mid-sized mammal observations down by 90 percent or more in the areas where they’ve been established longest and effectively eliminating marsh rabbits from Everglades National Park. And Floridians seem aware: 89 percent of Florida voters call Burmese pythons a serious problem for Florida’s environment, 59 percent very serious and 30 percent somewhat serious. Only one in 20 (five percent) says the problem is not too serious (four percent) or not at all serious (one percent).
Support for the state’s removal work lands at exactly the same level: 89 percent support paid professional programs and organized public hunts, including 68 percent who support strongly. Just five percent are opposed.
The partisan spread is narrow, and what spread exists is mostly about certainty rather than disagreement. Republicans support removal at 95 percent, nonpartisans at 90 percent, Democrats at 83 percent. Only eight percent of Democrats affirmatively say the problem isn’t serious, and another eight percent are unsure. This is about as close to a unanimous public as we ever get to report.
Participation is the frontier
Only about one in 25 (four percent) Floridians say they’ve seen a Burmese python in the wild, and about the same share of Florida voters have ever done one of the python-related activities we asked about. Indeed, just one percent each have participated in an organized hunt or removal event, considered participating or reported a sighting to authorities.
Set that against 907 Challenge registrants and the picture is coherent: near-universal approval, but near-zero involvement.
The access barrier is not legal. FWC makes clear that nonnative reptiles, including pythons, can be humanely killed on private land at any time with landowner permission – no permit is required and there is no bag limit. Under Executive Order 23-16 the same applies year-round on 32 Commission-managed lands, also with no permit or hunting license required.
More than 19,000 pythons have been removed by FWC and South Florida Water Management District contractors since 2017, compared with roughly 1,600 across all Python Challenge events. Professionals do the work and the public applauds.
For any program that depends on volunteers, then, the operative question is what converts support into participation.
Nearly 1 in 3 can be moved to participate, and we know by what
What Would Get Floridians Into the Field
Among the three in 10 Florida voters who say something would make them more likely to help remove Burmese pythons, the share naming each motivator.
- Going as part of a guided group – 45%
- Knowing the effort directly protects native wildlife – 41%
- Training on how to safely find and capture pythons – 39%
- A cash payment for each python removed – 39%
- Knowing the information collected helps scientists track python populations – 36%
- Prize money for the largest or most pythons captured – 10%
Source: Sachs Media Breakthrough Research survey of 1,000 Florida voters, Aug. 8–10, 2026. Respondents could name more than one motivator, so shares total more than 100 percent.
It appears that what actually moves people toward participation is competence and company: someone experienced to go with, and the confidence that they won’t get hurt or do it wrong. According to participants, feeling good about the purpose is right up there, too.
The good news is that when it comes to training, FWC’s free Python Patrol program is built to create a network of people who can identify Burmese pythons, report sightings and search for, safely capture and humanely kill them. It is open to the public and runs as a virtual session every third Thursday with unlimited spaces and no registration.
It appears that based on four in 10 respondents, access to training is not the issue, but rather awareness that the program exists.
None of this is an argument against paying people. Per-python cash (39 percent) outperforms tournament prizes (10 percent) by nearly four to one, which suggests Floridians read compensation and competition very differently. The catch is that almost no one qualifies for either.
FWC offers no compensation for pythons except to contracted members of its Python Action Team Removing Invasive Constrictors program and to winners of the Florida Python Challenge. The removal of pythons on private land and on the 32 Commission-managed properties open year-round requires no permit and carries no bag limit, but it also carries no payment.
The most alarmed Floridians are not the most recruitable ones
Voters 65 and older are the most concerned (94 percent), call the problem serious (69 percent very serious) and are the most supportive of removal efforts (95 percent). They are also among the hardest to recruit – only 27 percent name any motivator at all. Comparatively, voters under 45 are the least alarmed (85 percent serious, 50 percent very serious) and the least supportive (83 percent), yet 44 percent name at least one motivator, more than double the 20 percent among voters ages 45 to 64.
Awareness campaigns and recruitment campaigns therefore need different targets and different channels, recognizing that the audience that nods along most emphatically is not the audience most likely to show up.
Commercialization is a viable addition to python hunting incentives
We asked whether Florida should encourage a commercial market for products made from legally removed pythons, including questions about whether this creates an additional financial incentive for removal.
That framing puts the conservation rationale directly into the question, and support still lands at 63 percent (33 percent strongly, 30 percent somewhat), with 21 percent opposed and 16 percent unsure, the highest uncertainty of any item tested.
The splits are also wider here than anywhere else in the survey. Greater shares of men (71 percent, including 42 percent strongly) support the idea than women (56 percent, 25 percent strongly). Greater shares of Republicans (75 percent) support it than nonpartisans (61 percent) or Democrats (54 percent). And voters under 45 are the only subgroup where support falls below a majority (48 percent) against 74 percent of voters 65 and older.
A clear mandate for removal
What the data suggest is that the binding constraint on public participation is not enthusiasm but on-ramps – guided access, real training and payment structured as compensation rather than a contest. It appears that the fix isn’t a new program but a louder one, since a free monthly training already exists, a reporting hotline is in place and 32 public properties are already open year-round.
The 30 percent of Floridians who say something would move them are not asking for much that Florida doesn’t already have. It’s just a matter of making sure they know it is already in place.
Karen Cyphers, Ph.D., is a partner and chief research officer at Sachs Media, where she leads the Breakthrough Research division. The August 2026 survey of 1,000 Florida voters was drawn from a random sample of the Florida Voter File and is representative by age, race, gender, political affiliation and region.
