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Snakes on a plain?
A Florida pizzeria owner is redefining the term “exotic pet trade” by accepting captured Burmese pythons as payment for a pie.
“I’m the first place in the world to accept python as currency,” Dustin Crum, owner of Wildman’s Pizza, Pasta and Python in Everglades City, told NBC News of his bizarre herpetological barter system.
The self-proclaimed “swampeprenuer” reportedly was inspired by the ongoing Florida Python Challenge, where snake hunters from all over compete to see who can remove the most pythons from the Everglades for a $10,000 prize.
The tournament, which concludes on July 19, rolled out as a way to gamify the war on this destructive invader from Southeast Asia, which has taken the Sunshine State by storm.
But what does a successful hunter do with a 16-foot, 200-pound dead constrictor — or multiple serpents for that matter?
Exchange them for dough.
“You can trade in a python for a pizza,” said Crum, a snake hunter himself, who accepts recently and humanely dispatched animals in exchange for a free large specialty pizza of their choosing.
It’s a win-win — customers get a free meal, and Crum lands supplies for his store.
“It’s kind of a thing, you know, especially the local kids,” the reptilian recycler told the CBC. They catch them. They don’t know what to do with them. They’re hungry. They want pizza.”
Crum, meanwhile, incorporates the scaly donations in a variety of reptilian accessories — like the Bubba Gump from “Forrest Gump” of reptilian wares.
“The fat I use to make the snake oils for the skin, creams, soap,” Crum said. “The bones we make jewelry from, everything gets used.”
He even adorns pizza with python-like pepperoni, although he’s not allowed to sell these snakes on a “plain” because they’re not prepped by a licensed butcher.
“I just gotta give it away for free,” said the snake oil salesman, who dubbed the pie-thon’s flavor “gamey” but good. He also sells slices topped with iguana, another Florida interloper.
While he might seem like he’s taking a bite of the problem, waging war on these Asian invaders is an uphill battle.
After first invading the Everglades in the 1970s, the snake scourge has snowballed out of control, with experts estimating that there could be as many as 300,000 of these invaders slithering across the State, according to Popular Science.
To make matters worse, the females can lay up to 70 eggs at a time,
Now, the plus-sized reptiles — which can reportedly grow to over 20 feet long — are eating and/or outcompeting local fauna in what wildlife officials are dubbing one of the most “intractable” invasive species issues on Earth.
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