From python problems to purses. A group of women in South Florida are taking Everglades conservation in a new direction. 7’s Heather Walker joins the hunt in this 7Spotlight. Pythons are beautiful, but they don’t belong in the Everglades. Amy Siewe, Professional Python Hunter: “It’s no t their fault that they are here, but they are and they have to go. There is no other choice.” It’s sunset in the Everglades and while most people are tying to avoid snakes, we are out looking for them. Riding along miles of sawgrass and swamps, any movement could be what we are searching for. Amy Siewe: “Tonight, we are looking for the pythons.” Amy Siewe is a professional python hunter who is known as the “Python Huntress.” She has caught around 800 pythons in less than eight years. Tonight, she is hoping to catch one more. Amy Siewe: “Hey Dave, what’s the temperature?” Dave: “Eighty-six.” Amy Siewe: “Eighty-six. we love it.” The hotter the better because that’s when these snakes move and we can spot them. Shortly after we started, we have our first sign of a python. Amy Siewe: “It’s like fresh python poop, dude, this thing just went.” There is lots of debate about how these pythons got here. Some blame pet owners who let them go. Others point to Hurricane Andrew which hit a breeding facility, releasing snakes into the swamps. Amy Siewe: “At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter how it happened. We’ve got this problem. We’ve got pythons that are eating 98% of the mammals in parts of the Everglades and they are not slowing down.”Pythons are devastating the Everglades ecosystem, but for Amy, removing the python is only the beginning. Because this snake will soon become a luxury handbag. Gretchen Maull Berger, Owner of GG Maull: “They are all multi-functional handbags made by invasive pythons.” Gretchen Maull Berger is the owner of GG Maull. It’s a South Florida business that works with Amy to take the snake skin and give it new life. Gretchen Maull Berger: “I thought, ‘Why not take something that is being discarded and make it into something beautiful?'” The python skin isn’t the only thing that makes these bags stand out. Women are taking the lead every step of the way. Hunting, designing, even manufacturing. Gretchen Maull Berger: “This is our female-founded factory in New Jersey.” The entire company is powered by women. Gretchen Maull Berger: “The pythons really have to be removed and thankfully there are women out there doing it and I love being able to support them doing it.” It takes about 20-40 skins to make 150 bags and Amy needs roughly six months to catch those pythons. Amy Siewe: “I’m so happy that she contacted me and said, ‘Hey, this is what I want to do because at least we can honor these pythons in a way since they can’t be here with us, but we can still see their beauty after they are gone.” Each bag is saving hundreds of animals lives. Gretchen Maull Berger: “The woman who wears it then can feel this courage, empowerment. She feels this sense of purpose.” The hunt that starts here and ends here, turing a slithering problem into a stylish solution, proving these South Florida women have conservation in the bag. Heather Walker, 7News. ...read more read less