Artist: Dylan Johnston

Project: On the Hunt

Description: At the beginning of 2013, a contest in the Florida Everglades opened, allowing the public hunting of invasive Burmese pythons. Hunters from across the country descended on the Florida wetlands in search of the prey. (Steve Featherstone wrote about the hunt for the Oxford American in his feature article “Snakelandia.”) In the last two decades, these pythons have slowly taken over the area, endangering the population of native species. The hunters came equipped with guns, knives, snake sticks, bikes, motor vehicles, and boats, and photographer Dylan Johnston found himself driving miles of dirt roads through South Florida on a weekly basis, looking for them. On the Hunt documents that many of these python hunters had come, not for bragging rights, but for the chance to help preserve the region’s delicate ecosystem.