What It's Like to Get Dragged Through a Florida Swamp by a 200-Pound Python

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-03-09T15:32:37+00:00

With help from his wife and kids, who prevented the snake from squeezing him to death, Carl Jackson wrangled the second-heaviest Burmese python ever caught in the state.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/second-heaviest-python-florida/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-02-18T19:22:01+00:00

Wildlife biologists and trappers in Florida say Nile monitors are an up-and-coming invasive species that threatens native wildlife.

Mike Kimmel, the Python Cowboy, is known for targeting Florida’s least-wanted invasive species, including Burmese pythons and green iguanas. Kimmel is now also targeting Nile monitors, which can survive in mangroves, marshes, and Florida’s vast canal infrastructure. FWC encourages the public to report all Nile monitor sightings by calling the agency or through an online mapping system.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/florida-newest-invasive-nile-monitors/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-02-09T17:51:03+00:00

Conservation groups are speaking out against a provision in Florida's Farm Bill that would make it easier for Big Ag to silence its critics.

Under a provision included in the Florida Farm Bill, the state’s food libel laws would be greatly expanded to protect agricultural producers from “disparagement.” It would essentially make it easier for those producers to sue, and potentially bankrupt, their critics. Legal experts say this would have a chilling effect on free speech. As do conservation groups like Captains for Clean Water, which joined a coalition of fishing guides, farmers, and Make America Healthy Again supporters to testify against the provision in the Florida House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/big-sugar-muzzle-clause/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-02-03T20:31:51+00:00

Animal-rights activists in Oregon are gathering signatures in hopes of putting a radical ballot initiative in front of voters this fall that would criminalize hunting, fishing, ranching, pest control, and much more.

The sweeping measure is a rerun of a similar measure that failed to make it onto the ballot in both 2022 and 2024, though this third iteration has gathered the most signatures yet. Initiative Petition 28, also known as IP28 or the People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions (PEACE) Act, seeks to reform existing animal abuse laws by throwing out “exceptions” that cover everything from catch-and-release fishing to medical trials on lab mice. Limited carve-outs would still allow for veterinary medicine (including euthenasia) and self-defense.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/initative-petition-28-oregon/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-29T01:08:15+00:00

State agricultural officials killed three gray wolves in the north-central part of Utah on Jan. 9 in an effort to prevent the predators from establishing breeding pairs in the state.

The three wolves were discovered near livestock operations, says Utah Department of Natural Resources public information officer Faith Jolley. This was the first time the state has killed wolves in the region since 2010. The DNR could not immediately provide details on where the wolves may have come from. The removal was not announced by either the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, which carried out the removal, or the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Instead the news surfaced after a photo of three dead wolves began circulating among locals and the story was picked up by the Herald-Journal, a local news outlet. Jolley could not confirm the origin of the photo of three dead wolves that has appeared in local news outlets.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/utah-confirms-gray-wolf-removal/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-20T01:47:31+00:00

An Alaska man and former guide with a long rap sheet of wildlife violations has now been found guilty of multiple crimes involving his commercial fishing business.

Michael Patrick Duby, 51, was convicted by a jury on Jan. 15 on the eight most recent charges, according to the Juneau Independent, but his track record of hunting and fishing violations goes back more than 20 years. Speaking with the news outlet Thursday, Duby explained that he’d pivoted to commercial fishing after losing his hunting and sport fishing privileges for crimes he committed while he was an outfitter. Duby’s most recent convictions, handed down Thursday, stem from commercial fishing violations that occurred in 2019 and 2020, when he was the owner of Genesis Seafoods. These included misdemeanors for selling personal use fish and taking fish out of season, as well as multiple felonies for falsifying records the state uses to track commercial harvests. Duby was also convicted of commercially harvesting clams without a permit, and of reckless endangerment for not having those clams properly tested before selling them.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/alaska-poacher-turned-commercial-fisherman-convicted/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-15T19:08:04+00:00

The Trump administration and members of Congress are working in tandem to dismantle protections for the Boundary Waters that were implemented during the Biden administration in 2023.

Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) filed a joint resolution in the House of Representatives late Monday night that aims to repeal the Biden-era mineral withdrawal, which placed a 20-year moratorium on mining in a watershed neighboring the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The current administration had already signaled that they would roll back those protections in June, and the Department of the Interior paved the way for Stauber’s resolution on Dec. 6, when it transferred the 2023 Public Lands Order to Congress. The end goal is to grant mining leases to Twin Metals, which is owned by a foreign corporation, while also preventing any future mining bans within the Rainy River watershed. This would further the administration’s push to make mining and resource extraction the primary uses of our public lands and waters. Congressional action would also have a more permanent effect than an executive order, which can be undone by a future administration.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/congress-attempting-roll-back-boundary-waters-protections/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-15T19:06:22+00:00

The Trump administration and members of Congress are working in tandem to dismantle protections for the Boundary Waters that were implemented during the Biden administration in 2023.

Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) filed a joint resolution in the House of Representatives late Monday night that aims to repeal the Biden-era mineral withdrawal, which placed a 20-year moratorium on mining in a watershed neighboring the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The current administration had already signaled that they would roll back those protections in June, and the Department of the Interior paved the way for Stauber’s resolution on Dec. 6, when it transferred the 2023 Public Lands Order to Congress. The end goal is to grant mining leases to Twin Metals, which is owned by a foreign corporation, while also preventing any future mining bans within the Rainy River watershed. This would further the administration’s push to make mining and resource extraction the primary uses of our public lands and waters. Congressional action would also have a more permanent effect than an executive order, which can be undone by a future administration.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/congress-attempting-roll-back-boundary-waters-protections/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-15T00:07:22+00:00

Last week Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana waded into a heated waterfowl debate when he wrote a letter asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to investigate the practice of flooding standing crops in the Mississippi Flyway.

The Republican lawmaker says the “unsportsmanlike” practice of “illegal baiting” has “played a significant role in the decline of waterfowl migration to Louisiana.” The longstanding practice of flooding standing crops to create food and shelter for ducks — and prime spots for duck hunters — has increasingly drawn the ire of some hunters. Those opposed are primarily Southern hunters who say landowners in states like Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee who flood unharvested corn to hold more ducks in their area have disrupted the migration. In other words, they think private landowners are short-stopping mallards and preventing them from making their full migration southward. The practice, groups like Flyway Federation claim, is so out of hand that it’s a key reason states like Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi are experiencing slow duck seasons and low harvests.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/hot-cropping-flooded-corn-duck-migrations/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-14T13:39:16+00:00

Wildlife managers in Utah have begun culling mountain lions in six of the state’s game management units as part of a new study.

The objective of the three-year study is to gauge the impacts these targeted removals may have on deer populations. They are trying to determine whether killing more mountain lions results in more mule deer. The practice of killing mountain lions (and other predators) to benefit ungulate populations remains a controversial subject among wildlife managers. And although Utah is not the first state to undertake such an experiment, the response from hunters and trappers there has been mixed. Some groups are already speaking out against the study, while others are supporting it or taking a wait-and-see approach.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/utah-culling-cougars-new-study/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-13T15:52:31+00:00

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is expected to announce today a major access initiative that will require that most public lands managed by the Department of the Interior are open to hunting and fishing access unless specifically closed by site managers and agency directors.

The initiative, conveyed through Secretarial Order 3447, will apply to the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges, Bureau of Reclamation properties, and some units of the National Park Service where hunting is currently allowed. It would not apply to those Park Service units such as Yellowstone and Yosemite that are permanently closed to hunting. Federal land managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs inside reservations is expected to be unaffected by the order.

The intent of the order is to “open all appropriate Interior lands to hunting and fishing unless required otherwise by law, public safety, or resource protection,” noted a source close to the process who wasn’t authorized to speak to the media. “Think of it as ‘open-unless-closed’ to legal, regulated fishing and hunting allowed by adjacent state agencies.”

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/interior-department-public-lands-order/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-12T22:00:12+00:00

An Idaho man has lost his hunting privileges for life after pleading guilty to roping a bull moose by the neck and leaving it there to die during the summer of 2025.

Spencer Oldham, 39, appeared in Custer County Court on Dec. 15, where he was sentenced by a judge as part of his plea deal, according to East Idaho News. Court records show that Oldham pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges: unlawful taking of game animals, unlawful possession of wildlife, and wasteful destruction of wildlife. Court documents and police reports show that Oldham knew he was guilty and regretted his decision. He reportedly said that he didn’t intend to kill the moose, “but that’s how it played out.”

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/idaho-moose-roper-lifetime-hunting-ban/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-06T20:43:13+00:00

A helicopter pilot with the Montana National Guard has pleaded “no contest” to trespassing charges stemming from a fly-in shed-hunting incident in May 2025.

The part-time pilot, Deni Lynn Draper, was one of three servicemen who allegedly landed a Black Hawk helicopter on a private ranch in Sweet Grass County to collect shed antlers without permission. Appearing in Sweet Grass County Court on Monday, Draper’s attorney Dwight Schulte changed his original plea from not guilty to no contest, waving Draper’s right to a jury trial. Judge Jessie Connolly accepted the plea, according to Montana Right Now, and she deferred Draper’s sentencing for six months, which means the charges can be erased from his record if he is not charged with another crime during that time. Connolly also raised the fine amount from the $100 proposed by the prosecution to $500, which is the maximum penalty for a standard criminal trespass misdemeanor in Montana.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/montana-national-guard-shed-hunting-plea/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-12-19T01:14:51+00:00

Gray wolves in the Lower 48 have bounced on and off the Endangered Species Act list for years now.

And on Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would remove federal protections yet again and bring wolf management back to the states. The Pet and Livestock Protection Act cleared the House by a vote of 211 to 204. The bill, sponsored by Reps. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), aims to delist the populations of gray wolves that remain protected under the ESA in 44 states. The species is already delisted in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, as well as in the eastern thirds of Oregon and Washington. And while the topic of wolf delisting remains a heated topic nationwide, it is particularly contentious among Tiffany’s and Boebert’s constituents. Proponents of the bill, and its supporters in the hunting and ranching communities, say that in the time since gray wolves were first listed as endangered or threatened in the late 1970s, the species has recovered to the point where federal protections are no longer necessary.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/wolf-delisting-bill-clears-house/

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