Miami Super Bowl Host Committee Under Fire for ‘Python Bowl’

PETA Ups the Ante After Super Bowl Organizers Stand Behind Government-Run Snake-Killing Contest

For Immediate Release:
January 14, 2020

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

In a letter sent yesterday, PETA blasted the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee’s refusal to stop promoting the egregiously cruel 2020 Python Bowl––put on by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and promoted by Gov. DeSantis––in which participants are encouraged to hunt and kill as many snakes as possible, as well as its plans to use footballs made from the snakes’ skin during Super Bowl festivities. PETA also enlisted its millions of supporters to help urge the committee not to promote the contest.

“This grotesque contest sets laypeople loose to cruelly botch python killings,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is calling on the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee to cut ties with this killing fest and allow kind football fans to enjoy the Super Bowl without supporting cruelty to reptiles or any other animal.”

PETA notes that pythons were taken from their native homes in Southeast Asia by the exotic-pet trade, ending up in Florida through no fault of their own—and their unique physiology puts them at risk of experiencing prolonged, agonizing deaths at the hands of people unequipped to euthanize them humanely.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.

PETA’s letter to Miami Super Bowl Host Committee Chair Rodney Barreto follows.

January 13, 2020

Rodney Barreto, Chair

Miami Super Bowl Host Committee

Dear Mr. Barreto,

We are amazed that the committee has decided to dismiss concerns regarding the promotion of this year’s Python Challenge by renaming it the Python Bowl and plans to include footballs made from the snakes’ skin in this year’s Super Bowl festivities. The pythons are in Florida because of the irresponsible exotic-pet trade—in which the snakes were sold to irresponsible people who then abandoned them—and they’re being killed now through no fault of their own. There is simply nothing here to cheer about. Using their skin as part of the entertainment trivializes the animals’ deaths, and killing them should not be seen as something fun. Please assure us that you will reverse course on this wretched idea and decide not to promote the Python Bowl. We look forward to updating our concerned members and supporters, many of whom are ready and willing to escalate actions in order to protect these animals from further vilification and gratuitous cruelty.

Best regards,

Ingrid E. Newkirk

President

PETA