State wildlife officials are asking for a hunting permit of sorts from the federal government in order to reduce the numbers of a slithering scourge that is threatening native wildlife in the Everglades.

Officials want the U.S. Department of Interior to allow hunting for Burmese pythons in the national park, where hunting is banned. Up to 150,000 of the reptiles, which are not indigenous to Florida, live in South Florida, according to state estimates.

Gov. Charlie Crist and Sen. Bill Nelson met Thursday in the Everglades with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Details of the extermination plan are yet to be firmed up, but Crist endorsed a plan Thursday to put a bounty on the snakes.

Wildlife commissioner Rodney Barreto offered to put up $10,000 of his own money to get the bounty program started.

Park rangers showed Salazar and Nelson a 16-foot python that had been captured in the Everglades.

Pythons can lay up to 100 eggs at a time. They can grow as long as 23 feet and weigh 200 pounds. They eat about 200 pounds of food year, but are not considered to be aggressive.

A bill in Congress would ban the importation of exotic snakes such as the python.