Just read the new python in the everglades study

"Marsh rabbit mortalities tie pythons to the precipitous decline of mammals in the Everglades"

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.o.../1805/20150120

More on this tomorrow, but wow this is some embarrassing science.

These researchers had to jump through some incredible hoops to come to the conclusion, erroneous, that Pythons are responsible for the decline in marsh rabbits in the everglades.

I will write this up in more detail Saturday, but at least the study was very clear on one point, "Pythons are not a major cause of mortality in places where pythons don't exist. Phew, if pythons could kill things in places they didn't exist that would be wicked scary.

Here is a quick teaser. The second highest number of mortalities at one study location was caused by people. That is right, trappers took half as many rabbits in one of the study locations as pythons. Even more embarrassing for the researchers, the python infested areas had better marsh rabbit survivability than one of the controls.

I have no idea how this ever got published in a peer reviewed journal.

It is as sloppy and politically motivated as any science I have ever seen.

I'm in south FL and in some places, actually every place with populations of them, the damn marsh rabbits are everywhere. You know what kills them? A 3 ton box on wheels traveling down a road at 70 mph. I can literally walk for fifteen minutes down the highway/exit ramps areas and see over 20 squished on the side of the road. Not only are people killing the poor things, but careless owners who have released their pet bunnies have cause interspecies breeding. Marsh rabbits are supposed to be brown. I've seen white with spots, grey and black, brown and white, all white, etc. So why aren't bunny rabbits on the Lacey act?
Heck I even have them in my back yard and I used to be the biggest threat to them when I was younger (I tried to catch them, not harm just to clarify). We can't forget that it's rabbits we're talking about, those things that if you leave them in a room for 4 weeks there are suddenly 8 more.


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Sounds like junk science at it's worst and grasping at straws.

I always felt this legislation was suspect and unwarranted due to several factors. Now it's all coming to light how the USFWS has just wanted to use the pythons as a scapegoat! Kudos to USARK and all their hard work to right this wrong! What about all the nasty rats and mice that pythons kill? Come on, give me and reptiles a break! Stay in peace and not pieces.:gj:

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Originally Posted by Citrus

I'm in south FL and in some places, actually every place with populations of them, the damn marsh rabbits are everywhere. You know what kills them? A 3 ton box on wheels traveling down a road at 70 mph. I can literally walk for fifteen minutes down the highway/exit ramps areas and see over 20 squished on the side of the road. Not only are people killing the poor things, but careless owners who have released their pet bunnies have cause interspecies breeding. Marsh rabbits are supposed to be brown. I've seen white with spots, grey and black, brown and white, all white, etc. So why aren't bunny rabbits on the Lacey act?
Heck I even have them in my back yard and I used to be the biggest threat to them when I was younger (I tried to catch them, not harm just to clarify). We can't forget that it's rabbits we're talking about, those things that if you leave them in a room for 4 weeks there are suddenly 8 more.


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Actually, European rabbits and hares ARE on the Lacey act. Lotta good that did em, huh? :rolleyes:

I have no doubt wild pythons are eating rabbits, they are predators and rabbits are prey. I am equally certain that the pythons will make a change in population. I am also certain that things will reach equilibrium again given time. Nature works these things out. I am also equally sure that regulating pets snakes in captivity will have zero effect on wild rabbit populations. The government trying to prevent a problem from happening that already exists is just about the stupidest thing I have ever heard of.

It would be like in my area restricting pet birds because 100 years ago starlings were introduced. They went through the same thing a huge population boom, over ran native birds native predators figured out this new food source and they expended to take advantage of the new food and the populations settled out and we are where we are today. Yes it sucks, it is terrible, it is too late to change it.

following this.

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Originally Posted by Albert Clark

I always felt this legislation was suspect and unwarranted due to several factors. Now it's all coming to light how the USFWS has just wanted to use the pythons as a scapegoat! Kudos to USARK and all their hard work to right this wrong! What about all the nasty rats and mice that pythons kill? Come on, give me and reptiles a break! Stay in peace and not pieces.:gj:

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In the keys there are (I think this is what they are) african pouched rats. The things are bigger than a small dog and trained to find land mines. I wouldn't be surprised if the pythons are decimating those things


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I am writing a long description of the many problems with this new study. It is chock full of them. I am publishing as I write. This is part 1:

When I saw a report of this study on the national news, I cringed. I am a classically trained biologist, and have seen first hand exactly how damaging invasive species are. I expected this study to confirm my worst fears. I expected to see stark numbers, and cold statistics. I expected proof that pythons are causing damage to the fragile everglades environment. I decided to read the study anyway, telling myself that this is a South Florida Problem, it does not justify a national ban no matter how convincing the study is.


Then I read the abstract and realized immediately that something was very amiss. There was a shocking number “Experimentally manipulating marsh rabbits, we found that pythons accounted for 77% of rabbit mortalities within 11 months of their translocation to ENP” I re-read the sentence and realized it did not say what I had expected. This was a sentence designed to mislead. If the study was trying to show that pythons were destroying the population of marsh rabbits,why were they specifying the percent of mortalities caused by pythons instead of looking at mortality rates?


Let me give you a quick example to make my point. Imagine that we have fifty rabbits. If 4 are killed: three by pythons one by a fox, then 75% of mortalities are by pythons, but we still have 46 rabbits. The way rabbits bread, 46 rabbits is plenty to keep the species going. Discussing what percentage of mortalities are caused by a specific predator only tells us what preys on an animal, not how the predation effects the species. To discern anything meaningful about predation, you need to study predation rates. I read the paper looking for raw numbers to see how many rabbits were killed by pythons. I was frustrated by the fact that the raw data was hidden in an electronic abstract. Instead of a chart of the results, these researchers (I shudder to call them scientists) launch into a series of models and statistical analysis. Now models and statistical analysis are important but in order evaluate a study, you need the data first. I began to wonder why the authors of this paper were asking me to take there analysis at face value. Science doesn't and shouldn't work that way.

Now this is important, in a scientific paper the Abstract is the only thing 90% of people will ever read. It is certainly all the press reads. The MiamiHerald picked up the story, talked to one of the papers authors and wrote the following.


Burmese pythons munch marsh rabbits in Everglades National Parkfaster than any native predator, confirming what biologists already suspected: The invasive snake is changing the balance of the park’sfood chain.


Two years ago, researchers determined that as the python population climbed in the park, the number of small mammals declined. But they couldn’t prove for sure that one caused the other. A study published this week makes a stronger case for the connection, based on the fates of 26 rabbits fitted with tracking devices and let loose in the park in September 2012. The rabbits, which are native to the park but have nearly vanished in the last decade, did well. They settled in, started breeding like bunnies and seemed to thrive, said University of Florida biologist Robert McCleery, one of the study’s authors. Then, as temperatures climbed, the rabbits started to disappear. Where? Inside pythons.


Stoked by the hot weather, pythons started gobbling up rabbits faster than scientists expected — and even faster than the rabbitscould reproduce.


“None of us would have predicted that 77 percent of the rabbits would be eaten by pythons,” McCleery said.


Notice the last line of the quote. Suddenly the pythons ate 77 percent of the rabbits. This is not what the study said though. The study said that pythons were responsible for 77 percent of the mortalities. There is a subtle but important difference here. Ask yourself how many mortalities there were. When I tell you, you will realize the scientist has deliberately misrepresented his own study. He is hoping no one read the rest of the paper. I did, and I can take you on a guided tour.

It turns out that almost everything in the above quote is either a misrepresentation or total lie. Furthermore, the experiment is designed to find its conclusion. In science it is not permissible to design an experiment in such a way that the design of the study dictates the results. For example, if someone came up with a hypothesis that one race was more prone to criminality than another, it would be inappropriate to study a prison population that only housed that race, and then conclude that since everyone in that prison was of a certain race that race was more prone to crime.

Also, the actual data in this experiment is only available in an electronic addendum, and when examined, is inconsistent with the studies conclusion. In short the researchers rigged the experiment, then ran it. Shockingly even after rigging the study got a result inconsistent with the conclusion they draw. This is a lot like cheating in poker and still loosing the hand. Very Embarrassing.

After looking in the online data abstract, I found the actual results of the test. I supply you with the actual numbers. 31 rabbits were released into two test sites in the everglades. Of these 31 rabbits, 4 survived till the end of the experiment. 17 where eaten by pythons.

Now keeping in mind that the study claims that 77% of rabbit mortalities are caused by pythons, and that the papers lead author claims in the Miami Herald that 77 percent of the rabbits were eaten by pythons.

31-4=27, so 27 rabbits died during the study

I ask you the following questions. Is 17 deaths 77 percent of 27 deaths? Is 17 deaths 77 percent of 31 rabbits?

Go ahead do the math.

Did you get 62.9% and 54%?

How did this discrepancy happen. After all 6 scientists (I use this term loosely) are responsible for this paper. Certainly one of them had a calculator.

The answer in part three.

Imagine that you are a scientist, you have just spent a lot of money getting a degree and discovered that for every Jacques Cousteau or Jane Goodall there are hundreds, maybe thousands of poorly paid researchers competing for fewer and fewer grants. Most of these anonymous researchers will toil quietly their whole lives and die in scientific obscurity. You on the other hand have a cushy government job proving that pythons are a danger to the Everglades. Considering that media outlets all over the country are reporting that the python scourge will be spreading into the Tundra, despite the fact the studies show 100% mortality for populations out side of the extreme southern tip of Florida, your job should be pretty easy. After all the public will accept any conclusion regardless of the data, as long as it sounds scary and comes from a scientist.

So you come up with the idea of releasing rabbits into parts of the everglades where there are pythons and no mammalian predators. Then you can release some animals into parts of the everglades where there are no pythons. Since none of the rabbits in the no python area will be killed by pythons, and pythons are the only predators in the python areas you are assured that 0% of the fatalities in your non python area will be from pythons, and all of your fatalities in the python area will be from pythons. You can just point at the difference and say, "see pythons are dangerous." The fact that the study couldn't have any other result is something most people will not notice.

You are so happy with yourself. You can get the predetermined result you need to keep your job. So you catch, tag and release 31 animals. You start tracking your animals and something strange happens. You find a car and it is beeping like your rabbits are inside. You see traps on the front seat. What do you do? The trapper shows up and you ask how many rabbits he has. Turns out he just got three. You have just started your study and already your sample group has been decimated. You ask the trapper to move his traps so he doesn't hurt your study any more. You make a mental note to claim in your paper that the shortage of rabbits in this area is due to pythons. You'll mention the trapper casually, and hope nobody realizes the pythons aren't the only threat to marsh rabbits in this stretch of the everglades. You keep tracking rabbits and over the next few days you lose more of your sample group.

A bird grabs one, and one just disappears. It has been ten days and 5 of your 31 rabbits are already dead. Not a single one by a python. Wow this study is turning into a bust fast. What will you do? That is simple, you have to find a way to exclude the data. You hide it in the supplement in Table S1 and hope no one ever reads it. After all, who reads the supplement. You could tell the truth and explain that you are omitting the first ten days of data from your study because it makes your thesis look profoundly stupid or you could make something up. You choose the later option. You carefully explain that the rabbits where uncomfortable and stressed those first ten days, so the pythons didn't eat them. If the pythons aren't eating the poor bunnies because the bunnies are uncomfortable, it just isn't fair to include those ten inconvenient days in your study.

Good now the fact that 16 % of your animals died from non python deaths in 10 days has been covered up, and the largest source of mortality, your human trapper, has been relocated you can spend the next 11 months waiting for the Pythons to pick off the rest of your rabbits.

TableS1.Numberof marsh rabbits mortalities by category for rabbits living < 10days in Everglades National Park (ENP), and at control and proceduralcontrol sites, from 14 September 2012 to 19 August 2013.

	Endothermic				Ectothermic
	Avian	Mammalian	Unknown	Python		Reptilian (non-python)	Trapping Related		Total
Released-ENP	1	0	1	0		0	3		5
Control	0	2	1	0		0	1		4
Procedural Control	0	2	1	0		3a	0		6

^aAmericanalligator

Nightrainfalls, thank you for a great walk through! In a past life I had to dissect these type of studies myself. As you showed, it is obvious that they skewed the study to prove their outcome.
Unfortunately it takes a big name peer to make the circuit disputing such trash and educating their peers on study dynamics and ethics.
Will this happen?


Great job!

@ Reinz Thanks, there is way more, but I got depressed and am spending some quality time with my python Delphi. Part 4 out soon.

Time to be a scientist again. You have just gotten back from your study sites, and found a way to make many inconvenient deaths disappear. You looking forward to seeing all 15 happy rabbits at your python free procedural control. You are already picturing yourself pointing to the happy rabbits in the python free control and telling an adoring Miami Herald reporter how evil scaly ugly pythons are wiping out these cute fuzzy little mammals. You get in your car and drive to the python free procedural control site. You are already calling it rabbitopia. Those fifteen rabbits are so lucky to be living there. You start up your tracking device and point it at some alligators. They are beeping away. Huh, why are the alligators beeping? You didn't tag alligators. Oh no those damned alligators ate three of your rabbits. And one more rabbit is missing. Worse over there are the remains of two more eaten by some sort of mammal. I has been just ten days and just under half of your control is already dead.

This is a disaster, at this rate by the end of the month, there won't be any rabbits in python free rabbitopia. If your entire procedural control is wiped out your study will be invalid. How can you claim that pythons are destroying rabbit populations when the rabbits in your non python area are all dead in less than month. This is a disaster. At least you have those fifty rabbits you tagged and left in the healthy rabbit colony you raided for rabbits. Maybe they are doing better.

You get to the original rabbit colony and start counting. Four of the fifty are already dead, that is like eight percent in a little over a week. Worse yet, all of them are from non pythons. This study has been going on a little over week and your rabbits have been decimated, or worse, and not a single python fatality. You decide to put all the data in Supplemental Table 1. "People won't read that, you think to yourself and smile.

The hawks and eagles just finished off the last rabbit in Rabbitopia. Yep 100% fatality rate. All 15 rabbits are dead. Even if the pythons eat all the rabbits in the Python infested ENP sites, all you can prove is that pythons are as effective as mammals and birds and destroying rabbit populations. Worse still the rattle snakes have moved in and made of with three more of your fifty control rabbits, nine more just disappeared. "How does a rabbit just disappear, you wonder to yourself." Then there are the cats, or raccoons, or some type of mammal that just ate 20 of your control rabbits. "Man rabbits die fast", you think to yourself. Still no python attacks in the python infested areas. You hope it warms up soon and those dangerous rabbit exterminating snakes start doing what they do, because right now this study is going entirely to crap.

You really can't believe it. You rigged everything in your favor and it just isn't working out. It will be so embarrassing if rabbits do better in python territory than outside python territory. You will have accidently proven the government wrong and invalidated the official stance on pythons. How will you keep your Job?

The rabbits are better off with the pythons. 4 out of 31 rabbits survived a year with the snakes. 5 of 65 survived without the snakes. You shake your head in shock. You have to write a paper claiming that pythons wipe out rabbits while somehow making sure that no one notices that 13% of the rabbits in the python infested areas survived while only 7 percent survived outside of the python area. In short, in python infested areas, rabbits are twice as likely to survive for one year, than in non python infested areas.

Time to create some models, calculate statistics, and make some pretty graphs showing how python feeding is related to temperature.

You make a few wildly inaccurate claims, try to make the background as persuasive as possible, and hope no one actually has the attention span to read the paper you write and realize, that you are lying and that you actually proved the opposite of what you are claiming.

Time to call the Miami Herald. There reporters are too stupid to fact check anything.

David

It's too bad the Gubmint and others would accept such a study without the scrutiny of a strict peer review.

For example many physicians, such as the ones treating y'all will not even consider looking at the results of a medical study unless it has been written up in THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE. If it came out of any other journal, it carries no weight with them. That is because The NEJM does not print any junk science, only top peer review stuff.

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Originally Posted by Citrus

I'm in south FL and in some places, actually every place with populations of them, the damn marsh rabbits are everywhere. You know what kills them? A 3 ton box on wheels traveling down a road at 70 mph. I can literally walk for fifteen minutes down the highway/exit ramps areas and see over 20 squished on the side of the road. Not only are people killing the poor things, but careless owners who have released their pet bunnies have cause interspecies breeding. Marsh rabbits are supposed to be brown. I've seen white with spots, grey and black, brown and white, all white, etc. So why aren't bunny rabbits on the Lacey act?
Heck I even have them in my back yard and I used to be the biggest threat to them when I was younger (I tried to catch them, not harm just to clarify). We can't forget that it's rabbits we're talking about, those things that if you leave them in a room for 4 weeks there are suddenly 8 more.


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Actually, as it would turn out, the non-domesticated variety of European rabbit is on the Lacey Act, if my memory serves me right.

Seriously, someone needs to send this thread to the people trying to get rid of the Lacey act restrictions.

Do people forget that Florida is a state where nothing is native? Everything here was introduced at some point or another. Even the people are all from Northern states or other countries.


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