herps in the news (NY Times)

[CTReptileRescue]

Forget the Gators: Exotic Pets Run Wild in Florida
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
February 29, 2004

Front Pg todays's NY Times (Photo on front page large burmese
phython being eaten by a gator)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/national/29FLOR.html?
adxnnl==1&adxnnlx=78063447-
0mtMJ06jWgBQ4Z4HbHb8uw&pagewanted==all&position=got photos and a
multi-media show.

MIAMI, Feb. 28 — Burmese pythons are wrestling alligators in the
Everglades. African monitor lizards, ill tempered and up to seven
feet long, are splashing through canals in Cape Coral. Vervet
monkeys hang around a car rental lot near Fort Lauderdale; South
American monk parakeets wreak havoc on power lines; Cuban tree frogs
have colonized everywhere, gobbling native frogs as they go.

The southern end of Florida, the most tropical state outside Hawaii,
is teeming with exotic beasts. As if alligators, panthers and other
native creatures were not enough, the steamy swamps, murky waterways
and lush tree canopies here are a paradise for furry, scaly, clawed,
fanged and otherwise off-putting things that have no business
roaming this side of the equator.

"This stuff doesn't happen in New Jersey, it doesn't happen in Ohio,
but in South Florida it happens constantly," said Todd Hardwick,
whose trapping business, Pesky Critters, gets 60 calls a day from
people with peacocks on their roofs, caimans in their driveways and
iguanas in their tool sheds. "Miami-Dade County is probably ground
zero for exotic animals that are on the loose and doing very well."

More imported animals are flown to Miami than any other American
city but New York and Los Angeles. Breeders, dealers and owners of
exotic pets abound. And when pet lovers find their boa constrictor
or spinytail iguana has outgrown its cage, or they move or meet a
mate who will not abide anteaters, piranhas or prairie dogs, South
Florida presents the perfect dumping ground.

"Any place the public perceives as a large, wild, junglelike
environment, that's where you'll see them," said Mr. Hardwick, who
said he once caught a 22-foot reticulated python under a house in
Fort Lauderdale, where it had retreated after swallowing a
raccoon. "Miami is a fast, disposable society, which means whatever
is the hot pet today will be my catch of the day next week."

Witness the Nile monitor lizard, dagger-clawed, blue-tongued and
voracious. Monitors have multiplied so quickly in the maze of man-
made canals around Cape Coral, a fast-growing city on the southwest
coast, that a scientist at the University of Tampa won grants last
year to study their ecological impact. Thirty-nine monitors have
been caught and killed in the region since summer, said Kenneth
Krysko, a University of Florida herpetologist assisting with the
project.

"There's no question they are expanding their range," Dr. Krysko
said. "They are scaring the heck out of residents, there's no
question about that." He said the lizards end up abandoned because
many pet dealers do not warn buyers how big and difficult they get.

"Any child can go to a pet store and buy a hatchling for $10," Dr.
Krysko said. "It's really sad, because this is such a beautiful
lizard, just a magnificent species. But no one realizes the ability
this animal has to tear off your cat's head with one twist."

Scientists say the lizards do not pose a danger to humans unless
they are cornered.

Cape Coral residents also worry that monitors are eating the eggs of
burrowing owls, an endangered species that nests in the ground and
is abundant, and beloved, in the area. But Dr. Krysko said it was
too early to tell, since scientists have not yet examined monitors'
stomach contents (the captured lizards are in deep freeze for now).

While Florida has become hypervigilant about the spread of invasive
plants and trees like Brazilian pepper and Australian pine, it has
been slower to address the problem of non-native animals, said Skip
Snow, a wildlife biologist at Everglades National Park.

"When you're talking about things that move around, it's harder to
detect them and harder to do something about it," he said. "There
has not been an organized campaign to remind people it's not just
against the law but terrible for the environment to release these
things."

Nor is the pet industry a reliable partner in controlling exotic
animals, because many dealers are not knowledgeable, said Jim
Stinebaugh, a federal wildlife inspector at Miami International
Airport.

"Some of these folks were a manager down at Eckerd's and decided
they could make a little more money selling exotic animals," said
Mr. Stinebaugh, one of nine federal inspectors in Miami supervising
up to 70 foreign shipments a day, some with thousands of animals.
They turn back endangered species and other animals not allowed into
the country — if they spot them.

But they cannot keep out monitor lizards and other species known to
make bad, though perfectly legal, pets. Mr. Stinebaugh sees monitors
arrive almost weekly, and he said it was not uncommon to get
shipments of 1,000 baby boas from Colombia or pythons from Indonesia.

Everglades National Park — 1.5 million acres of saw grass prairie,
mangrove swamp and jungle — has become a haven for Burmese pythons,
which scientists believe are reproducing there. Other kinds of
pythons, including the reticulated, ball and albino, have turned up
there, too. So have boas.

The park has a python hot line, and it will soon distribute
informational fliers about the snakes to visitors. Mr. Snow said
people there had found all sizes of pythons in recent years,
typically along roadsides but sometimes in the water. A tip last
month led to the capture of six pythons sunning themselves along a
levee, he said, though he added that park visitors need not be
afraid of the snakes, which are not venomous.

"The concept people have of snakes hanging from trees and dropping
into your boat to attack you, that's just not realistic," he said.

It is more likely that pythons could eventually displace native
snakes. Mr. Snow said he had been heartened by reports that an
alligator recently swallowed a python in the park — a bone-chilling
battle captured on film by stunned retirees from Wisconsin — because
it suggested that pythons, which have few predators, could perhaps
be controlled.

Some of the exotic animals here were released or escaped from
roadside attractions years ago, like the troupe of vervet monkeys
that roams Dania Beach, near Fort Lauderdale. In 1992, Hurricane
Andrew destroyed a number of research and breeding centers and a
good portion of the Miami zoo, setting loose 5,000 animals, from
baboons and orangutans to wallabies and capybaras, known to some as
hog-sized rats.

Those still at large include macaque and capuchin monkeys, parrots
and cockatiels, and lizards galore, said John West, a lieutenant in
the wildlife investigations division of the Florida Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission.

"We had one dealer lose almost 10,000 geckos," Lieutenant West
said. "You could look out across a tomato field and there would be a
line of 100 macaques walking nomadically across the field, picking
up fruits and vegetables."

Mr. Stinebaugh, the airport wildlife inspector, is in a prime
position to monitor exotic pet trends, and thus to predict which
species will be turning up in the wild. Tarantulas are hot, he said,
as are horned lizards from Vietnam.

It is harder to predict how exotic animals will affect the
ecosystem. That can take decades to determine. Mr. Hardwick, the
trapper, said it was clear that pythons and boas were displacing
indigo snakes, and that parrots were competing with native owls and
woodpeckers for tree cavities.

"Some of these battles we've already lost," Mr. Hardwick said. Green
iguanas are now so common in South Florida that he has given up
answering calls about them.

His favored solution? A good hard freeze, which many of the "alien
invader species," as he calls them, would be unlikely to survive.

But the last time that the mercury dropped below 25 in Miami was,
well, never.

"Maybe in 200 years," Mr. Hardwick said with a sigh, "we're going to
be calling a lot more things native."

[The_Godfather]

I've heard about the burms living in the everglades. Is it possible for them to survive winter?

I also read that story about the burm and aligator fighting, that was weird.

[RPlank]

I don't think there really is a winter in the everglades, other than maybe a slight cooling which would induce breeding!

[Marla]

Randy, that ought to cheer up the Wildlife Officers!

[Smulkin]

Hehe I lived south of Miami (just N of Homestead) for a yeah and a half prior to Hurricane Andrew - saw a lot of big gators and snakes but never ran into anything non-native (granted i wasn't down there long). I do know that Hurricane Andrew messed the zoo so severely they "lost" a lot of animals they never recovered - this on top of the already pervasive problem of people setting stuff loose as the fast and easy method of terminating animal ownership.

[The_Godfather]

In a yahoo group I was in this guy went herping in FL like he did every weekend or whatnot. He saw a big snake slithering across the road, went to catch it and was suprised to find a 5.5 foot healthy female bp!

And there are pics I've foun on the net of peeps coming across burms too.

[Smulkin]

LOL - I remember seeing on the news one night Animal COntrol had to be called in to 'rassle up an 18' snake that had gotten out of it's enclosure and was roaming a neighborhood. I can't remember if they said it was Burm, Retic or Afrock but from what I remember watching it I think it was an AfRock. At any rate during all the footage they showed the most threatening thing the snake did the whole time was try to get away. It let them put it in a trash can without strriking or coiling - hell no resistance. But it refused to let them hold the lid on. Then they tried to put it in a large dog carrier but the thin metal grille on the door was too easily bent aside by the snake trying to get out. When they realized they were not in much danger from it (even it's attemps to get away once it busted out of whatever they put it in looked . . lazy - maybe it was a hyrdoponic-raised snake hehe) they just heaved into the enclosed back of the truck and drove off. All this despite the constant hysterical screams from the neighbors at the mere sight of the thing.

[The_Godfather]

Yeah, people think snakes are so vicous. They see hots on tv striking like mad and assume they're all venomous and meanies. hahaha That'd be like grouping all geckos with tokays.

I once had some friends over and I took out the snakes. They were so scared they ran out of the room.