Just read the new python in the everglades study

[nightrainfalls]

"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.

[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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[Reinz]

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

[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.

[Lizardlicks]

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?

[kitedemon]

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.

[steve k]

following this.

[Citrus]

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.

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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[nightrainfalls]

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.

[nightrainfalls]

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.