"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.
Reply With Quote