UPDATE: HR2811 Amendment

[twistedtails]

They don't need a event to get them headed to ban things. The legislationw as in the works long long before the child was killed.

Remember that HR669 was against ALL exotics, and I dont' remember any canary related deaths, or feral populations of hamsters destroying wildlife.

The politicians and animal rights groups do NOT need legitimate events to try to ban our pets. All they need is the ability.

Again you have to understand how this works. Things get shot down daily in these commitees, and they know it. I will almost gauranty you that they only wanted big snakes banned. To make it look like they are comprimising on the subject, they add all other species also and amend the proposal to work in thier favor. It's just like someone who gets busted in a criminal case....They get charged with all kinds of extra charges in order to get the person to take a plea bargain on what charge they origianlly wanted him to have.

[WingedWolfPsion]

It's not true that Burmese do not have any natural predators in the Everglades. They have MANY predators, from raccoons and opossums to herons and raptors when they are small, all the way up to adult alligators once they are fully grown. No doubt a black bear would figure out a way to take advantage of this new prey source as well.

Yes, Burms eat a lot of animals--rodents and baby alligators, young birds, etc--but they're also eaten by a lot of animals, particularly when small. This isn't a case where a species is introduced to a place where it has no natural predators. MANY animals in the Everglades eat snakes, and the burm is not so significantly different that it's not on the menu. We KNOW alligators are eating them. It's much too early to declare that Burmese are going to cause harm to the everglades ecosystem.