News article--African Rock pythons and Burmese pythons

[CoolioTiffany]

My mom gave me this article from a newspaper that someone gave to her for me to read. This is what it says:

In a case of real life imitating Hollywood, the U.S. scientific community is increasingly concerned that two non-native python breeds currently slithering free in southern Florida could morph into a giant man-eating swamp coil.
The capture of five African rock pythons recently near an Everglades already teeming with the gentler Burmese pythons has scientists worried about so-called hybrid vigor - a phenomenon that occurs when interbreeding uncorks volatile recessive genes, passing traits such as aggression onto the offspring.
Think Africanized bees. The two species have interbred in captivity. While Burmese pythons aren't known to eat people in their native habitat, the African rock python, unfortunately, has been known to do just that.

Thought I'd share this with you guys.

[Brewster320]

I hate reporters. For one cateaters (burms x rocks) are infact much smaller than either parent, think tigon (male tiger x female lion), so that alone completely ruins that idea of giant man eaters...

[CoolioTiffany]

I hate reporters. For one cateaters (burms x rocks) are infact much smaller than either parent, think tigon (male tiger x female lion), so that alone completely ruins that idea of giant man eaters...

I definitely didn't think that two large snakes would make an even larger snakes. Has there ever even been real events of an African Rock python eating a human?

[Hulihzack]

Unlocking volatile recessive traits such as aggression? Really? Where are they coming up with this garbage?

[CoolioTiffany]

Unlocking volatile recessive traits such as aggression? Really? Where are they coming up with this garbage?

People will make up anything, and people will believe it. I can't even believe they'd say that aggression is a recessive trait.. and aggression is a trait. Doesn't 'traits' apply to appearance not in personality?

[retic720]

I once heard/read about a hoax report re: that pic of a man that emerged after disemboweling a retic.

From what I recall, this rich dude visited a poor village somewhere in a SEAsian jungle and offered easy money to kill a retic and for a man to pose inside it's cut open belly. I dunno but last I check, people from poverty stricken areas will do almost anything for quick cash, especially if it smells like an almighty dollar/euro and all you have to do is pose inside the belly of a dead snake

BOttomline: Looks like the Philippines isn't the only one with media "occasionally" spreading false information...

[MarkS]

Already discussing it here... http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...d.php?t=102162 What I find so shocking are the journalistic institutions that are letting these panic mongers air their fears. I'm just aghast that that such journalism powerhouses as the National Geographic are allowing this kind of garbage to be published under their byline. I REALLY gotta wonder who paid them off. Somebodies gotta start 'following the money' on articles like this... To find out where it's really coming from and who's really responsible for this crap journalism.

[Neal]

I'm sorry but the repoter is a moron. No snake can actually eat an average human being, as our shoulders are too wide. Green condas are heavier then african rock or burmese, and even so as an adult couldn't even eat an average human, but a smaller snake would? Right... Not to mention african rock x burmese wouldn't be larger.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Now, we can't be sure that infants or very young children have never been eaten by giant snakes--surely they have.

It's also been shown that the reticulated python, at least, is perfectly capable of swallowing a human being, provided it constricted the person in the right position to begin with. They're so strong that they would break the bones in the shoulders, so that the width wouldn't be an issue anymore. It's more than possible that it's happened, and retics HAVE been verifiably caught in the process of TRYING to swallow people. So it's easy to imagine that one may have finished the job on an occasion or two.

It's an unlikely scenario, but there's no sense in pretending it's impossible. They are large, powerful, and certainly dangerous if not handled properly.

There's no particular reason to single out the African rock python over the Burm in that scenario, though.

[Adam_Wysocki]

Just some thoughts ...

For almost one half century, people in the United States have been keeping reptiles as pets by the cumulative millions ... the number of deaths related to pet reptiles, while tragic, are so small comparatively they are almost nonexistent. Reptile ownership as a hobby has a greater safety record than snow skiing, motor-sports, scuba diving, and a plethora of other hobbies that are talked about every day in America without mention of a death or "invasion".

We live in a country founded on the principle of protecting the innocent. Our court systems are run in a way that favors letting the guilty go free in order to prevent falsely punishing innocent citizens ... citizens that are obeying the law and living in a way expected of them by our society and our government. This protection of innocent citizens is conveniently washed away and forgotten when it comes to the hundreds of thousands of reptile owning Americans in this country who are assumed to be irresponsible and not worthy of being afforded the liberty of innocence like every other citizen. For every reptile law that is created or even thought about because of an accident or the speculation of what could happen, the innocent suffer. Every time someone that keeps and breeds ball pythons hears about a new law and then wipes the sweat off their foreheads and thanks God that it won't affect them, innocent keepers are forsaken. The people that have been keeping giant snakes for decades. The people that are doing it right with appropriately sized enclosures, cage locks, and safety protocols are being condemned. A giant machine has been created in this country ... built on political influence, money, power, and media headlines ... it is a machine bent on eliminating the ownership of giant constrictors and monitor lizards. Once that happens, does anyone honestly believe that the powers that be will park that machine in a garage and forget about it? The attacks will certainly continue and they will very likely be aimed at your reptile of choice sooner or later.

Next time anyone reading this considers what "surely could " or "might" happen as the result of a burm, or retic, anaconda, or other large reptile think about the people who's liberty will suffer as a result of those thoughts. Think about the people that wake up every day afraid that this might be the day that they lose everything that they are passionate about because the millions of success stories are being ignored and the "maybes", "probablies", and "surelys" are at the forefront of this discussion. And after you have those thoughts, do something about it ... educate people that these animals can be kept safely, without incident, and that we owe it to the people that keep them to do better than just sweep them under the rug and forget that they exist ... if not for their sake, how about for the 9 year old boy in Arizona that just got his first leopard gecko ... or for the 12 year old girl in Nebraska that with the help of her father, just produced her first baby sand boas. They represent a future that if left unchanged, will not afford their children the opportunity to experience the same fascination with the natural world that they had as children.

Even if you don't keep snakes, even if you just own a dog or a horse or a bird ... like it or not, you are part of something bigger than yourself. You are part of the 67 million American households that responsibly own pets. Today we are fractured but tomorrow, if we wanted, we could be united ... we could be close to a hundred million strong and ready to stand up for one another. We could have a voice that protects the people that are doing it right and the pets that need our help. And even more importantly ...

WE COULD BE THE ONES MAKING THE LAWS.

Respectfully,

-adam