Quote:
Originally Posted by USARK.Jonathan.Brady
Now in a paper entitled, Cold weather and the potential range of invasive Burmese pythons, published in a refereed scientific journal called Biological Invasions, scientists question the rash conclusions of Rodda & Reed. 7 of 9 Burmese pythons captured from Everglades National Park and held in outdoor enclosures with heated refugia died in the cold last winter at the USDA facility in Gainesville, FL. One of the authors of the new paper, Michael Avery says, "Our empirical observations cast doubt that Burmese pythons can become established and persist beyond the southern portion of the Florida peninsula."


Am I reading this right? They let 7 snakes freeze to death at a government facility, in the name of science, then ignore their own findings...
First, it does say that the snakes were held in outdoor enclosures WITH heated refugia. They had heated hides and died anyways. This suggests that even if the snakes found a warm spot to hide from the cold, they would still not make it.

Secondly, unless I'm mistaken, this research was not done by scientists with USGS. So no, "they" are not ignoring "their own" findings; this paper was written by some third party scientists, presumably in an effort to provide research to counter the initial research that was funded by the USGS.

At least that's my understanding... I hardly think that the USGS would suddenly turn around and go "Oh, we did this new study that disproves our findings... Oh well..." And maybe this won't make a lick of difference. At least now there is a study that proves exactly the opposite of the conclusions of the USGS that can be referenced.