Snake Owners See Furry Bias in Invasive Species Proposal

[WingedWolfPsion]

I wanted to say something, regarding the whole 'Burmese are devastating the Everglades' assumption.

No. They're not. They are there, and they are reproducing, yes. They do eat birds and mammals, and they do grow large.
HOWEVER--they're eating a lot of opossums and raccoons, and appear to have filled in for the native predators of those animals, as the native mid-sized predators haven't been doing well (prior to their arrival), and the 'coons and bunnies and 'possums are now more than a bit overpopulated. Is it a stretch to say they're actually benefitting the Everglades ecosystem right now? Yes, but it's not a stretch to say they aren't doing any apparent harm there.

Egg-laying species benefit when 'coons are kept under control, including box turtles and birds.

The other often-repeated bit of nonsense is that adult Burmese have no 'natural predators'. This is true only if you take it very literally, since Burmese can't have any 'natural predators' in an environment that isn't their natural environment, right? That claim is simply disingenuous. There are plenty of native (and introduced) species that are chowing down on Burmese of all sizes in the Everglades. Everything from wading birds and hawks to indigo snakes are taking them as hatchlings. The adults are happily devoured by alligators (who win that fight far more often than not). You're not going to find giant adult Burms out there very often anyhow, because the cold kills the big ones much faster and in greater numbers than it does the smaller ones.

As for the threat to people, that's laughable. When's the last time you heard of a Burm attacking a human (who wasn't trying to catch it)...even in Burma? Chickens, yes--humans, no.

The threat to the Everglades from Burmese pythons doesn't look much more significant than the threat from green iguanas, and is 99.9999% less significant than the threat from feral cats, Melaleuca, climbing fern, feral hogs, walking catfish, and Brazilian pepper. The Everglades currently has over 26% introduced species. The Burmese python makes a more impressive poster child for this problem, but it's the human activities that are truly responsible for the most problems, and introduced plants are the biggest non-native ecological threat apart from the humans. People just don't find a shrub as scary as a giant snake, no matter how relatively benign the snake is.