Reptile group sues to overturn python ban

[OctagonGecko729]

That's one of the issues raised in challenging the legality of the ban. Part of the justification for the ban was that the Burm problem in Florida began with people releasing pets into the wild. Since the population has gotten so large, that would appear to indicate that these snakes are perfectly suited to take over this ecosystem. If it actually WAS a matter of pet snakes being released, that would make sense. For a very small number of animals to explode into the population that exists now... Just wow.

Not once did the study presented to the legislators mentioned that there is almost 0% genetic diversity in the current population. Nearly every Burm that has been caught has had an almost identical genetic make up. That's not possible if the initial population was made up of random animals released in random spots. Incidentally, the genetics of the captured snakes exactly match the genetics of snakes known to have come from a breeding facility destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Somewhere around 900 Burms were lost, and never recovered. Of course, with an initial introduction of almost 1000 animals, there's very little question that they're going to become established and thrive. But that's not nearly as frightening as an enormous population arising from just a few randomly dropped snakes.

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Yeah and we also know that those 1000 are dieing off. They reproduced just because of the massive amount that was thrown out there but are slowly being weeded out due to the climate and predators.

I also would argue that these snakes are actually helping the ecosystem more then hurting it, i have no scientific evidence to validate this but i do have logic. These snakes eat once every 3 months when the meal is large enough, they are breeding and releasing 50-80 eggs which are all about 12 inches when born and have no idea how to survive in a swamp ecosystem. Those hatchlings are being eaten by everything, yes they are eating as well but as we all know their metabolism is incredibly slow. One or two out of that 80 are surviving to be a 10ft snake, which can still be killed by a alligator.