While Peta, USFW and others would love to make people think that the invasive species issue is due to irresponsible pet owners this is NOT the case here.
The Barkers have wrote very good articles about the subject http://vpi.com/publications
So no Florida is not the world dumping ground for pets, no one travels down to Florida to dump their pet because they become too large, the destruction of a facility during an hurricane was the major contributing factor to the issue in Fl. The numbers are also far from reality just like the risk for other area and states have been GREATLY exaggerated by so called scientist.