Ball pythons an Invasive species?!

[Crowfingers]

Unless you live on a very small, ecologically isolated, tropical island that does not already have issues with cats, rats, pigs, or brown tree snakes - then shut the heck up over snakes that can't get bigger than a few pounds.

I can see ball pythons being outlawed in that kind of situation, but here in the continental u.s its plain stupid. Honestly, at this point, there is nothing legislature will do to remove all of the invasive species that affect the country. Maybe don't allow huge import quarantine facilities of animals and plants to be held in a port city in a mild climate that can be hit by strong hurricanes and floods :/

If the warehouses that supposedly "released" many of the pythons in the everglades had been in Manhattan instead of Miami, we would not be having this problem. Poor planning.

I did my final thesis in school on ways to track and estimate invasive populations of large reptiles in the everglades specifically and on how far these populations could in the best case scenario theoretically spread - and maintain a breeding population lasting several generations. Given the best guess models that would leave Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, extreme east-ish Texas, and possibly extreme southern south Carolina - so at most 7 out of 48 states. While feral hogs are in 35 states.

Yes there is a problem of invasive species in the everglades, it is a sensitive and unique environment that is easily impacted. When I was writing my paper (2016) over 800 ball pythons had been found, almost none within Everglades state park - they were all in Miami. And ranged from normal morphs to piebalds. Thing is, everything can eat ball pythons, so its safer in the urban environment where there are less predators. Few things can eat the big guys once they get over a few years old and a certain size.

BPs just don't have the impact significance that the others do. Heck, the Eastern Indigo Snake gets so much larger - a big male will push 8ish ft and 10ish lbs.

Ooops - didn't realize that this was such an old post lol. anyway....