A little sanity? I always appreciate Steph's ability to wade through the garbage and get at the real issue. But, you guys are barking up the wrong tree on this one. There may be a lot of things to "poke" about the opposition to this bill, but none of that addresses the main point.

Large constrictors have about as much chance of colonizing the bottom 1/3 of the US as do impatiens. If you look at the climate mean or median, you may say that they could survive in coastal VA. But, you have to factor in the extremes. It is really that simple. Swamp or no, it just gets too cold for them to thrive. I was in Okeefenokee last March. We went to see and photograph alligators while they were still a bit sluggish. Winter is supposed to be over in Okeefenokee by March. We almost didn't see anything because of nightly frosts.

Outside of Florida, classifying these species as "injurious" is a wild extrapolation. There are many other species that are KNOWN to be injurious. Domestic cats, for example. It is very well known that they do terrible damage to native fauna when they are allowed to roam freely outdoors. You don't have to stretch, extrapolate, hypothesize, etc, etc, the risk that cats, and numerous other species, present to the US.

Even in Florida, the jury is still out as to whether Burmese pythons are in fact injurious. It would be interesting to see some data on their population after this winter. If I'm not mistaken, the area encompassing the everglades received some of the coldest temperatures in a decade.

There are many reasons to consider bans on large constrictors. I don't keep them, and frankly I couldn't care less if people stopped keeping them. But, I am offended by this bastardization of science. They have tried to ban them on other levels and have failed. Now they are trying this. This is ONLY supposed to be about them as injurious(to the wild) species. Whether or not you like them, or are sick of "defending" them, think that it's all about the pet trade and money, or (like myself) think that they pose a risk to children when kept as pets, this is about one thing! Does common sense tell you that tropical species could become injurious to the lower 1/3 of the US?

Steph, you should take this to the legal forum. Nobody who can give you specific answers is going to see it over here.

Keep something in mind, though. This is one of those rare circumstances where the subject is just so absolutely ridiculous that it is hard to argue against.

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