Very well put. If these pythons, for which there is no evidence of them being "injurious" and which are isolated to south Florida, are such a gigantic problem, then why aren't we having a national emergency requiring every citizen to hunt down stray cats, stray dogs, and even pet dogs. Stray dogs and cats are undoubtedly "injurious" to local wildlife, and pet dogs kill more people EVERY YEAR or TWO than the total number of people killed by large constrictors in the last 30 years. And of course millions of humans are living all over the world in squalor and don't have clean drinking water. But hey, let's hunt down those killer pythons so we can save the world and secure funding for the next 20 years to fail at eradicating them! BTW, who exactly annointed these researchers the God-like authority to decide what species should be where? Living organisms have been expanding their ranges for billions of years, it's part of evolution. And as it's been discussed, the pythons might actually be restoring some balance to the ecosystem. Who knows at this point? There certainly is just as much (or little) evidence supporting that as there is that they are "devastating the fragile ecosystem." Maybe they are taking the place of large predators (like the Florida panther) that the most injurious species of all, Home sapiens, has killed off.

Okay, sorry for the rant, it will be my last. I'm going to move on to more productive activities like focusing on educational presentations.

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Show Entire Thread ]