I talked to one of the authors today and at this point about the only thing I can say is he seems like a nice guy who never expected this much negative feed back. The first question I asked is “ Are you getting many phone calls?” His answer was “ only one every 2 or 3 minutes.” We talked about how they had arrived at the conclusions they did in publishing their map. I believe he and his co-authors really believe what they have written, misguided, as it seems to be. I explained to him that I had caught Burmese pythons in the wild, bred them in captivity and spent almost 40 years in the field working with reptiles and amphibians and that there was no way any of the Burmese could survive once they left central and south Florida. His answer was that there was data showing a population in northern India and Pakistan that could survive the low temperatures outside central Florida. I pointed out that the data for boa constrictors would probably show the same thing but in 40 years looking for reptiles in southern Arizona and New Mexico I had not only never caught one there but hadn’t heard of a sighting. I also explained that I had caught boas within 100 miles of the US border and that even thought the habitat looked the same that there was some reason they has never crossed. He did tell me that their findings would be published soon. I think the best thing to do at this point is to look at their data and come up with a strong response. Another point is that the Burmese from northern India and Pakistan haven’t been brought into this country in 25 years or more and I doubt there’s any chance of them coming in again.
Michael Luhrs

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