I was asked my opinion of Bob so I gave it. I don't think he tried to mislead anyone. I could be wrong and naive but that's my honest opinion. To me, it seems obvious that hatchling pythons would have a lot of predators and I'm sure he thought it would be obvious to most readers as well.



Pythons have a few predators in their native range but they still maintain viable populations. They CREATE the balance in their native range but here they are an EXTRA predator thrown in on top of the ones we already had that create the balance here.... alligators, crocodiles, panthers, bobcats, etc. Adding another one upsets the balance. Where are the marsh rabbits? They were here for thousands of years and now they seem nearly absent. Coincidence? Nobody can prove it was or wasn't pythons that are responsible for their decline but it sure does seem logical that they had something to do with it.



Population control is NOT centered on the culling of juveniles as you say. Pythons have dozens of babies because they EXPECT most of them to die. It doesn't matter if you kill a hatchling because statistically it was likely to die anyway. However, if you kill one of the survivors (=an adult) then you are actually making a difference. Good thing you're not Bob Reed. You'd be eaten alive for making that statement.



And, similarly, your anecdote of a python growing 10ft in a year is certainly an extreme case. You can imagine the hot water I'd be in if I used that example instead of Tom Crutchfield being the one who used it. Certainly you see that.



Cheers,



Mike

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