Hey Mike

This is what is so scarey and frustrating to reptile keepers, NOTHING appears to be obvious. I finally got to watch the hearing, before it even started I knew I would be much more knowledgeable than anyone on the committee. Even so, probably because it is so important to me,I thought they would be much more informed on the subject. I assumed they had staff researching the subject of bills they passed into laws.

I feel a little naive now.

A couple of congressmen asked some pretty good questions but for the most part they were taking the testimonies like they were carved in rock.

I knew there would be trouble right out of the gate when Meek from FL stated Burmese pythons reached sexual maturity faster than any other predator in the ENP. Much faster than the gator.

Well he was 1/2 right. In captivity, powerfed one may reproduce in 18 months but in the wild 3-4 years would be a much more reasonable rate. Excluding crocodilians the FL panther is probably the slowest predator to reach sexual maturity at the ripe old age of 2,1/2 years old. Raptors 1-2 years. So other than snapping turtles and crocodilians everything is reproducing before Burms. yet noone challenged this statement so the commitee believes it.

The extreme cases are what they seem to be basing everything on.

I haven't read the Playboy article but the 124 egg clutch makes me pull my hair out. At the beginning they show a video of the huge Burm. Of course the media is saying it is 400 lbs. That snake wasn't 300 lbs. Yet once again no challenges...

I have had OVER 100 adult Burms in my 38 years of keeping big snakes. I have never owned one as big as the one in the video.

They show the video and act like this is typical when really it is the exception, no challenges. My biggest Burm 17 feet 185 lbs.

Laid 83 slugs one time but they were slugs. The most fertile eggs ever, 52 and that was a Rock python yet they throw 100 egg clutches like they are the norm.

Of course the reason they have so many eggs is so few reach adulthood. Same reason rats have a dozen babies every 6 weeks and fish lay hundreds of eggs a year everything eats them.

I don't care how many degrees these folks have and how clever they are. They are part of the general public and when it comes to snakes the general public will believe just about anything.

Once at the Snake Farm(TX Reptile Zoo) we had a group of physicians come in. They were at a convention in San Antonio.

My boss read up on venom proteins and a bunch of technical stuff.

He was excited to talk to someone that would want more than to see a rattlesnake strike.

Guess what they wanted? See a rattlesnake strike and could you feed the big python. In the end advanced degrees meant nothing.

When it comes to snakes they were just part of the general public. D.C.

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