This is quite the lively discussion!



An important takeaway is that this discussion has gone on so long because we all have passion for our pets.



In case anyone wants it, here's a little more history taken from a response I posted to a blog posted by the Associate Director of Biology for the USGS on NatGeo's website. Parts of the response as seen below have been edited and some info has been added to make it more relevant to this site.



In 1993, the ENP was added to the “World Heritage in Danger” by UNESCO (a United Nations organization). This designation was given due to rampant pollution, as well as destruction caused by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Due to this designation, the State of Florida entered into an agreement with the Federal government to restore the Everglades to the tune of 20 billion dollars. The Federal government agreed to pick up 10 billion dollars of the tab to restore the ENP.



To illustrate how important 10 billion dollars can be to the ENP (which is part of the Department of the Interior via the NPS along with the USGS and USFWS), you should know that the annual budget for the ENP is approximately 15 million dollars (not including land purchases). That means the Federal government promised 666 times the annual budget of the ENP, to the State of Florida for restoration purposes.



In 2007, UNESCO came back and checked out the Everglades, gave them a pat on the back for their efforts and said, congratulations, this site no longer belongs on the list of “World Heritage in Danger”. This immediately ceased the funding from the US government, which had only paid out a small portion of the 10 billion dollars so far. This obviously impacted the State of Florida, as well as the Department of the Interior, and by proxy, the USGS and USFWS.



So, the ENP needed an excuse to reinstate this funding. After all, all government entities operate based on funding (via taxes). They needed a villain, a poster child if you will.



The Everglades are now home to over 300 plant and animal species that are not native to the area. Some pose no threat to the indigenous plant and wildlife. Some pose a small threat, some a medium threat, and some a high threat. The single most destructive animal affecting the Everglades is the common housecat. This comes in the form of pet populations that are outside cats, as well as the feral cat population. These cats absolutely decimate native populations of birds and rodents. Cats are closely followed by feral hogs which dig up native plants and destroy the root systems. Either of these animals would have been an excellent target, er… poster child, for Everglades restoration.



But who in their right mind would create a campaign to fight cats? It would be political suicide! Feral hogs? Hunting groups and the NRA would be ALL OVER that, and nothing would be done. So what else is there?



2 years prior in 2005, headlines across the world read: “Python explodes after eating alligator”. How’s that for garnering attention? Pythons exploding! WOW! That inspires awe! And who’s going to argue against fighting pythons?



So, the stage was already set, the news media was already paving the road, and it was apparently decided that the Burmese python would be the new poster child to demonstrate the need for Everglades restoration, despite the fact that there is little to no credible evidence to suggest that Burmese pythons have had any appreciable effect on native plants and animals, or waterways.



In 2007 (the same year that the ENP lost its designation as a World Heritage Site in Danger and the Federal funding ceased), the NPS and USFWS (again, both are part of the Dept of the Interior) asked the USGS (another part of the Dept of the Interior) to write a paper about the danger that Burmese pythons pose to the ENP. Coincidence? You decide.



This study would cost money, of course, but it’s merely a changing of money from one hand of the Dept of the Interior, to another. Net effect is that no money is lost paying scientists from another organization, especially any that would be impartial. Additionally, and this of course would be refuted by the organizations but anyone who’s ever worked for a company will know it’s true, the results of the study can be closely “monitored”, due to the familial (or, nepotistic) ties through the Dept of the Interior.



The initial study was entitled: What parts of the US mainland are climatically suitable for invasive alien pythons spreading from Everglades National Park?



The study has been extensively refuted by Pyron et al, so I will leave my criticisms out except for one important point, which Pyron et al, graciously omitted from their study.



No one can explain why the Indian python was included in the initial study when they are already illegal to import into the US, none have ever been found in the wild, there are likely fewer than 100 within the borders of the US in captivity meaning each likely has tremendous value (minimal chance for release), it requires a permit to move them across state lines, and they’re smaller and FAR more cold-tolerant than the Burmese python. To us as keepers of reptiles, it’s obvious. If Burms can’t survive prolonged or repeated temperatures below 50 degrees, but Indian pythons can survive prolonged and/or repeated temperatures below 35 degrees, the average now becomes 42.5 degrees and the threat from the Burmese pythons seems larger. Obviously the threat from Indian pythons becomes less, but as I stated, there are none in the wild so there’s no real risk in diluting their temperature range. The authors of the report wanted to skew the temperature data sets to a lower temperature threshold to allow for the inclusion of more states than are truly at risk for “INVASION” by Burmese pythons, via “averaging”. (note: these are not the actual minimum temperatures of tolerance, these are just examples to illustrate a point)



Then another study was commissioned by the NPS and USFWS and again the USGS was tapped to provide the “science”. This paper is entitled: Giant Constrictors: Biological and Management Profiles and an Establishment Risk Assessment for Nine Large Species of Pythons, Anacondas, and the Boa Constrictor. This study criticized the paper by Pyron et al, and their methods to prove that the Burmese python was not a threat to the rest of the US. However, upon closer inspection of the criticisms, it is apparent that even the USGS knows their study has serious flaws. Here are a few excerpts from the second paper by the USGS:

The criticism of Pyron et al, cited in the USGS report goes like this:



To try to justify the use of their climate modeling, the USGS report says that it’s ok to use mean monthly temperature instead of highs and lows because:

Most species can probably aestivate for months to minimize exposure to seasonally inclement weather or food unavailability,… but this is not known with assurance.

Just to be clear, that says: “probably” and “not known with assurance”. Very scientific!



To further justify their methods, they espouse their methods as being reliable because they are “a priori” methods. For those like me that don’t know what “a priori” means, I looked it up. One definition for “a priori” is this:

Not based on prior study or examination; nonanalytic.



Does a method that is NOT based on the examination or analysis of the home range of these pythons sound like a very good way to determine whether these species can survive in other places?



In the paper, they say this in regards to their “a priori” method:

A priori methods, in which the metrics are chosen for a biological reason in advance, without knowledge of the statistical outcome, are valuable because they offer statistical protection against spurious correlation, but they do not ordinarily discover the best possible fit between climate conditions and a species’ native range boundary.

Just so we’re clear, “yes”, they did just say they wanted to protect against spurious correlation by choosing something that was not likely to give the best results. I’m curious though, how do the two differ? In both cases, the results are unreliable. Very scientific, again!



Perhaps I should point something out to be re-read, they just said; “but they do not ordinarily discover the BEST POSSIBLE FIT BETWEEN CLIMATE CONDITIONS AND A SPECIES’ NATIVE RANGE BOUNDARY.”

To reiterate, they PREFER a method that doesn’t ensure the most accuracy while they're trying to figure out the range boundary for a burmese X indian python cross that doesn't exist!



The paper then goes on to provide a criticism for the ecological niche modeling employed by Pyron. The quote is as follows:

A popular alternative to a priori identification of climate metrics is the use of automated programs that select the climate metrics on the basis of which metric gives the best fit to the native range distribution.



It goes on to say:

This localized use is relatively robust against overfitting and lack of statistical independence among points, in that nearby sites are likely to have the same suite of statistical confounds and collinearity as did the original plots.



If all of that scientific over-talk is too confusing, I’ll sum up their statement. They just said that ecological niche modeling is too precise. Please re-read this: “select the climate metrics on the basis of which metric gives the best fit” and “relatively robust against overfitting”. Summarized as; “too precise”.



So the USGS would prefer that we use models that do not ordinarily discover the best possible fit between climate conditions and a species’ native range boundary (which has been skewed by the inclusion of the Indian python) instead of modeling that is too precise. I’m going to say it again, VERY scientific!



While Dr. Haseltine is correct in saying the report makes no recommendations regarding regulation. I would like to know why there has been no mention of how the USGS is related to the USFWS and/or ENP/wildlife park services. All entities stand to gain an enormous amount of money should the ENP be reinstated on the “world heritage in danger” list, and the non-native snakes would be the perfect “poster child” to ensure that happens. All entities stand to gain because there will certainly be additional studies commissioned to evaluate how best to deal with the “problem”. Cushy jobs for everyone until retirement! Because these snakes aren’t going away.



Why aren’t they going away? There are no methods currently known to eradicate non-native populations of snakes, once established. One only need to look at Guam, and it’s non-native brown tree snake. That snake has had an appreciable impact on the native bird population. Millions upon millions of dollars have been filtered into a project to eradicate the brown tree snake with absolutely no positive results to show for it. There is no “bar” for success in this field because there’s been no success. By the way, we can thank Gordon Rodda of the USGS for his abysmal failure of this project. Incidently, he’s the lead author or co-author of the two studies cited above.



Dr. Hazeltine’s final sentence reads as follows: “While allegations have been made that the USGS report is being used as the justification for regulations on the reptile trade, it is important to note that the report offers no recommendations on policy or legislation.”



I would like to reiterate that the report offers no insight into the relationship between the USGS, USFWS, and the NPS (and therefore the ENP). Disclosure of this nepotistic relationship would be damning at best, and suicidal at worst.



----------Other additional info------------

As was mentioned in another reply, this attempt at legislation is merely a smaller scale attack on our hobby which was prompted by animal rights extremists.



HR669 was a bill that sought to add ALL non-native animals to the exact same list as S373. The only non-native animals it excluded were cats, dogs, and goldfish. That's it.



The bill obviously failed.



I look at HR669 like a pizza. Animal rights extremists tried to eat the whole pizza at once.



S373/HR2811 is like a slice of the pizza. Much more manageable, wouldn't you say? Do any of us stop at one slice of pizza? Would you stop at one slice of pizza if you originally intended to eat the whole thing?



Animal rights extremists (Defenders of Wildlife, The HSUS, etc..) do not want people to have pets. Period. In fact, on the HSUS website, you will find this quote:

To protect their health and yours, reptiles should not be pets. Wild animals are best left in the wild where they belong.



And this one:

For public health, conservation, and humane reasons, The HSUS recommends that the general public forgo pet reptiles. Wild animals are best left in the wild where they belong.



For your knowledge, The HSUS is the organization lobbying for S373. I think they were ready for a slice of pizza... I wonder what the next slice will be?



Anyway, S373 was introduced by Senator Nelson as a proposed "solution" to the Burmese python problem in the Everglades. The two most essential components of helping the Everglades situation would be:

1) a methodology (preferred) or a plan (second best) to remove Burmese pythons from the Everglades

2) a penalty for releasing pythons into the wild



Neither of these two absolutely essential components are present in S373, title 18, or the Lacey Act. In fact, the Lacey Act was initially put into place expressly to discourage removal of animals from the wild. How's that for irony?



The two implications of this bill are:

1) If you own one of these animals as a pet, you can not move to a new state with your pet, even if you've had it for 30 years and love it like you love any other pet.

2) If you sell one of these animals, you can not sell across state lines which reduces the possible market from 49 states (since you can't own a snake in Hawaii) down to 1. The law of supply and demand means that most businesses dependent upon the sale of these animals for their survival will go bankrupt as the assets the business is founded upon become instantly valueless.



This bill and its intentions are so tainted with corruption and cloaked intentions that it's sickening.



One of the biggest arguments against this bill is that there is a scientific process in place to determine whether a species is actually "injurious". This bill will supercede that process for the first time in history via political legislation, and set a dangerous precedent for the future - should it pass.



Perhaps the most favorable and significant development is that the USFWS has announced they will begin evaluating whether these animals truly are injurious. Perhaps the LEAST favorable component of this announcement is that the USFWS will be the organization conducting this evaluation. As I stated before, the USFWS falls under the Department of the Interior along with the USGS and Everglades National Park (via the NPS). Again, we're back to nepotism. Scary stuff....



Anyway, I hesitated about whether to get involved with this thread as it seems to be a little heated, but I decided to offer up some information anyway because once I stepped back, I felt like the "heat" was really just passion.



Thanks for reading,

jb
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What's written above is purely my opinion. In fact, MOST of what you read on the internet is someone's opinion. Don't take it too seriously



Jonathan Brady

DeviantConstrictors.com

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