From a limited personal experience I know some died and some survived in terms of the pythons. I, too, have been told by several folks that the snakes that are being studied died. My thoughts on this are that I think according to press releases that lg females were the ones that had the transponders. This was done in order to attract more Pythons [usually males] to the area the females live. I think the lg snakes were perhaps too lg. to go underground to escape the killing temps but some smaller ones were able to excape by going deeper underground. My concern is that the info appears to be deliberately withheld from the American public. If nothing else the fact that a relatively MILD cold front by U.S. standards killed many Pythons here PROVES BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT THESE SNAKES COULD NOT SURVIVE EVEN NORTH OF LAKE OKEECHOBEE. This PROVES that Roddas USGS map is as worthless as we said from day 1. It would seem that these snakes have a toehold and not a stranglehold here in the Everglades in terms of survival long term. We should put pressure on the powers that be to release their findings. Meanwhile USFWS have declared Burmese and 8 other snakes ijurious without one shred of evidence that they are in fact injurious at all.How can an organism be injurious if it can not flourish in the ecosystems? The "real truth" needs to be provided and it needs to be provided now. Rodda should to go public and admit he was wrong about about his "USGS MAP" and his postulation that Pythons may be living all over the southern third of the U.S. over time. Two nights of weather about 28-32 degrees of only a few hours duration proved to be devastating to the Pythons here. EVERY YEAR IT GETS MUCH COLDER THAN THAT IN EVEN CENTRAL AND N. FLORIDA much less in the Carolina's etc. I am a college drop out but I wouldn't need to do a study to know Pythons can NOT survive in N. Florida much less S. Carolina...RELEASE THE INFO TO THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER PUBLIC AND STOP THE DECEIT AND FALSE CLAIMS...sorry for the rant.
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Tom Crutchfield

www.tomcrutchfield.com

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