Posted by:
ohernz
at Mon Feb 18 10:48:29 2013 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by ohernz ]
This python issue has been mismanaged from day one. The numbers have been inflated to play with the population fears.
I think there were never that many snakes in the Everglades. A couple of years ago the official numbers were 100,000. Some snakes had been tagged to track them through the swamp. Then we had a VERY cold winter here in S Florida (green iguanas would drop frozen from the trees). Eight out of every ten tagged pythons died that year. By logic, then that year died at least 80,000 pythons in the Everglades. (But I don't think there were 100,000 to begin with).
Florida Wildlife Commission then authorized a hunting season, but instead of an open season to try to capture as many as possible (as they would have done if they were really serious about eradicating the pythons from the park), they regulated the number of captures and the months that they were allowed to be captured. In fact they were protecting the pythons from being exterminated (of course, they realized that a permanent python population in the Everglades would be a stable source of income in hunting fees and licenses).
Now they created this Python Challenge, and the results show that there weren't as many snakes as they said. As many as 1600 hunters took part in the hunt (the Florida Wildlife Commission says that they are satisfied despite the low number of pythons captured during month-long event) and they only bagged 68 snakes..Where are the thousands that are said to roam the Everglades?
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Sed et serpens erat callidior cunctis animantibus terrae quae fecerat Dominus Deus...
[ Hide Replies ]
- Florida Python Challenge! - BuzzardBall, Mon Feb 18 07:55:07 2013
 RE: Florida Python Challenge! - ohernz, Mon Feb 18 10:48:29 2013
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