Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi everyone,

if a overnight freeze hit florida, would this help to kill out the non native herps? If so, would it have any effect on native animals? would it kill them also, as it doesnt seem that they would be used to freezing weathr.

thanks

danny

I have thought about this myself, but some how they are surviving it. Not sure how, but they are.
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Please...
Keep an OPEN MIND, You'll be AMAZED...

I don't believe an 'over night' freeze will have much, if any, affect on the non natives. It may well kill off a few, but considering the size of a Burms clutch, I think there will be more than enough each year to replace the ones that do die. The idea of putting a bounty on them crossed my mind, but then your looking at probable destruction of the lot of them. I'd prefer they were taken alive. Just some thoughts.

Quig

"The idea of putting a bounty on them crossed my mind, but then your looking at probable destruction of the lot of them. I'd prefer they were taken alive."

I see your point, and ofcourse alive would be better, BUT what do you do with a 100% WILD burm? where would you put them all? who is going to pay to catch, house, and feed all of them? Just think of the cost of feeding say just 100 full grown burms, it will add up, and I don't think the tax payers would be too happy to foot the bill.

Sad to say I think at this point the only thig that can be done with them is to wipe them out as best we can. We could never find all of them, but we could hurt there numbers enough to make a dent.
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Please...
Keep an OPEN MIND, You'll be AMAZED...

True, a bunch of wilds would be real hard to place, and as you say, it would be difficult to eliminate them all. Maybe a bounty is the answer.

Quig

They feed them to King Cobras. I heard that the burms that get
taken alive usually go to places that keep Cobras.

Must be the smaller ones, I'd think a large burm would be too big
for a King cobra. (???)

King Cobras do get pretty large themselves, I saw one in Vietnam that was every bit of 12 feet long, so I suppose they could do some damage to the young ones. As to the larger burms, a Kings poison would most likely kill them.

Quig

A truly large king could probably eat a Burm up to about 6 feet or so, maybe even bigger-no annoying legs or shoulders to get in the way. As far as venom, I'm sure a "full-charge" king cobra bite could kill any Burm-supposedly there have been cases of king bites killing elephants.

The largest King only gets about 16 feet, the largest burms over 20, so it would have to be just the small burms that they feed to them. That is so sad, though I guess the cobras have to eat too. I still think my idea of a giant controlled natural preserve of spceies that can coexist with the Florida environment would not be a bad idea. The everglades are HUGE, just look on google earth. It would not take that much to seal off a few hundred acres for non-indeginous species to thrive and yet still not upset the ecosystem.