Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Below are some comments that were made by a State employed wildlife official .For obvious reasons this official has chosen to keep his name and location anonymous and I won't elaborate any further.

The official had the following to say,

" A primary motivation for many wildlife conservation law enforcement officials is the justification and preservation of their own employment."

"Creating an unsubstantiated problem or perpetuating a myth is often the easiest way for wildlife officials to accomplish that end."

"Some operations are initiated under the guise that there is some compelling need to prevent the exploitations of a certain wildlife resource; when in fact they are conducted primarily to justify the jobs of wildlife officers."

Ernie Eison

When did this forum turn into a discussion of unicorns and other myths?

A unnamed NASA scientist told me once:

"The martians have large eyes and fingers which can staunch blood flow"

A unnamed USDA crop inspector told me:

"We had to destroy the tomato crop because it had as much THC in it a Canadian weed in it"

A unnamed Wildlife Official told me once:

"I made up the threat of invasive species to keep me job"

Come on!

These are the quotes from the people who are “working” this problem, selected from articles easily found with a quick search.

Skip Snow, a wildlife biologist at Everglades National Park said these quotes,
“I pretty much assigned myself to see how big of a problem this really is”

Responding to any known instance of anyone being charged with releasing a python in the everglades,
“There’s never been a case made that we’re aware of”.

Lori Oberhofer, Everglades wildlife technician training “Python Pete” widely reported python tracking beagle, “he’s a PR dog – a media dog”.

Mike Dorcas, associate professor of biology at Davidson College (radio tagging Judas animals) said, “Pythons are a lot more difficult to find and catch than any of us thought”.

From the same article “Even if the snakes prove not to threaten the Everglades ecosystem, the group will still work to remove them”.

Skip Snow again, about the python threat to smaller alligators he said,
“We haven’t seen that yet in the stomach, but I think it’s only a matter of time”

Everglades National Park Superintendent Dan Kimball said,
“They're eating pretty much everything in Everglades National Park”

Great article w. pictures http://com.miami.edu/parks/pythons.htm

Maybe take this to the Python Forum now? Enough already.

Excatly the of thing thats being refered to . Thanks for providing examples.You can go anywhere you like. Ernie Eison

Ps By the way the quotes I posted were submitted and published in a letter to Reptiles magazine on two ocassions .Perhaps you or anyone would like contact the Editor and ask to have the source verified then you can come back and disprove what I`ve said by presenting facts to the contraire so with a little work you can ether verify or negate To the nay sayers I simply respond put up or shut up.the truth I them. So go right ahead and prove me to be lying . Ernie Eison

Your right, I was a little suspicious of a python tracking pup, bit like an lion tracking antelope

the truth is out there....