Jonathan, First off as a breeder I would like to thank you for being such a great voice/source of info for so many people who are new or less informed on the natural life requirments of the animals in question.
I was fortunate enough to spend about a week in Marco Island Fl this past November. Although I'm probably not as well informed on the areas were the burms are mostly being found. I did however spend the vast majority of my time road cruising, and using many the boardwalks setup along I believe was Hwy 41. I logged about 350 miles of road cruising.. The Garmin was having a great time with what I was trying to accomplish.
On my walks/drives though I did not see any non-naitive snake species. Some of the boardwalks did lead to many wet areas were I was very surprised to see just about every tropical fish that Petsmart and Petco sells here in Chattanooga thriving in the environment... I also saw more gators than I realistic could count and most in my opinion would have no problem making a quick meal of even a moderately sized burmese python.
The tempertures while I was their were actually very cool with the the morning temp on my day of depature being a balmy 46F. Burmese Pythons were the first exotic species that I worked with in a large collection environment. At the time of my foot amputation in 1997 I had 28 animals in the collection. My own knowledge of the animals has lead me to believe that burms would have a very hard time surviving climaticaly year round past Orlando.
I'm not from Florida and have lived in Chattanooga, TN for the last 25 years. They couldn't survive in the wild here...
I believe the AZA statement on the problem was the best one yet this in reality is not a National problem this is a Florida issue that the state itself needs to address. I am in favor of a permit/registration process as long is it was fair and just...
Just my opinion on the subject...
Al Brown/Brown's Boas
