Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is a pic of the top of my fence where we were watering the hibiscus we use for food...We live about 5 miles from Key Largo to put it in perspective...

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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

Never thought I would see an ice photo like that from the southern tip of Florida. That's got to be one for the record books.

Kelly

http://cbs4.com/local/cold.weather.blast.2.1419045.html

Watch the video - a claim is made about Burmese pythons - "This is exactly the kind of exotic species you wish cold weather would knock out," Kennon said."That would be great. It might knock out baby ones, but you get a 9 or 10 footer and it won't slow him down much."

Apparently it seems they think the cold is going to kill off the hatchlings, but not seriously affect the adults. Really ?

Absolutely ridiculous. I am in South Florida for the winter and there is no way that any snake that didn't find it's way onto some form of shelter is still alive. There was a week or more where the highs were in the low to mid 60s. The lows dropped into the twenties one night. I wish the new would do a story on that instead of the "meaner" African Rock Python now in the Everglades. About how they will breed with the burms already there and create a "super snake" that will be capable of handling colder temperatures. What a load of bull.

Not a Burmese, but this is a pretty fantastic picture. This boa is frozen solid from the cold we got down here. Looks like it stretched out to get some sun and went all snakecicle over night.
I am waiting any reports on the fate of the Burmese that have radio transmitters. I can only imagine the suits getting involved to spin it, cover it up or falsify what’s going on to support the python legal battle looming. Spread this picture everywhere you can- pythons, boas and tropical exotics can not spread north of here. Case closed.

Link where the picture came from-

blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2010/01/manatees_pythons_cold_weather_florida.php

I've been searching for any info on what has been found. Thanks!

Here is something perhaps of interest I did find in my search:

Anyone here know anything about this or better yet do we have any industry people out there to get the inside view?
ECISMA Northern African Python Survey

There have been a number of several size class Python sebae found in one small area around an importers old facility. This includes one adult gravid female that I personally saw pics of. It is thought that this population is very restricted and it is not known if their self sustaining....
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

There was a semi-organized hunt done a couple of months ago about four blocks east of there (the big vacant-looking lot down SW 147th Ave a few blocks east of the bubble) and they didn’t find squat. What nobody seems concerned about is the total lack of any native species surviving in these disturbed areas at all. No tortoise, no coachwhip, no indigo, no nothing.

Before I get too excited (I, now, dead snakes normally bad) since I can't read the guys helmet and the blog doesn't specifically talk about the picture, can anyone confirm this is a recent Florida pic. Do the Everglades really look like that now?

“The everglades” is sort of a myth. It is used to describe just about any place where they haven’t built yet down here. There is Everglades National Park, a real place but pretty remote and fairly south to as south as you can get. There are the areas of sawgrass, sometimes called the river of grass that you drive through when you cross the state at Alligator Alley or I-75. That’s the swath of area where the water is channeled between state road 27 on the east side and roughly 29 on the west side and allowed to flow from Okeechobee down through the Ten Thousand Islands instead of flooding Broward and Dade homes, and then the water conservation areas that are regulated to hold and release water to recharge the aquifer for our drinking water and provide a buffer between the sawgrass and buildable land. All these areas are surrounded by man made levees and canals. The picture looks like a water conservation guy driving one of the levees around the water conservation areas or the area just west of the rock mining pits in North Dade. If you click that map on the link you provided and show the satellite image view, look a little north of there at those bright blue lakes that look like gigantic swimming pools. Those are limestone quarries. That area just west of there looks exactly like the picture, as does that zone in most places all the way up into Palm Beach County, actually. I assume it was from Dade or it would be bigger news. Wow, long answer that is a big way of saying “I don’t know”!! I think I’ll stop posting now…

No, that was very helpful. I’ve flown through Miami many times and seen some interesting areas around there from the air but never had time to leave the airport.

At least it isn't a picture from Canada in the 1970's.

There was a big press release before hand about the iguana's but I haven't seen much of any follow-up. Looking forward to if we eventually hear about the 10 radio animals and also the study animals at Aiken.

You make a great point about "the everglade" being sort of a myth

I watched an old documentary on the everglade, probably 30 yrs. old, and I have also been there. THE PLACE HAS CHANGED! I saw NOTHING like the endless river of grass that is the Long-gone memory of the everglades. After what I've seen from visiting, it is slightly humerous to here the conservationist talk about protecting the "Natural Environment" from invasive pythons. I can't see what they mean by natural. But I shouldn't pick at them, they probably don't know the difference.

Thank you for the info!!
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steve

Well unlike the eastern side and the flooded retention ponds that are between the sawgrass and houses, on the western side, there are not the flooded areas. West of 29 are some of the most pristine natural areas left. Tom can tell about the Blocks south of I-75, Fakahatchee and that strip along 29, which is my Eden on earth. Even that was extensively logged a very long time ago, but remarkably still pretty wild. The only place remotely like the jungle that south Florida used to be. I pretty much consider the east side of “the glades” a barren wasteland. In truth it is all tremendously altered and regulated by canals, dams, flood gates, etc. There is nothing beyond control, management or regulation (not legal as such, but habitat regulation). It’s pretty sad. It is one reason I welcome the invasive animals that can adapt to it. There are zero five lined skinks, Carolina Anoles, green frogs, etc. in my neighborhood, so if it weren’t for the invasives, we would have NOTHING. What’s really worse? What’s going to eat the bugs? Nothing?

The Glades hasn't been the same since the Army Corps of Engineers destroyed it.

I just checked the boa forum and I see this picture was posted there yesterday. I thought I was on top of it and found I’m a day behind. They’ve been posting about it all day.