Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was dead wrong about most being killed [speculative by me and others]by the freeze. Ryan Potts PHD came for a visit and we made serious efforts to look for pythons. In two days we found one fresh roadkill about 8-9' long and caught a very live and healthy 8' as well. Additionally we did find a dead 15-17' snake [bones only] in a hammock off road that likely froze to death. The fact that we found 2 indicates that many did survive however...

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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

Well this should really help our cause.

Where do I turn in my animals again?

The thrill is fading fast................... between the states getting us one at a time and waiting on the federal laws too I am starting to think my boas are as good as the AOL stock I had a few years back.

Depressing.

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Thanks
Shawn Morelan
www.Southernboids.com

INFURIATING fact about this entire tragedy is that these people
who are SO concerned about animals have only one real answer &
only one DESIRE about how to deal with boas & pythons.

They want to kill them. They want us to turn them in, so that
they can be 'humanely' EUTHANIZED.

This is how profound their real desire for animal safety and
animal rights goes.

some things are better off not said.
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Honesty is my only policy
www.mikepanicreptiles.com

I was asked multiple times by multiple people to find out if the cold killed any and if there were dead or live ones found after the freeze and I did just that. This will be my LAST post as I simply reported what we found and truth is our best policy...
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

truth is my best policy as well. But before that comes common sense.
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Honesty is my only policy
www.mikepanicreptiles.com

here. The everglades is not a virgin environment. It is filled
with invasive species, to pretend that pythons are the only or
most hazardous one is simplistic and a suspiciously biased point
of view.

Pigs and marine toads have completely changed the environment in
a much larger way than pythons could ever do. Parrots cost us as
tax paying florida residents much more in terms of damage to
phone and power lines than pythons could ever come close to
costing.

This is about fear of snakes and simplistic religious bias and a
total lack of common sense and perspective.

this can give us more insight into the facts on the whole situation. To the others on here as someone else said on here we cannot hold politicians to the burden of going with the facts if we do not do so ourselves. That makes us no better than they are and we all know how bad politicians are.
It got much colder here in central fl. than it did in S. fl. by the way. It killed off a lot of the tilapia and the plecos in the local lakes and ponds all in all it was a pretty bad freeze by fl. standards. Just because things can survive in south Fl. does not mean they can move northward. If that were so We would have had a population Iguanas here in the Orlando area by now.

Great Point possibly even the most important point

These Boids cannot Survive Northward

Its still only a problem in the Southern Florida vicinity of the "ENP"

Its not a nation wide problem , its a problem that's less destructive than
the Feral "domestic cats", boars, and Parrots in the "ENP".

Below is a great article about the improper process and ignoring
science policy USF&W has been appearing to follow

. . . Lar M
The inside story on the proposed snake ban; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ignore Science-click here

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Boas By Klevitz

I Support USark.org

Well it's really not ethical to go and try to cover this fact up...... It's the truth..... We'll be no better than them if we play their games..... Isnt honesty your only policy
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Marc Duhon
Lafayette, Louisiana
SURINAMBOAS.COM
kaiyudsai@SURINAMBOAS.COM

That's good. I would hate to see hundreds of dead innocent snakes. The Ice age couldn't kill the reptiles. They are awesomez.
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CONVINCE your neighbours that evolution is working backwards by not shaving for a week, walking to your car gradually more stooped each morning and wearing a monkey costume on the Friday.

While some may not appreciate the results, we should never hide from the truth. I think people criticising you for posting your experience is completely out of line. We are asking our opponents to consider the truth, why should we be exempt from that same request?

We should not jump to the conclusion that Burms can survive in Virginia because they survived a two-week cold snap in S Florida. Plus, we have so many other valid reasons to oppose this legislation, don't forget about them.

jb
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What's written above is purely my opinion. In fact, MOST of what you read on the internet is someone's opinion. Don't take it too seriously

Jonathan Brady
DeviantConstrictors.com
Deviant Constrictors picturetrail

You beat me to it and I couldn't of said it better myself. Just because they survived where they've been already doesnt mean they can survive much north of that. We all wanted to hear the trueth so why critisize the messanger. Thanks Tom for reporting this to us.

Zack
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Zack Greens Reptiles

You're post and efforts are appreciated
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Marc Duhon
Lafayette, Louisiana
SURINAMBOAS.COM
kaiyudsai@SURINAMBOAS.COM

The fact that you only found one that likely froze to death doesn't mean a large percentage didn't go with it, does it? My thought is that if a burm THAT big froze to death, it had to take a while because it's so large. Others certainly perished, right? The thing is, most are probably coiled up somewhere trying to conserve heat, when they die. Or they're now at the bottom of a river bed, etc. Point is, they're out of sight.

Does this sound plausible?

jb
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What's written above is purely my opinion. In fact, MOST of what you read on the internet is someone's opinion. Don't take it too seriously

Jonathan Brady
DeviantConstrictors.com
Deviant Constrictors picturetrail

I'm guessing some surely died. This one did for sure...

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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

You would think the government should be more worried about rubbish judging from that pic! Do you lot have no bins in america? Thought I would try and cheer some of you yanks up. =]
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YOU OFTEN see signs outside churches telling us that 'Jesus Lives'. But these religious folk are always carping on about how he died on the cross for all our sins. Dying isn't much of a sacrifice if you're planning on coming back again five minutes later.. Come on, God botherers. You can't have it both ways. make up your minds. Is he dead or is he alive?

How healthy was the snake that was found alive? And 1 snake really doesn't mean much to me, heck it probably was an HSUS plant : )

I also agree that we shouldn't hide from the truth, it is what it is and where ever they are there should be a concern, thank God they are not up here!!!

Here in Ft. Lauderdale I found a lot of dead iguanas and Knight Anoles during the cold spell right in my residential neighborhood. We did not get as cold along the coast as it got even slightly inland. Very interesting to me, I have found a few more every couple of days. It seems that the ones that did survive the initial exposure are slowly dying off too. I think it might be premature to say that burms that survived the extreme cold days did so just fine. I think a lot of them are still doomed.

The water they seek refuge in is much warmer than the air!!
Mike

that it is one thing to survive a short freeze and other sub-optimal climate conditions, but it is an entirely different matter to maintain a viable, self sustaining population for any length of time. I believe that the burmese could only do this in the very southern part of Florida.

Kelly

>>that it is one thing to survive a short freeze and other sub-optimal climate conditions, but it is an entirely different matter to maintain a viable, self sustaining population for any length of time. I believe that the burmese could only do this in the very southern part of Florida.
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>>Kelly

Kelly,

Agreed, but if there is solid evidence that most feral pythons in Florida died from the cold snap, it would be (possibly the only) "real-life" evidence to refute that bogus USGS Burmese python range map. IMO, that's huge.

Thanks,
Ed

IMO, evidence that even some of them died because of the low temps is a HUGE step forward.

I'm in Orlando and even we know that S. Florida has drastically warmer winters than we do, and we're only 200 miles north.

jb
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What's written above is purely my opinion. In fact, MOST of what you read on the internet is someone's opinion. Don't take it too seriously

Jonathan Brady
DeviantConstrictors.com
Deviant Constrictors picturetrail

>>IMO, evidence that even some of them died because of the low temps is a HUGE step forward.
>>
>>I'm in Orlando and even we know that S. Florida has drastically warmer winters than we do, and we're only 200 miles north.
>>
>>jb
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I totally agree, but the problem is who is going to collect the evidence? (Actually, by now, probably a lot of the evidence is gone due to scavengers.) From what I can tell, the scientists monitoring the Everglades pythons are either employed or funded by the Dept. of Interior (USGS, NPS, USFWS.) Seems to me like the foxes are guarding the hen house.

You're absolutely right. They're all part of the department of the interior.

This is a glaring example of nepotism. And a disturbing one at that. jb
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What's written above is purely my opinion. In fact, MOST of what you read on the internet is someone's opinion. Don't take it too seriously

Jonathan Brady
DeviantConstrictors.com
Deviant Constrictors picturetrail

there is photographic evidence that some boas and pythons were killed in central Florida by the cold front. There is also evidence that a few did survive in extreme southern Florida. But I still believe that a long-term, self sustaining population would only be possible in extreme southern Florida. I base this on 30 years of climate data comparisons from Florida and the extreme northern ranges of the burmese in Southeast Asia and Indo-China.

Climate in central Florida is too cool in most winters for long-term survival of a reproducing population, not only for consistent year after year winter survivability, but the summer month night-time lows in most years are too cool for the physiologically incubating female to maintain the proper egg mass temps for consistent successful incubation to hatching. As stated above, and in my opinion, this could only be possible in extreme southern Florida at best.

Kelly