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I caught the last 25 minutes or so. Quite one-sided. That's unfortunate. The History channel used to give both sides of the story and have some objectiveness. This show (what I saw of it) was really bad publicity hype. Lost a little respect for this channel tonight.
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Cheers,
Jessica Gibbs
Ball Pythons; Corn Snakes; Green Tree Python; Jungle Carpet Python; Bci; Bcl; Bco
3.0 Crazy Dogs and 2.0 cats
Some Tropical Fish
...........and growing!

Jessica,
This show was definitely very one sided with Rodda being the main scientist that was cited. From the beginning of the program interviewing law enforcement about the child that was killed by a Burmese in Florida to the parks service in New York central park talking about the 9 ft boa that was captured, the show definitely made snakes out to be unbiased killers. It did nothing but continue to fuel the fire. Sad to see.
Steve

Towards the end of the program the guy says that there are
'increasing encounters' with burmese pythons and the public and
that they are a real danger to people.

He doesn't mention how 'dangerous' they are to people in their
native land. It wouldn't make for 'good tv', would it?

I can just hear him now: "They actually don't pose a health risk
to the people in their native country but we have found with our
state of the art, in depth, scientific research that when they
are in the US, the fast food burgers & the neon lights on south
beach turn them into man-eaters. It's quite remarkable. I've
never seen anything like it".

That guy's high pitched, squeaky voice was really getting on my
nerves. It sounds like he's a carnival tent barker.

I watched it last night. It was probably one of the most ridiculous loads of crap I have ever watched. They talked about the possibility of different species hybridizing to produce "super snakes" and even suggested that pythons and cobras could hybridize!!! They mentioned that there are King Cobras in South Florida as well, even though their was only one instance of an escaped King being found in S. Florida. They of course showed the USGS map and even stated that "killer pythons" would be able to migrate and thrive all of the way up to New York City's Central Park and that the sewers and subways are ideal environments for them. There was of course alot of hype about pythons being a danger to the public, pets, wildlife, etc and what python propaganda piece would be complete without bringing up the Sumpeter Co. girl's death by the "deadly rampaging python that broke out of its cage to strangle her"?

Pretty much the only good parts of the show were toward the end when the one guy said that venomous and pythons could not possibly hybridize and when they mentioned Hurricane Andrew as a factor for the snake's release.

I agree that those were the only "good" parts of the show (of the amount of the show I was able to catch".
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Cheers,
Jessica Gibbs
Ball Pythons; Corn Snakes; Green Tree Python; Jungle Carpet Python; Bci; Bcl; Bco
3.0 Crazy Dogs and 2.0 cats
Some Tropical Fish
...........and growing!

I was able to catch the whole show. It was, for the most part, just sensationalism and scare tactics. They took every freak encounter that has made news recently, and manipulated the facts to make it seem as if these rare events are happening on a regular basis. They even had a small part about the "alleged" incident in south Florida where a cable worker claimed to have been bitten by a green mamba. Most are highly skeptical about this incident, and the animal has not been found. This program reported the story as fact. There was one small tidbit I caught that I found very interesting. One of the USGS scientists stated that the minimum temps that these animals can survive for more than a few hours was 40 degrees F. It struck me that if this is true, wouldn't that completly disprove the projected range map that they are trumpeting as fact? Especially with that crazy cold stretch with temps in the teens in FLORIDA! With the media firmly against us in this battle, our one saving grace might be the current situation that the Democrats in Washington find themselves in. It seems to me that it is going to become very difficult to pass any legislation that kills jobs. I sure hope I'm right.

Brian

"One of the USGS scientists stated that the minimum temps that these animals can survive for more than a few hours was 40 degrees F"???

If so that could be a valuable weapon to use against the USGS report.
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Cheers,
Jessica Gibbs
Ball Pythons; Corn Snakes; Green Tree Python; Jungle Carpet Python; Bci; Bcl; Bco
3.0 Crazy Dogs and 2.0 cats
Some Tropical Fish
...........and growing!

Totally dissapointed watching it!!! those handlers doesnt even know how to properly catch the python. so he got bit !!! They just want to scare more people ... hybrid python and cobra my a$$!!!
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Albert
Getting back from boa hobby!!!
0.1 fiance , not super tame, but getting there!! lol
0.1 Sharp line albino , poss het sharpsnow
1.1 TH Sharp snowglow
1.0 CA stripe proven super hypo
1.1 Hypo nics
1.0 Emerald line sunset
1.0 Cancun boa, still looking for a female
0.2 Betty line hog island
4.4 CA hypo/hogs het full body stripes
0.2 CA poss. super hypo
1.1 DH CA type2 ghost
1.0 CA Tpos nic
1.1 Dogs
Lots of feeder mice and rats !!!

Just in case anyone wanted the contact information of the people on that show who were doing nothing but spread hysteria and misinformation -

Dale Pearson was the crazy "Wildlife Expert" from the second show. He did nothing but showboat and act like a class A boob. I can't find his contact info besides this -
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2495107/resume

dalepearson@cox.net seems to be his email though.

Bob Freer from Everglades Outpost was the one talking about feral King Cobras & other cobras unless there ARE feral King Cobras and other exotic venomous species feral in Florida, he should be downright ashamed of himself.

His website is located here -
http://www.evergladesoutpost.org/

And as others have added, Joe Wasilewski was the other fellow, who went looking for pythons in NYC in the second one, and photographed the albino in the first one...

His website is located here -
http://www.natselections.com/

Was unfortunately made by the narrator. I found the transcript for the show. I believe this is what's used for closed captioning.

Here's the link:

CLICK HERE

If you scroll to the time: 17:15, you'll see that it's the narrator that says:

"PYTHONS CAN SURVIVE In temperatures as low as 40 degrees."

Would have been nice if it were Gordon Rodda though...

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

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Cheers,
Jessica Gibbs
Ball Pythons; Corn Snakes; Green Tree Python; Jungle Carpet Python; Bci; Bcl; Bco
3.0 Crazy Dogs and 2.0 cats
Some Tropical Fish
...........and growing!