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Good news!

Where are all the Pythons???

Click here to find out what happened to all the Pythons!
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Jeff Ronne Sr
The Boaphile
Director USARK

Originator of Boaphile Plastics
The Boaphile Boa Site

I was JUST gonna post that. You beat me to it, lol

Hmm, I am suspicious about it being posted on April Fools Day...

I'd sure like it to be the news we hear more of though.

I can tell you this and that is Pythons down here are now an endangered species. All my regular hunters that go out now RARELY find one. I believe that a HIGH percentage were killed or died later based on personal communications from consistent hunters. YOU JUST DON'T SEE THEM ANYMORE AS YOU DID PRE-FREEZE....THANKS
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

I can tell you this and that is Pythons down here are now an endangered species. All my regular hunters that go out now RARELY find one. I believe that a HIGH percentage were killed or died later based on personal communications from consistent hunters. YOU JUST DON'T SEE THEM ANYMORE AS YOU DID PRE-FREEZE....THANKS

Thanks Tom. Sadly if it did not get them all, then they may return. A few years ago West Nile Virus made it to SoCal. Killed all the crows. For two years we saw none. Then we started to see a "few". The nest summer we had normal numbers again. The new population? Resistant to WNV.

Same could happen here. The 1-10% that did survive are more cold tolerant than the rest and another deep freeze only kills a few. Not the result we hoped for.
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AMAZON REPTILE CENTER

The few that survived may have gotten lucky by burrowing deeper this time. And what's going on further north at the Carolina facility?

I don't want to say for sure yet but I suspect that based on what I have seen from the winter of 2008/2009 and the winter of 2009/2010 we may be going into a cooling trend here in Fl. I am not trying to make any statements on climate change or get into any discussion on it. I am a professional landscaper in addition to keeping reptiles outdoors here. I have a pretty good feel for what the weather is going to do as far as patterns go and yes weather does come in patterns and it is still a bit early to tell for sure. However if you were to ask me about planting mangos or avocados or papayas in the Orlando area right now (all of which do reasonably well here although not like south fl.) I would advise against it for a few years if you were buying from a nursery and I would advise that you watch them really close if you were growing your own from seed. I would say the same for starfruit trees as well which are actually more cold tolerant and I am an artist at growing starfruits beyond their range. For the record I am only sure one of my three starfruit trees is alive for sure. One is most likely dead (bad fruit no great loss.) and the jury is still out on a third.
I am not sure about in Orlando right now but I had a healthy population of brown anoles (A. sagrei) at my house north of there. I saw one juvenile after the freeze and have not seen that one or anymore since. I am sure they are not gone but I have never seen them get knocked down this badly.

"Same could happen here. The 1-10% that did survive are more cold tolerant than the rest and another deep freeze only kills a few. Not the result we hoped for."

Resistance to a pathogen and resistance to suboptimal temperatures are two very different things, biologically. It's a relatively minor tweak to the immune system versus a major change in physiological parameters. I predict the survivors were mainly snakes that just happened to seek slightly warmer retreats than the majority, and will show little increased resistance to cold.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Jungle Carpet Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase, Striped Desert, Newport, and Coastal California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles

I'm sure you all caught the "scientists" take on the future.

Only time will tell. A series of cold winters would be nice.

Let me see...if 10% (the survivors) were more cold tolerant genetically, and thats a big if. Theoretically, there would be 1/10th the original probability of finding a mate. The population density is 1/10th what it was. In other words, the range for seeking a mate just got 10 times bigger.

Maybe I'm talking gibberish. Just thinking out loud. Something of the sort just seems intuitive.

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Genetic abilities are genetic abilities. The population ain't homogeneous.

>>"Same could happen here. The 1-10% that did survive are more cold tolerant than the rest and another deep freeze only kills a few. Not the result we hoped for."
>>
>>Resistance to a pathogen and resistance to suboptimal temperatures are two very different things, biologically. It's a relatively minor tweak to the immune system versus a major change in physiological parameters. I predict the survivors were mainly snakes that just happened to seek slightly warmer retreats than the majority, and will show little increased resistance to cold.
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>>Brad Chambers
>>WWW.HCU-TX.ORG
>>
>>Breeder of:
>>Green Tree Pythons
>>Jungle Carpet Pythons
>>Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
>>Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
>>Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
>>Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
>>Spider Western Hognose Snakes
>>Albino Western Hognose Snakes
>>Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
>>Southern Hognose Snakes
>>Eastern Hognose Snakes
>>Tricolor Hognose Snakes
>>Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
>>Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
>>Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
>>Patternless Bullsnakes
>>S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
>>Locality Desert Kingsnakes
>>Albino Desert Kingsnakes
>>Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
>>Mexican Black Kingsnakes
>>Desert Phase, Striped Desert, Newport, and Coastal California Kingsnakes
>>Locality Mexican Milksnakes
>>Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
>>Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
>>Locality Alterna
>>Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
>>Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
>>Cape Housesnakes
>>Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
>>Locality Spotted Turtles
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AMAZON REPTILE CENTER

"Genetic abilities are genetic abilities.. "

Biologically, that isn't really true-but I won't quibble about good news
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Jungle Carpet Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase, Striped Desert, Newport, and Coastal California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles

Well, this is good news for us as a whole (bad news for the Burms that were there). But by no means is this any reason for us to back off and let our guard down. I know you all know that. I just think that we have worked our tails off for the past several months and faught too hard to get to the point that are currently at without loosing everything. I would hate to see yet some other screwed up lunatic releasing another animal. I think we need to work harder than ever to broaden our range of supporters and get in even tighter with the community of pet stores to pass on the word not to release any non natives. We should focus our efforts at future damage prevention. The more supporters we have at the next uprising, the better.

Chris

>>Well, this is good news for us as a whole (bad news for the Burms that were there). But by no means is this any reason for us to back off and let our guard down. I know you all know that. I just think that we have worked our tails off for the past several months and faught too hard to get to the point that are currently at without loosing everything. I would hate to see yet some other screwed up lunatic releasing another animal. I think we need to work harder than ever to broaden our range of supporters and get in even tighter with the community of pet stores to pass on the word not to release any non natives. We should focus our efforts at future damage prevention. The more supporters we have at the next uprising, the better.
>>
>>Chris

Great post, I agree. It's already been proven beyond a doubt that our "opponents" are neither forthright nor honest. They are even putting spin on the recent cold snap, making it sound less devastating than it was, or at least might have been. For all we know, that lone survivor of the 10 monitored pythons would have also died if it were left alone. And of the 58 or so living pythons that were "spotted" (whatever that means) in the several weeks following the cold snap, who knows how many of them have died from RI's. Failing to mention these details/possibilities is dishonest and profoundly UN-scientific, imo. Letting one's guard down against an opponent that continues to be misleading and dishonest is bad strategy.