Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently wrote University of Florida wildlife biologist Dr. Frank Mazzotti after reading an article about research they were doing during the freeze in Florida earlier this month, Here is the link to the original article...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/weather/01/10/us.cold.weather/index.html

This is his response I received yesterday

"We evaluated the effects of the recent extended period of cold temperature on Burmese pythons by following the fate of pythons with radio transmitters and by conducting searches for pythons both during and especially immediately after the cold spell. We are preparing the results for rapid publication in a peer reviewed outlet and we will issue a press release with with the detailed results coincident with their publication. At the moment we can tell you that pythons both survived and died during the cold period. The cause of death was not always apparent and that is one of the areas we are still gathering information on. We believe that rapid peer reviewed publication of these results is in everyones best interest.

We are getting requests for the results from everywhere from individuals to CNN. I really want to avoid the controversy surrounding other efforts that were not exposed to external peer review. We are fortunate enough to have been in a position to know exactly what happened. I don't think anyone will be disappointed with the results.

Frank"

This sounds promising. But I certainly hope it doesn't stop there. Hopefully at least bimonthly they continue to check. Because all though many snakes have died during the cold, RI is a much slower though equally sure death. When the cold snap hit I thought some snakes would freeze to death but I felt many more would get pneumonia and die later. The fact that some snakes survived these cold temps means nothing in the long run. Surely this will be pointed out.D.C.