Reptile & Amphibian Forums

www.walb.com/story/15915581/special-report-georgias-giant-pythons

And in case anyone didn't catch it, that was sarcasm.

Why no comment on the fact that some exotic pet owner probably DUMPED the snake in the first place? Why no scathing sarcasm for that responsible party?

Until exotic pet owners do a better job of policing themselves, our representative government WILL step in to do it.

I believe that would be preaching to the choir, Steph.

>>I believe that would be preaching to the choir, Steph.

Don't play along with her stupid game. No one knows how the snake got there, it was just assumed that "You decide you don't want them anymore, you let them go." If we always make that assumption without any evidence, all the AR wackos have to do is plant a snake, and we start fighting amongst ourselves and blaming the mythical idiot who is releasing his Burm into the wild.

In fact Steph probably let the snake go.
On Terry committing suicide. Says's who, the cops that slaughtered the animals?
If you don't think HSUS would kill one little human and then release his animals you have'nt been paying attention.
I'm not saying this is what happened but one death for all that gain, AR groups would jump on it.D.C.

Should people assume that it booked itself a flight from South East Asia and got to Georgia on its own? No, of course not. It is there as a direct result of the exotic pet trade (as are the Everglades Burms), and is likely a dumped pet, or, if you prefer, an 'escaped' pet or breeder's 'stock' that someone apparently didn't do a very good job searching for and finding again.

All the reluctance to own up to some measure of personal responsibility and accountability leaves the impression that there is a guilty conscience behind the bluff and bluster.

And please stop playing the Hurricane Andrew card...Burms have been spotted and caught in the Everglades since the 80's (according to FL Fish and Wildlife) and according to reports from water district managers appear to have bounced back pretty well from the record cold of 2 years ago.

Have a nice day.

Andrew card! Mass introduction and being blown down into the Mangrove areas that people can get to, to reliece them. Andrew is the reason, not 10,000 people letting their pet Python go free, IS what gave them the numbers to reproduce. People have tryed to seed them sence the 60's without success. Just because they were a few reported in the 80's doesnt mean poop. Get real. While your looking through your Science books and records see how many arrest were made by FFW for such crimes. I'll save you the serch NONE, so theres no evadence it ever happened ,on the "books" vm

To say that the reptile hobby needs to be able to police itself with 100% effectiveness or else face bans is holding it to an impossibly high standard. There are bad apples in every single hobby, every single line of work and in fact in every human endeavor. If we said that all these must be banned based on the activity of a few bad apples we would be banning everything. There are other more effective solutions than bans, IMHO.
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/

"Why no comment on the fact that some exotic pet owner probably DUMPED the snake in the first place? Why no scathing sarcasm for that responsible party?"

I, for one, don't jump to conclusions as fast as you do, Steph, especially over such a sensationalized article. For example, if you read the article carefully, you would notice that the sentence that mentioned how the Burmese Python came to be in the wild states, "You decide you don't want them anymore, you let them go.", which is just pure assumption. This statement was immediately followed by "That is what has happened in South Florida. Many pythons escaped in 1992 during Hurricane Andrew, have grown in population now estimated in the thousands.", even though it was at first assumed, as you have done here, that someone intentionally let them go. Regardless, some criticism is due whether the snake was intentionally let loose or escaped. A responsible snake keeper should not have snakes escaping or be letting them loose.

Secondly, if you read the article carefully, you would also notice that the last two sentences state, "Notchaway has grown about two feet in length since he came to Chehaw. He weighs about 60 pounds, and is fed a live rabbit every three months.", so, obviously the original story of the Burmese Python find is quite old and is being rehashed again.

I seldom consider such stories to be good journalism -- more like old (questionable) news.

One live rabbit every 3 months???? Supposedly it has grown 2 ft on that diet as well. I can't speak for everyone on here but aside from juvies that are eating pinks and fuzzies I don't think I have fed live vertebrate prey to ANYTHING in almost 20 years including burms when I worked with them. Sounds like some serious professionals there (that's meant to be sarcastic steph) and yet WE are the amateurs.
Also I wouldn't want to be the one dealing with a burm that hasn't eaten in 3 months.
Mine used to be really pleasant(sarcasm once again) if I missed their normal biweekly feeding schedule and let them go a month.

"Regardless, some criticism is due whether the snake was intentionally let loose or escaped. A responsible snake keeper should not have snakes escaping or be letting them loose."

I respectfully disagree. No assumptions or criticism should be made unless there is some evidence pointing to an "irresponsible owner." Why do we bypass the presumption of innocence in cases like this, especially when there isn't even a suspect?? If we are going to assume things, why not assume that it wouldn't make sense for irresponsible owners to release a snake into the wild. If someone can't afford to take care of a snake, why wouldn't they sell the snake? Even morons know the value of money. And if someone is so irresponsible, wouldn't the Burm be dead due to poor husbandry before it could be released? IMO, we are helping groups like HSUS by coming to conclusions without supporting evidence.

What's really sad that all this hysteria and finger pointing (at the nebulous "irresponsible keeper" is based on irrational fear. So what if one or two pythons escape every year? We live in an imperfect world, sometimes accidents happen. If one or two escaped pythons every year is such a huge problem, then what about the thousands of dogs that get loose every week? What about all the violent criminals that are paroled all the time? Dogs and parolees are infinitely more dangerous than a loose python. Where's all the hysteria for those things?