Cold kill of Burmese pythons in Everglades

Not fish, but interesting in light of the reported kills of exotic fish during the same period. 9 of the 10 snakes being tracked with transmitters died from the cold.
http://www.miamihera...uel-debate.html

Maybe someone just needs to find a way to park a few nice big icebergs in the middle of the Everglades for a few years...

Everglades pythons are a hot button issue in the herp community so I don't want to encourage it, but my understanding is they are still finding live pythons. Whether the survivors got just lucky in their choice of shelter or have an inherent cold tolerance genetic advantage remains to be seen.

Everglades pythons are a hot button issue in the herp community so I don't want to encourage it, but my understanding is they are still finding live pythons. Whether the survivors got just lucky in their choice of shelter or have an inherent cold tolerance genetic advantage remains to be seen.

Why do pythons being naturally selected to tolerate cold seem like a bad thing?

I was thinking the same thing about tilapia and armored catfish when people started making the fish kill posts.

Why do pythons being naturally selected to tolerate cold seem like a bad thing?

Because as the population of the species becomes more cold-tolerant, its potential geographical range as an exotic invasive species expands.

Everglades pythons are a hot button issue in the herp community so I don't want to encourage it, but my understanding is they are still finding live pythons.

Hot button issue in the herp community because people don't like having such a high-profile example of escaped/released pets gone wrong out there, or is there something more to it?

Nativeplanter, I think firstchaos was being sarcastic. Perhaps the tongue-sticking-out emoticon would have been better than the smiley in that instance.

The controversy stems from a USGS report which compared climate data in the US to the python's natural habitat. It was alot of speculation and contained a map showing the potential python habitat as far north as Washington DC and San Fransisco. The press got hold of the map and news reports and cable TV shows were crying end of the world.

It just so happens, USFW has been trying to ban all large boids across the board. It's been in the works for awhile but the python breeders have connected the USGS report to USFW's effort to destroy their livelyhood. They went on the herp forums and got all the conspiracy theory types all riled up. It's pages and pages of flaming.

Nativeplanter, I think firstchaos was being sarcastic. Perhaps the tongue-sticking-out emoticon would have been better than the smiley in that instance.

I was thinking that might be the case (due to the smiley), but for the sake of others reading who might not know, I threw it in.

The controversy stems from a USGS report which compared climate data in the US to the python's natural habitat. It was alot of speculation and contained a map showing the potential python habitat as far north as Washington DC and San Fransisco. The press got hold of the map and news reports and cable TV shows were crying end of the world.

It just so happens, USFW has been trying to ban all large boids across the board. It's been in the works for awhile but the python breeders have connected the USGS report to USFW's effort to destroy their livelyhood. They went on the herp forums and got all the conspiracy theory types all riled up. It's pages and pages of flaming.

Between the Media, Governmental sources and the wack job line of herp hobbyists this whole thing as been turned into a stupid circus. Much like the Asian carp in the great lakes issue. and the plan to create a Clean list for animal importation.

I am sure hoping people arent wanting 20ft pythons in their back yard .....or 80lb grass carp (mowing machines that eat more than their body weight a day) in the great lakes , I am just not seeing how that is advantageous to our NATIVE FISH and reptiles; if someone has some scientific evidence for exotics actually helping and not competing with our natives for resources and space please post it.... inquiring minds want to know. Maybe we could put Siberian Tigers in the rockies....or better yet Hippos to go along with the pythons in the Everglades, wow the possibilities could be endless . Thanks Joe.

There are actually some lines of evidence that certain invasives improve habitat for certain native species, just as certain human land uses are beneficial to some species. Witness the expansion of prairie-loving coyotes into the once-wooded eastern states, for example; I also suspect Dorosoma shads, among others, are far more abundant in reservoirs than they would have been in free-flowing large rivers.

The problem is not so much "exotics bad" as that we don't know what exotics will do; throw them into a dynamic ecosystem that hasn't been in a steady state at any point in the last 10,000 years at least (resulting in a lot of open niches) and who can say what effect they might have? Most introductions may be benign. Some are clearly negative. Some may have positive effects. We really don't know what all the effects of any introduction are. We get most upset about spectacular species like pythons and kudzu or nuisances like zebra mussels and fire ants, but that doesn't mean they're the worst or the most important. How have dandelions and white clover affected native species, or house sparrows and earthworms? We just don't know.

How have dandelions and white clover affected native species, or house sparrows and earthworms? We just don't know.

Actually i read articles on earthworms harming basswood forests by effecting the accumulation of organic matter on the forest floor.

I always wondered if invasiveness is a possible cure for threatened/endangered species. A species put into a non-native environment spreads out of control, could that be used to make rare species common? and if their success makes another species uncommon move that one, etc. until you come full circle. moving all species to the left a little.

Nothing is as cut and dry as anyone likes to claim.
At the risk of offending [a certain flame elsewhere], I haven't seen tons of compelling evidence that the pythons are causing tons of harm. Not the same as saying no impact at all, just not compelling.

Having been active in most of the herp forums almost since day one, I can tell you forum photographs of everglades pythons are up 1000% since the beginning. More pythons? Well, yah, probably, but the real phenomenon is the number of joe public herpers making python [and tame crocodile] specific trips. All those folks left behind $$$ to food, fuel, services and traffic violations. Some contributed useful data as well. Can the canals spare a few gators and feral house cats to feed the pythons? Remains to be seen.

For myself, next time I pass through the Glades I will be hot to spot a python. If a legal harvest is allowed [as now seems likely], I will most certainly harvest one for a skin.

Don't go by my warped values. I love pigeons, squirrels and rats because when I go the city I can successfully watch for redtail hawks and perrigrin falcon.
By my own unscientific drivin around surveys, redtails are nesting in every square mile of Ma land that contains mature white pines and a place to hunt pigeons.
Most of us would probably never see a big falcon in our lives. I've seen 3, two in Boston, one in Worcester!

Nothing is as cut and dry as anyone likes to claim.
At the risk of offending [a certain flame elsewhere], I haven't seen tons of compelling evidence that the pythons are causing tons of harm. Not the same as saying no impact at all, just not compelling.

An introduced top predator with few locally adapted parasites, diseases or its own predators not causing tons of harm to an already disturbed ecosystem? That would be an act of magic.

Pythons on the keys are already doing damage to some of the endemic small mammals. Some researchers had radio-tagged endemic woodrats; their telemetry equipment led them to pythons that had ingested the woodrats, tag and all.

We have a lack of baseline data, and lot of confounding factors. There are so many things going wrong in the Everglades that it would be hard to positively link any of them definitively to pythons, aside from direct and easily-documented things like attacks on humans and their pets. The same is true for many other species. So it is difficult to make a concrete case for the damage done by an invasive; certainly (short of agricultural pests) it's near-impossible to say "This species has caused X dollars' worth of damage, and will cause another Y dollars' worth of damage in the next 10 years if we don't spend Z dollars to mitigate the situation." Those kinds of equations make decision-making easy; all you have to do is cost-benefit analysis. Without that, it boils down to emotional appeals and competing scenarios of what could happen.

The way I see it, we should treat our ecosystems with the doctor's injunction, "First do no harm". There's little to be gained and much to be lost by allowing more invasions to occur, or existing ones to intensify.

An introduced top predator with few locally adapted parasites, diseases or its own predators not causing tons of harm to an already disturbed ecosystem? That would be an act of magic.

I think the key here is how you define "harm". To an ecologist, pretty much any human-caused divergence from the pre-human state of an ecosystem counts as harm. It doesn't matter if we like the result or not -- the change itself is harm. On the other hand, there are a huge group of people who believe it's possible to "improve" upon the native state of an ecosystem by making it more suitable for human uses (aesthetic, production of desirable plants/animals, etc.). From that point of view, any change that doesn't reduce the utility of the ecosystem probably doesn't count as harm.

You're right about that. How many people on this list think it's a good idea to drain swamps or channelize creeks? And certainly the Everglades are already damaged by strongly altered water flow that we as humans are just beginning to change back to something like the original condition. I would guess that pythons are relatively indifferent to the exact flow regime in the Everglades; certainly alligators and other native species are more sensitive to that.

An introduced top predator with few locally adapted parasites, diseases or its own predators not causing tons of harm to an already disturbed ecosystem? That would be an act of magic.

I'm not pro-python, my comments were oversimplified to make my point. This isn't a topic I intended to promote, although I guess I am.
They must compete with native snakes as juveniles. Endangered mammals on small islands would be vulnerable.
These are ten, twelve foot long snakes. They're not going to eat a heck of a lot of wood rats beyond a certain point.
I know there is a huge amount of data being collected as we speak. They were already all over it but the recent pubilicity sparked interest. Gut contents examination from large sample size will be published and will shed much light.

Oops, didn't mean to spark off a general discussion of exotic/introduces species. Interesting, but probably not a lot of good can come of it. Whether or not the pythons or carp in recent news wind up being huge problems or not remains to be seen, but it's at least good to see some public interest/focus on the issue in general. Incidentally, there's an interesting story on a new moth introduction in Napa Valley in the national news this week.

Just thought this was an interesting example of how significant the winter weather was down there. Wonder if there are any similar quantitative evaluations of the impact on non-native fish? We know it killed a lot, but how many?

How cool would it be if the weather actually extirpated an introduced species or two? Unlikely, but maybe there was some new reptile/amphibian/fish species that had just the slimmest toe-hold and actually got eliminated.

Edited by jase, 29 March 2010 - 03:37 PM.