Python Ban... Bad news

[morti]

No, it hasn't gone through yet, but the USGS has released a map of their potential "Range" in the US. Please read this interesting bit of complete fiction:
USGS Release: USGS Maps Show Potential Non-Native Python Habitat Along Three U.S. Coasts (2/20/2008 10:45:00 AM)



Research underway now on with whom to challenge the validity of this study.

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[mpgt]

All the money we spend on heating cages and now they've discovered burms can survive single digit temps and slither around in the snow. Who would've thought. These people are crazy.

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[morti]

note:

I am sending a respectful e-mail to the contacts listed at the top of the news story. Please do not spam them.

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[BWSmith]

What a crock of crap.

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[BWSmith]

in todays Atlanta Journal and Constitution
Burmese pythons may be headed up to Georgia | ajc.com

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[Brandon28]

I'm stretching my imagination to grasp the fact that a Burmese Python can survive in Memphis...nope...still can't grasp it.

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[mpgt]

Maybe if they found a nice warm crawl space and heating duct under a house. If that's what they were thinking though, why not the northern states? If they're saying they can thrive through our winters without artificial shelter, it just doesn't make any sense.

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[vfoerster]

This is just a way of getting the American people scared and its working. Everyone is worried about them spreading when this isn't happening till 2100. Its rediculous. If you look at how this planet has thrived. It has a warming trend then a cooling trend. I think these Goverment scientists need to go to school resurching snakes. What does the burmese python have to do with every other species out there?

Well I guess the bigger the goverment gets the less freedoms we have.

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[GypsyFamily08]

So does that mean we can't own them anymore. Or we can't buy new ones. I'm retarded, sorry. Someone give me the sparknotes version.

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[vfoerster]

Umm transportation across state lines is prohibited. All selling of certain breeds is completely banned if they have to cross state lines. If you want to read the original it is right here...http://redtailboa.net/forums/reptile...ght=python+ban

Isn't it kind of rediculous they are using asian maps to create these maps not taking into consideration humidity and Temperature during summer and winter months.

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[morti]

Originally Posted by GypsyFamily08

So does that mean we can't own them anymore. Or we can't buy new ones. I'm retarded, sorry. Someone give me the sparknotes version.

Not yet although it is headed that direction.

http://redtailboa.net/forums/reptile...ght=python+ban
http://redtailboa.net/forums/just-ta...ghlight=python

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[morti]

In order to try and justify some of this, I tried to figure out on my own where this data was coming from. I thought the most logical explaination would be that they picked an imaginary line where they thought the range was and drew a line in the US along the same latitude.

The northern most record I can find for a population of P. m. bivittatus is in a state park about 20 klicks outside of Along, India. That city is at 28 degrees, 10 feet north. If I draw that line, it puts me just south or orlando (and the far southern tip of Texas). Kindof what I imagined it would look like.

Is anyone aware of burms north of 20 deg., 10 ft?

[Adrya]

Well.... at least West Virginia is in the "No" zone... good for me I guess.

Man, this is all a load of bubbly crocked crap fat as mud.

There is no way burmese pythons can survive that far north into Kentucky and Virginia, even if they find a warm place under a house in the winter or something. There's no way.

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[mpgt]

From my understanding, this is based on anticipated global warming.

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[GypsyFamily08]

Well that proposal pretty much sucks. I can understand having to micro chip certain species and being logged as the last person that owned it. Just in chase that person does let a retic or burm or anaconda loose when it gets big. That way the authorities can apprehend the owner that let it go. But banning the trafficking of them is too far.

[vfoerster]

Umm the other map is this one is just looking at Asia natural habbitat. It is not taking into consideration Humidity, Winter and Summer temps. It is not taking into consideration anything based on the U.S. it is just imagination. Plus they haven't finished there research at all. They won't be finished till 2009 this was just to scare people into voting for the ban. I can gauranteed one thing though. This probably has a lot of people in the Herp world a little ticked. I read over that article 4 times and still don't understand where they got that line from.

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[GypsyFamily08]

Originally Posted by mpgt

From my understanding, this is based on anticipated global warming.

that would mean the government would have to acknowledge global warming as a black and white fact and not just a could be scenario.

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[vfoerster]

Originally Posted by GypsyFamily08

that would mean the government would have to acknowledge global warming as a black and white fact and not just a could be scenario.

And it is just a scenario. They are just throwing numbers out there not worrying about if it works. I bet if a regular scientist that was not on the goverments payrole it would be found as blasfamis and it wouldn't be taken serious. The Goverment knows this... That is why they aren't worried about numbers. They just want to pass there law regardless of if it takes lying or not. I wish they would just .

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[morti]

The response to my e-mail from one of the authors:

Please look for the following scientific paper to be published soon. Perhaps it will answer your questions.

For those interested, here's the citation for the upcoming paper, which
should be out within a couple of months:
Rodda, G.H., C.S. Jarnevich and R.N. Reed. In Press. What parts of the U.S.
mainland are climatically suitable for invasive alien pythons spreading
from Everglades National Park? Biological Invasions.

[mpgt]

If they go through with this, they should give us at least one or 2 states for all the snake loving people and their families to live in. Florida is nice!!!

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