NY times article

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I just read this on your facebook page. Scary quote:

"Thomas Strickland, assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks, said that the government was not going to back down and that it would approve the regulations by next summer. The science is solid, Mr. Strickland said, and the geological survey will soon publish a peer-reviewed answer to its critics."

This guy is nuts. There was ZERO scientifically acceptable data in the paper being used to back this thing and it was disprove by every other bit of research done on the same topic (including national geographic, several universities including university of FL, and several independant studies).
 
that strickland dude is a moron.

is it bad that i think of propane as soon as i read his name?
 
I don't know if this is the right place to bring this up, but a about a month or two ago I watched two different programs about Burmese Pythons on Animal Planet and Nat. Geo Wild.

I forget what the program on Animal Planet was called but it basically took the stance of "Alll snakes are EVIIIIILLLLLL, are going to kill everyone and everything, and their owners are probably serial rapists or paranoid schizophrenics". This was then followed by endless hours of people gushing about how much they love small dogs and cats.

On Nat. Geo Wild I saw two of the three episodes of "Python Hunters". Their bottom line? Burmese Pythons are not going to make it out of southern Florida due to the climate, and they actually help the ecosystem by keeping raccoons and opossums under control (which Florida panthers used to do, but not anymore).

When I read what Thomas Strickland had to say the only thing I could think was "Media Tool".
 
Animal planent has been taken over by the HSUS and is nothing but propaganda and media hype these days.
National geographic is as good as ever and even better for airing python hunters which was created by three big names in the hobby. I have met two of them personally. Shawn Heflick actually lives not to far from me and Greg Graziani has helped me out a couple times in navigating the reptile laws we have now in fl. Both great guys out to defend our hobby.
 
Another thing that really bothers me is the burms in everglades were determined to not have come from pet owners but rather were escapees from roadside zoos after a hurricane knocked down their enclosures. It had nothing to do with pet owners but the media did not want to portray zoos as bad so they pointed the finger at private owners instead and it stuck.

Why punish pet owners for something caused by zoos? The fact is very few people actually released their pets because many of them simply thought their pet python would do fine in a 10 gallon tank while eating crickets so a majority of the irresponsible keepers simply killed their snakes. The ones that knew what they were doing and could care for the snake were also smart enough not to release them. Several anti-exotic-pet groups have been linked to incidents where snakes were released in order to stir the pot at events where the media would be.
 
There is also evidence that a huge breeding facility was destroyed in the hurricanes and that would have contributed greatly to the wild problem.
The python hunters do a really great job of researching, finding and testing all the information they can get ahold to provide us with solid facts and not some random bs they just pulled out of their asses like the USGS is doing....
 
I hate animal planet now. They went soft a while ago. Im kinda glad it got pulled from my cable network. Id rather watch golf that replaced it, and i HATE golf.
 
My fiance is an elementary school teacher, her kids read this article. Was in some monthly magazine type thing scholastic sends out to schools.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/magazines/scope/pdfs/SCOPE-112210-Pythons.pdf

edit: it came out a few months ago. but drop them an email...kids should not be reading this misinformation and fear mongering. i got a generic response to my email, but maybe they will get the hint if a few more come in.
 
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