Pythons, mammals, and mosquitoes

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Bryan Hamilton
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Joined: June 10th, 2010, 9:49 pm

Re: Pythons, mammals, and mosquitoes

Post by Bryan Hamilton »

Related news article, complete with sensationalism.

Pythons are eating everything in the Everglades, so now mosquitos are forced to feed off diseased rats

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/arc ... eased-rats
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WSTREPS
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Joined: June 9th, 2010, 4:03 pm

Re: Pythons, mammals, and mosquitoes

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PYTHON RESERCHER FRANK MAZZOTTI: The recent plethora of stories about pythons consuming prey in the Everglades is a prime example. Stories about large snakes feed directly into an archetypal fear that humans have of snakes, and stories about a feeding frenzy of snakes wiping out wildlife fuels a feeding frenzy of media coverage that wipes out the truth.

I am one of the co-authors. The title of the paper (“Severe mammal declines coincide with proliferation of invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park”), We were careful not to say “caused” because we don’t know that.

With few exceptions, you would get that impression from the media coverage that hoards of rampaging snakes were vacuuming up mammals in the Everglades.

I have been thinking about this python-mammal pattern since we assembled the paper and I have been gathering more information.Quite honestly I am seeing other potential patterns emerge.
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WSTREPS
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Re: Pythons, mammals, and mosquitoes

Post by WSTREPS »

The authors of this paper claim that their findings indicate deer populations have suffered precipitous declines in relative abundance. That this precipitous decline can be attributed to python predation.

You need look no further then that ludicrous analysis to understand how far fetched the work found in this paper is. Apparently this gang of scientist failed to do even the minimal amount of background research before prancing off to drive their round peg into the square hole. Had they done their due diligence perhaps they might have had some different observations and conclusions.

Out of the thousands of pythons examined to date. Only twice have deer been identified as prey items. That is 2 deer out of thousand's of snakes examined. In S. Florida deer populations are carefully monitored and managed due to their importance as a game species. The 2017 legal hunting quota is 2 deer per day, per hunter in the everglades region . The everglades region has a LARGE population of whitetail deer that is showing no signs of decline. This is easily verified. How could the scientist who authored the paper possibly ignore this fact if not by design.

Bryan Hamilton started another thread about this paper in the reading room forum. Follow the link. I urge one and all to read it and as always. Would anyone like to challenge the information I provided ?

Ernie Eison

Pet Snakes Set off Chain of Events: Could make you sick
http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/vie ... 16&t=24549
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