"We've got a lot of politicians that are looking to get elected, and in this type of story, things get
exaggerated," said Greg Graziani, one of the state's original licensed python hunters.
Most scientists agree that the non-native pythons arrived in the Everglades when careless pet owners
released them as they grew too large. Another suspect is breeders whose cages were destroyed by
Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
Estimates that 150,000 pythons live in the Everglades are loosely based on "guesstimates" by Skip
Snow, an Everglades National Park wildlife biologist and resident python expert, of how many could
live in the Everglades. In fact, Snow offers a wide range: 5,000 to 138,000.
"We don't know how many are out there," said Snow, who estimates the true number at about 30,000.
"We know that it's not hundreds, and clearly, everyone is comfortable saying there are thousands."
In February 2008, the U.S. Geological Survey released a study warning that the python invasion of
South Florida could spread across the entire southern third of the United States, in part because of
projected global warming.
But the agency "didn't do a very good analysis," said Harry Greene, a Cornell University ecology
professor and snake expert.
Frank Burbrink, an associate professor of biology at the City University of New York's College of
Staten Island, examined a much wider range of ecological factors in his own study released six months
later, concluding that pythons could thrive only in South Florida and the southern tip of Texas.
"There's a lot of hype on various sides of this, but I do think there really is a problem," Greene said.
"If you have an exotic, vertebrate predator that weighs well over 100 pounds, is thriving in a national
park and can possibly extend its range into the southeastern U.S., it certainly deserves to be addressed."
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/2009/08/01/0801snake.html
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