Keeping on the topic of invasive species, go back to the National Geographic article "Alien Invaders” from last week or linked below. Pick one of the species listed and write a 500 - 750 word description (click "add new discussion”) of your species. The description needs to include:
You will need to do outside research to fully answer these questions. Read your classmates' descriptions and respond to at least one. In your response, compare their species to the one you picked. If you picked the same, simply discuss similarities in your findings.
Burmese pythons are the species that I decided to choose for this discussion. Growing up in Florida it has been a very real thing for me when traveling down to the Everglades/Miami area of hearing stories about these giant snakes. The Burmese python is one of the largest snakes that slithers the earth today. Some fan grow 20 plus feet and are known to first originated in South East Asia but now have made there way to the Florida Everglades. An on going controversy with the Burmese python is how exotic pet owners are the reason that they are in the United States today. Many pythons were either kept as pets by people or brought over to be sold in the United States. One major key to the pythons survival in Florida is the weather conditions. South Florida’s climate and heat is a prestige and ideal place for the Burmese python to thrive. The fish and wild life services as well as a variety of other services that you may have seen on reality tv have pledged to get rid of or limit the python population in Florida. Many people have had pythons in their own back yards or houses in south Florida making for a terrifying experience. The Burmese python has shocked Florida’s ecosystem and habitat as a now huge predator roams south Florida that was not there prior. Many people fear for there safety as well as pets such as dogs etc. Pythons tends to attack smaller mammals such as household pets or possums etc rather than a human in most cases. One problem of the continuing growth of Burmese pythons is that they are constantly breeding. Many fish’s and wild life rangers as well as civilians have found loads of python eggs in various locations. Pythons have even been known to eat objects as large as full grown deer so the threat to humans is still very real. Bases on an article I researched I read that the Burmese python has caused over 100 billion dollars in damages just in the United States alone. If a 20 foot slithering snake doesn’t scare you I’m sure that amount of money lost will. Burmese pythons have became such a problem in the everglades and south Florida area that there is now a hotline for people to use who see or think they have seen an invasive python. Even though some pythons can grow up to 20 feet. The average python caught in Florida is a round 8-9 feet which is still huge! Weighing over 200 pounds sometimes they can be a struggle to catch or capture. Burmese pythons are huge in weight but lack in the ability to obtain stamina. This really isn’t that big of a deal because they use their brain to stalk their prey before making a move. Out of the incidents that have happened with him and it is usually when they are sleep or not paying attention. All Burmese python incidents with humans have been with their owners or the family of the owners associated with the snake. As the problems continue to grow for people in south Florida dealing with Burmese problems, hopefully the solutions will as well. Fish and wild life as well as many other organizations are working hard to figure out what they can do to stop this invasive species.