h a l f b a k e r yRenovating the wheel
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Watching a nature show last week learned that the Burmese Python is
exploding in Florida. 100,000 and growing fast was the quoted
estimate. They found a dead one with a 6 foot alligator inside. The
announcer said 'therefore could eat a child". Hello! I'm not six foot and
I'm not an alligator.
I'm guessing I'd be soft and chewy on the outside,
nice and crunchy on the inside to that snake.
If the situation can be corrected it can only be corrected with a
coordinated public response. The problem is our public response
coordination capabilities are horribly broken (see Katrina, banks to big
to fail, affordable healthcare).
There is a huge gap in leadership particularly where creative thought is
required. Creative solutions require creative thinking and I'm thinking
our public policy folks could use a hand. So here's the challenge; what
public policies fix that problem?
Here are some thoughts:
1 - snake leather fashion subsidies
2 - Gordon Ramsey sponsored python bar-b-que competition; large
cash prize to winners
3 - insert poison capsules into 1,000,000 released rabbits (might help
with the coyotes and REALLY piss off the PITA people)
4 - snake cannery, sell them to the Chinese (do our part to level the
balance of trade)
4 - or just offer rednecks $100 a head. Ain't like we haven't pissed away
$10m on more ridiculous ideas lately (oh wait, that won't work. Have to
give that money to Bechtel)
5 - ? ? ?
A few more ideas and some in depth discussion
http://roomfordebat...nd-regulating-them/
[ytk, Jun 25 2012]
Biodiversity? Whatever.
http://www.globalis...important-who-cares
Just for you, [21Q] [ytk, Jun 25 2012]
Thought 2
http://www.sacbee.c...aise-awareness.html
Pretty much covered. [MechE, Jun 26 2012]
[link]
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Let me be the first to welcome you to the Halfbakery! |
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Let me also be the first to say, “Huh?” |
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Well, you should fit right in here, anyway. |
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I'm surprised there isn't already a bounty for pythons in
Florida, considering how well such programs have worked
in other places. Maine was once home to indiginous Timber
Rattlers, but is no more, thanks to a bounty instituted
sometime in the mid-1800s. The bounty is actually still
available, BION; anyone who brings a Timber Rattler head
to the IF&W offices in Augusta will walk out with a cool
$2.00 in their pocket. |
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Welcome to the asylum, [Ed]. |
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'cording to WP, they can grow upwards of 200lbs. I imagine there's already > $600 worth of saleable meat and skin on one without bothering with a head price. |
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I'm thinking a snake would produce less meat per
live weight than a cow (a higher percentage of
guts
to body), but let's say they're roughly the same.
You
get about one third of the weight of a cow out in
useable meat. So that 200lb snake (which would
be
on the large side, and probably tough) is going to
give you maybe 66 lbs of meat. Given that snake
is
reported to be a rather less than choice meat, I
suspect you're not looking at anywhere near $600. |
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Edit to Add: Assuming its not sold as an exotic. I
found a place selling rattlesnake for $60/lb, so
maybe it would work. |
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Well, I figger put it at $4/lb, sold as "snake". Gotta be a good 3-4 pair of boots or a couple duffel bags worth of skin as well. |
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Rattlesnake is delicious, but I wouldn't pay $60/lb for it. |
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[21], go wiki 'invasive species' if you want to know just
how blatantly ignorant that anno was. |
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Elect them to Congress. (Then they can replace those other reptiles as an "evasive species") |
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You're still being a bit obtuse. Whay I meant was that the
python is an invasive species in Florida, and _all_ invasive
species, no matter what they are, spell potential
devastation to the ecosystem they've invaded. The
Everglades are fragile enough as it is; encouraging the
pythons to proliferate there rather than trying to get rid of
them will destroy the place forever. The pythons, against
which none of the local fauna have evolved any defense,
will eat virtually every other creature until there aren't any
others left. |
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Python V Gator battles. The loser becomes a handbag. (Hehe Gladigator). |
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Fuck Greenpeace, virtually everything they say is
exaggeration to the point of mistruth. I've been to the
'Glades myself; they're hanging by a thread. Anyone can
see it. And yes, ecosystems adapt, but that's not always a
good thing. If our predecssors hadn't driven the wolves out
of the US, allowing deer populations to explode, we might
not be dealing with a near-epidemic of equine
encephalitis, which can spread to humans, BTW. Just an
example. |
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//The local ecosystem will adapt, like it almost
always does.// |
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Except, of course, for when it doesn't. Oftentimes
“adapt” means the invasive species becomes the new
dominant species of the ecosystem, destroying much
of the native life in the process. See, e.g. zebra
mussels and kudzu. |
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Except when the old includes two edible (and yummy) species, a gorgeous flower, and a cure for cancer, and the new clogs up drains, carries malaria, and strongly resembles rotting meat in both appearance and odor. Invasive species, by virtue of being outside the existing stable ecosystem, frequently outcompete to the point of reducing species diversity. And, as a rule, diversity is a good thing. |
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So I trust that when you get sick you don't go to the
doctor or take any medecine, because that's just
nature's way of making sure you're still strong
enough to be allowed to live. |
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Anyway, your argument is completely baseless,
because the introduction of invasive species is a
result of human action, either deliberate or
accidental. So it's not really a natural process. And
if you want to claim that humans, being “natural”,
are simply one agent of natural change, then you
have to accept that it's no less justifiable in terms
of natural processes to attempt to preserve existing
ecosystems as it is to change or destroy them. |
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Culling by various means is not really original. |
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//I haven't heard ANY argument that the Burmese
python, which again, this post is about, has been
actually causing ANY problems.// |
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Must've missed the link I posted. Incidentally, I wasn't
deliberately searching for information on Burmese
Pythons or Florida when I found that; it was the sixth
link for a Google search for "species killed by invasive
species". |
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// pest animals they eat: mice, rats, opossums (I despise opossums), cats, venomous snakes that ARE known for harming humans, etc. // |
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Large Burmese Pythons can and do indeed consume cats. |
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Leave the pythons alone, they're doing a great job there ! |
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We are curious as to you criteria for discriminating between "pest animals" and "tourists from North of the Manson-Nixon Line". |
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// I'm still not seeing the problem... // |
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Many don't. That's part of the problem. |
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I think the main argument against man-assisted
diffusion of species is that they tend to reduce
diversity, in two ways. |
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First, it's clear that if you spread all species
around
willy nilly, you'll tend to wind up with similar
fauna in
similar environments. In the absence of such
spread,
similar environments on two different continents
will
have different species, which is at least more
interesting. This homogenization of remote
ecosystems is sometimes known as "MacDiversity". |
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Second, the "homogenized" ecology (in addition
to
being the same in all similar environments) also
winds
up poorer than any one of the original
environments
were. This is thought to happen because lots of
new
species meet suddenly, rather than co-evolving
around eachother. The result is a short and
bloody
battle. |
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In other words (and to take a very simplistic view),
you
start with species A-M in one place, and species N-
Z in
another. What you end up with is just species A,
J
and Q everywhere. |
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As an example, there used to be cats in some
places,
and gazillions of diverse species of small rodents
endemic on
most small islands. There are now cats
everywhere
and a bunch of extinct small rodents. I marginally
prefer cats to any single species of rodent; but
cats are the same everywhere. |
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Oh wait - now I have to read the damn post? |
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// whatever real-life reasons there may be // |
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Do you actually read other people's annos and links? I've
counted about seven valid reasons to cull invasive species
in the annos alone. Furthermore, I find it hard to believe
that you, of all people, are opposed to going out and
shooting things! |
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We should give Bono a call, that sort of thing is right up his
alley. We could call it 'Gator-Aid'... oh, wait, that's
taken... |
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Can we take them by hand, with ropes and swords? I mean, the archery guys get the early season, and only then do the gas powered weed whacker guys get a turn. |
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Except that there are plenty of snake species
native to the everglades, that the pythons are
competing with. |
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Another problem with non-native species is that
they aren't necessarily fit for a given niche in the
long run. That is they might out-compete for long
enough to kill off the native species, and then die
off because the conditions aren't suitable in the
long run (a winter on the harsh side of average for
instance). |
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Not to mention that as they kill off many or all of the
native fauna, the numerous diverse species of native flora
that are in various ways dependent on said fauna will die
out as well. Then you're pretty much just left with a bunch
of hungry pythons, any species of birds that are too quick
or clever for the pythons, a few stands of sycamore, and
an awful lot of mud. Attractive prospect, isn't it? |
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and a few 10's of millions of crunchy, bbq sauce slathered homo sapiens floridensis. |
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[21] - I'm going to assume you're trolling and don't actually think that whether you like or don't like and animal should in any way affect whether you'd act to prevent it's extinction. |
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I'm a long way from being a militant greenie or (shudder) PETA supporter. I hunt (exclusively feral animals, by the way - but that's mostly out of convenience, and lack of suitable macrofauna worth hunting where I am. That said, I can't really eat the ferals I hunt here due to parasites and diseases being rife - so I leave them dead. I'm under no illusions that I'm reducing their population in any significant way - I'm clearly hunting feral animals for sport - but would not do same for native animals), I fish for food and sport, I spearfish for my and others food, I drive a diesel 4wd through the bush and I ride big nasty ATV's all over the place. I think that culling certian native animals that, (due to our impacts on the ecosystem), are in plague proportions, is a *good thing*. |
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To the greenies I meet, I'm the enemy. |
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I hear people compare conservation with preservation, and I have mixed views. I think I take a fairly balanced view, but can appreciate that others would have different views, which are at least as valid as my own. |
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But your arguments that it's okay for an introduced, feral species to munch it's way through the population of certian native animals, simply because you don't like those animals, are totally alien to me. I'm actually angry that you would think this way. There are studies, easily found online, that indicate massive reductions in some native species numbers, that seem to correlate to the burmese python invasion of Florida. Whether or not you will personally miss the now imperrilled animals is entirely beside the point. |
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Sadly, a lot of the time culling has little effect on the numbers of an invasive species, due to their breeding potential. But any attempt should be lauded, not criticised as unnecessary. |
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When you introduce a new apex predator, like the
Burmese Python, into an ecosystem you introduce
the potential for radical change to many levels in
the system. Whether the pythons consume prey
species that would otherwise support another,
different apex predator and reduce the numbers
of that predator accordingly; or if the pythons
take out a herbivore that keeps dispersed seed
levels of some species at suitable / traditional
levels, you can never be sure of the
consequences. |
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The trouble with introducing a "redneck bounty" is
that the rednecks will probably see it as an excuse
to take out every species of snake, not just the
targeted ones. |
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Snake meat is quite edible, and would be sold as
an exotic, probably at very good prices. You'll get
about 55% of the live weight of the snake as meat;
as opposed to about 49-52% of a beef, lamb or pork
animal. |
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//Snake meat is quite edible// |
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Only to a denizen of a largely dry and parched land like Oz. Tried it, wasn't a fan. |
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It depends how you prepare it. Snake and crocodile
are both very good done as you would "Salt & Pepper
Squid"... dredged in a cornflour, salt and Szechuan
pepper mixture and flash-fried. |
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I wonder if sashimi snake would work. |
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I've had smoked rattler that was light and flaky, like good
salmon but without the fishy flavor. |
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Still on the Atkins diet Max? |
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Perhaps you could treat them as one huge sausage. |
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My, some people have long memories. Sadly, others
of us have large waistlines. Ah well. |
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Python would make a hella Big Sandwich(/hoagie/sub). |
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//My, some people have long memories.// |
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I wish. My memory is shockingly bad - yet it's capable of holding all manner of useless bits & pieces. |
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Sandwich schmandwich. I'm thinking stuffed python. |
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In fact, if you started with a series of very hungry
snakes of progressively larger diameter, it should be
possible to contrive a self-assembling nested snake
roulade. It would be good to find a very thin species
of snake that eats asparagus. |
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// until they're locally extinct. // |
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Yes, that's the idea. They haven't started to fit into the
local ecology, they've started to eat it. They don't belong
there, and they're causing problems. How can this be made
clearer? |
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[21Q], are you really that obtuse or are you just
being argumentative for the sake of being
argumentative? |
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//species spread into other regions NATURALLY all
the time, with or without our help.// |
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That is very true. One of the problems of
conservation is to resist the temptation to
prevent any change. |
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On the other hand, the rate (and range) of man-
made introductions is far greater than the rate of
natural migrations. Also, such introductions tend
to happen more suddenly, with a viable
population of the introduced species being
established in a short space of time through the
transportation (or accidental release) of many
individuals. |
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Perhaps rabbits would have made it to Australia on
their own, eventually. Perhaps pythons would
have made it to Florida, and perhaps cats would
have domesticated themselves and sailed to
countless remote islands. |
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Ecosystems will indeed generally adapt to
invasions of new species, but they take a while to
do so and to regain diversity. If you greatly
increase the rate of introductions, you stress the
systems a lot, and they are likely if not to
collapse, then at least to take a long time to
become interesting again. In the meantime, you
have lots of impoverished ecosystems which are
the same the world over. |
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Still, in the great scheme of things, we can afford
to wait a few tens of millions of years until the
Florida pythons diverge from the original species
sufficiently to become interesting. |
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As for being man-eaters, Florida State Wildlife
Response Team reports 17 cases over the last
twelve years of people being injured or killed by
pythons. |
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(OK, I made that last bit up to annoy [21Q]). |
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// I marginally prefer cats to any single species of rodent; but cats are the same everywhere. // |
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<pencils in "UNRELIABLE ?" next to [MB]s name in The Big Book> |
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<I heard malaria mentioned? How do you like the bubonic plague? > |
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"Have you ever heard of the bubonic plague, Manuel? It was very popular here at one time...." |
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// The snakes, which eat pest species and don't bother humans at all, simply aren't the appropriate target for our guns, in my humble opinion. // |
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You're referring to rattites here, not the two legged sort that practice law ? |
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// a lot of the time culling has little effect on the numbers of an invasive species, due to their breeding potential. // |
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Yes, those Japanese tourists do seem to have big families ... |
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//You're referring to rattites here, not the two
legged sort that practice law ? // |
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Ratites (or, if you prefer [although nobody else
seems to] "rattites") are all two-legged. Ratites
are flightless birds, and hence would feel pretty
hard done by without a pair of legs. |
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<slightly off topic> There is, in fact, one ratite
which is capable of flight, namely the Kuararo. It
lives on several of the larger and more remote
pacific islands, and can fly "awkwardly and with
much effort". What is completely bizarre about
it, though, is that it is descended from a flightless
bird and that it has re-acquired flight by evolving
its "legs" into "wings", whilst the useless true
wings are used for locomotion on the
ground.<\sot> |
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I'm presuming [8th] meant rattus rather than ratite. |
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You just can't leave well enough alone, can you, [Quest]? |
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Hey [Max], if someone can get a photo of a Kuararo, maybe we ought to get the Wikipedia article on Ratites updated. We might need to find some additional references as well since currently Google returns just one result when searching for Kuararo and Ratite. |
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Even more bizarre is the Monkondo, which lays an egg containing a fully formed chick, with its legs prodruding from the shell through two holes. Its first act of life is to instinctively run around in an increasingly widening spiral, until it bumps into the large stone its mother has knowingly placed nearby. This causes the rest of the shell to fracture away, releasing the new born from confinement. |
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//Hey [Max], if someone can get a photo of a
Kuararo, maybe we ought to get the Wikipedia
article on Ratites updated.// |
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Is a kuararo similar to an amontillado? |
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I have no idea what a kuararo looks like. You seemed to know something about them back in 2012. |
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