{"id":1910,"date":"2009-10-14T13:53:05","date_gmt":"2009-10-14T17:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=1910"},"modified":"2009-10-14T13:53:05","modified_gmt":"2009-10-14T17:53:05","slug":"pet-snakes-could-be-next-big-eco-menace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2009\/10\/14\/pet-snakes-could-be-next-big-eco-menace\/","title":{"rendered":"Pet snakes could be next big eco-menace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fort.usgs.gov\/Products\/Publications\/pub_abstract.asp?PubID=22691\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft img-fluid\" style=\"margin: 5px 10px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fort.usgs.gov\/images\/pub-images\/22691_cover_sm.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"154\" height=\"200\"><\/a><span style=\"color: #000000\">Scientists at USGS released a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fort.usgs.gov\/Products\/Publications\/pub_abstract.asp?PubID=22691\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">300-page report<\/a> today detailing the vulnerability of U.S. lands to invasion by large snakes from other continents. The report finds that Burmese pythons, northern and southern African pythons, boa constrictors and yellow anacondas are a high-risk animal for invasion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">The report echoes the unfortunate situation on the America territory of Guam, where introduced brown tree snakes have extirpated most forest vertebrates, including some birds endemic to the island. Released from natural predation pressure, these snakes altered the island\u2019s natural ecology so much that it affected human habitats and business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">The USGS report mentions that the five snake species that could pose a threat are common in the pet trade. These species have been spotted in the wild but have yet to establish detectable reproductive populations.\u00a0 Which begs the question: Does the presence of one or two neglected pets in the wild thus necessitate the production of a 300 page report?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Absolutely. The reason the brown tree snake story is such a sad one is simply lack of initiative before it became too late.\u00a0 The report points to animals which, because of their habits, preferred habitats and likely predators and prey items, have the greatest potential to become invasive.\u00a0 Now is the critical time to circulate this information, so that a hapless <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Burmese_Python\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Burmese python<\/a> owner thinks twice about letting his now-unwieldy pet loose in his backyard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Read the full report (and its abstract) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fort.usgs.gov\/Products\/Publications\/pub_abstract.asp?PubID=22691\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists at USGS released a 300-page report today detailing the vulnerability of U.S. lands to invasion by large snakes from other continents. The report finds that Burmese pythons, northern and southern African pythons, boa constrictors and yellow anacondas are a high-risk animal for invasion. The report echoes the unfortunate situation on the America territory of Guam, where introduced brown tree&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,48],"tags":[362,363,109,364,138],"class_list":["post-1910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservation","category-ecology-and-society","tag-brown-tree-snakes","tag-burmese-python","tag-invasive-species","tag-snakes","tag-usgs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}