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Python Snakes in Fl.

Ron,
Sorry man, I WAS going after you. Yank is a yank.
Kinda like being pregnant. you either are or you arn't.
I have to draw the line somewhere. My line is about Ocala.
JUST KIDDING, buddy. I advertise the fact and am world renown as probaby the biggest redneck you will ever meet.

One thing I am not kidding about is the SnowBirds.
For the life of me I cannot understand how so many people have gotten that mean and snoddy in less than 60 years.
Im not their CPA or nothin but you probably have to be kinda wealthy to maintain 2 households and it seems like the bigger the sedan they drive the more attitude the have.

No Offense meant Ron, or anybody else for that matter. it's just the oppenion/a$$hole thing.
If you are offended step up and be heard (or identified) maybe that way I wont have to go to big cypress for the seat covers
:lol:
 
Hey Country,
I don't know about the pythons, but I think it's a safe bet that any Panthers down there actually taste like Texas Cougar.

At least nowadays anyhow.

Here's a link to where the following opinion, and statement can be found.
All this you may already know.

http://www.angelfire.com/clone/rsauleda/

By Ruben P. Sauleda Ph.D. :

The days where Florida Panthers roam the big cypress are gone. They are exsticnt. Gone.
There's plenty of cougars down there though.

Many of the arguments to exclude ATVs and people in general from the Big Cypress are
based on protecting the endangered Florida panther. Any biology major would have learned
that the viability of a population is measured by the number of breeding females in that
population. When the number of breeding females gets too low then the population does
not have a chance of survival. The Florida population has obviously dropped below that
level and the effects are being seen as evidenced by the article below. In addition, the
introduction of genetic material from Texas pumas, has further complicated the matter.
In a few generations the Florida population will no longer be the subspecies coryi but a
hybrid. Hybrids are not endangered species. By introducing the Texas pumas, the
extinction of the coryi has been assured. The argument of saving the endangered Florida
panther is not valid. I feel however, that we should protect the population, but not as an
endangered species. Money is being spent to protect and study this population under
the deception that it is still the original endangered species.


The consequences of demographic reduction and genetic depletion in the endangered Florida
panther.
Roelke M.E., Martenson J.S. and O'Brien S.J. Current Biology 3; 340-350.

The Florida panther (Felis concolor coryi), a subspecies of puma, has suffered severe range and
demographic contraction in recent years, resulting in high levels of inbreeding and extremely low
levels of genetic diversity. There were fewer than thirty individuals surviving in the wild in southern
Florida in 1976, when a number of field studies and genetic studies were initiated. In this study,
Roelke et al found remarkably low levels of genetic variation in comparison to any other puma
subspecies using mtDNA RFLPs, allozyme analyses and DNA fingerprinting. Also, fixation of rare
morphological traits such as the possession of a cowlick or a kinked tail, features rarely seen among
other pumas, were commonly observed. The cost of this inbreeding was dramatic, with Florida
panthers having the worst sperm quality seen in any species, with approximately ninety-five percent
of the sperm being malformed. Also, Florida panthers displayed an unusually high incidence
(approximately fifty-six percent) of cryptorchidism, a rare heritable defect that causes one or two
undescended testicles with progressive loss of spermatogenesis. In addition, the microbial parasite
disease load was found to be enormous amongst these animals. All these findings made it quite
clear that unless the numbers of Florida panthers were increased immediately, the probability of extinction for this species was almost certain. However, if breeding were left to the existing animals,
the very high level of inbreeding was likely to impede population growth and survival. It was
therefore recommended that immediate augmentation of the population should be carried out with
Texas pumas (F. concolor stanleyana), found to be genetically similar to the Florida panther, and
also a subspecies whose range was contiguous with that of the Florida panther about a century
ago. Eight females from Texas were introduced into the area in 1995; since then, five have
produced offspring with resident males and several F1 and F2 offspring have been produced.
None of these offspring have been found to possess kinked tails and only one was seen to have
a cowlick, a dramatic difference from the earlier figures (Hedrik, 2001). The frequency of detrimental traits therefore, already appears to have been significantly reduced by the introduction
of Texas pumas. This is an example of a situation where hybridization has rescued a highly
inbred population.
Reference:
Hedrik P.W. (2001). Conservation genetics: where are we now? Trends in Ecology and Evolution
16; 629-636.
 
How can they claim they are protecting them when they go and do that?

Bringing in some Texas cats back in 1955 looks like it killed off the Florida panther by way of watering down the gene pool.

And if there truly are no more Florida panthers, all the talk, license plates, laws, restrictions, and tree hugging mentality are a farce.

Who is taking us for a ride on this?

matt.
 
Cowboy - I'm still reading this link you posted. It's long. But good info there. Thanks for putting that up. Here it is again:

http://www.angelfire.com/clone/rsauleda/

From what I'm gathering is that the Oil companies somehow talked the park service into getting rid of the ATV's so they could explore for oil in the everglades and big cypress. It looks like they used the enviro bunny huggers to close the area down. Now that it's closed and no one can get in there, they are building a limestone road (can you say adjusting the soil ph on a massive scale?) into the area to support the drilling of 14,000 seismic holes and an exploration well.

It's sad, and I want to meet that Dr. Sauleda. He sounds like he knows what is going on for sure.

http://www.angelfire.com/clone/rsauleda/
Folks - required reading!!!

A ranger (in front of children) threatened to shoot someone's pet dog for not being on a leash, and then said if it was leashed, he could hand out a ticket for damaging a tree if it was tied to a tree?!!!??? There are photos on that link of numerous trees "damaged" by bulldoziers building that road.

It's all BS of a situation!!!!!

Follow the money - Who is doing this? Does it all boil down to big oil and big sugar?

Even the prez GW is for it???

That revolution is getting closer every day.
:angry4: :violent1: :angry5: :angry7: angry9: :banghead:
 
Very good article.
I firmly believe that all land set aside for the preservation of the Florida panther is nothing more than a very intricate land grab. Most of these lands will soon be available for development. At first it will be a little around the edges and then soon the rest will be for sale.
Take a good look at the Ava Maria development near Immokalee.

Grant
 
As far as the seismic holes, thats not to be taken at face value either. First they had Florida make it so hard to bet an explosives and blasters license nobody shourt of heaven can qualify. THEN they will now bring their favorite out-of-state seismic folks to do the work. More money and jobs that could have stayed in Florida leaving.

I had heard nothing new about the Fl Panther since the figure of 30 something back in the 70s and have always kept a panther tag on my truck. Guess next time it up for a new tax Ill get a Confederate Heritagge tag or something.

There are more scams in Florida than anyone can know about. Im not there yet, but I am about ready to throw in with the foloks that say no more and take physical action to stop it.

This is why I stay so angry as long as Im involved in politics and wildlife management. Too frequently they dove tail into a incestuous clandestined relationship with developers.

Scotty :evil:
 
You are absolutely correct, Grant. All public lands must first be given over to another entity before they can then be handed off to development.

Because those lands are rightfully the property of every taxpaying citizen of our State, the State has to maneuver them into the hands of a group like S.F.W.M.D. or the NWF on the pretense that they are looking out for the 'protection' of that resource.
Later, this middle-man group can then sell them off for development.

It all smells like three day old bait to me, and it would take more money than any of us have to stop it because you would never find a legislator with the guts to sponsor a referendum against that kind of power.

olf
 
Just let me win the lottery and watch. I'll set enough of it aside to haul a few of them through court that the rest will be scared to do it. For a little while anyway. I bet a grass roots movement to prevent any state lands from being transferred more than once without coming back into the States hands would make it through too, especially if the WHOLE story gets told about it.

Scotty
 
About 25 years ago here in Brevard a new development group formed and announced that they were going to build vacation homes for the wealthy folks from up north that owned and operated them big custom prevost buses. The shocking part of this plan was that they were going to build these homes in the marsh and or swamp where we had been duck hunting for years! We then thought that they must plan to build houses on stilts.....nope........they just began fill'n here and diggin there until the next thing we knew there was a whole community out there in the marsh. Well after many years they appeared to have run out of room to expand and things slowed down........next thing we knew the community sold out to a new developer and we thought....that was a dumb purchase, where will he build? We got the answer to that when the former developer was named to head up the SJWMD. Suddenly there was all kinds of land to develop out there in those "protected" wet lands! Today the development continues, can't seem top get enough parking spots for them buses!

I think to fix this issue we need to dig to the root of the problem......they say they went to the moon............this is the information age................they claim that some 35 million people voted (via cell phone in a 2 hour period) and selected the "American Idol" so that some recording company can make millions off this person......so....instead of paper ballots, scanners, ballots with old valuable stamps attached, touch screeens that fail, etc........why don't they just build a computer that we can all call our vote in on or go online and vote etc........on any and all concerns and lets see what the people really want! Oh yea, I forgot, follow the money trail.....they don't want to know what we want.....that would get into their pockets! OK Scotty, I guess we are counting on you to win the lottery! :shock:
 
Mike - I know that development you are speaking of. I did not know the previous owner went on to head up the SJRWMD. Seems typical for a WMD. :roll: Seems like a crime was committed there. Some sort of "legal crime".

That RV resort is just to the east of Pawpaw mound and south of Hwy 50.

Before my wedding, I was researching possible places for my out of town guests to stay, and I inquired at that resort. They gave me a temporary visitor pass at the guard gate. (we were considering the wedding at Pawpaw at that time anyway)

Driving back there, I was horrified to see that they have flattened/filled in large areas where they are building cement block homes. These are not luxury because they were so close you could probably jump from roof to roof. But I'm sure they are marketing them as luxury.

That whole resort/development is really sad. Like the "home of the rat" here in Orlando (the D-word) they have created this whole ILLUSION of a town with shopping barber shop and so on. They even have their own laws - motorcycles are not allowed in there!!! And with the security guard - "certain people" (me & you) are not allowed in either. I don't trust them as far as I can throw them!!!! And I'd like to throw them into the ocean!!!

What can the little guy do other than take up arms against his own government??!!!??? Whatever it is, I want to help.

Just because someone is willing to pay, does not make it the right thing to do.

matt.
 
Matt, if you remember a few years back a certian local real estate person, who has been here along time and is well respected, went off the deep end and tossed a smoke grenade into the new county courthouse. Well, this development we speak of was part of the reason he did what he did. BUT, the man with the money won out.....as usual. The former that moved on, he had the inside track, lets say he was married to a person whos father besides having all the money in florida also was best friend with the then govenor of the state Mr. Lawton Chiles. Now I tell you this not as second hand info, I was there when they put up the first building, I worked as a subcontractor to them for many years until I could no longer stomach it. In the early days these men were somewhat full of themselves and they would talk to anyone that would listen to them. They enjoyed bragging about what they had and were planing to do. They place approx. 8 houses to the acre, back then they pulled down 1/4 mill. per for a 900 hundered sq. ft. vinyl sided one room bungelow to park the Prevost beside. I'm sure the numbers are much larger now.
 
Hey Ron, I apologize for high jacking your thread! :? Wasn't the intent but when you said something about snakes in the swamp....well this community that Matt and I speak of was the first place I thought of. I have never seen so many gathered in one area before. :lol:
 
Hey Mood,
I can't take credit for dredging up that info.
I just got it by reading the stuff compiled by S/A member Robert4570.

His webpage is jammed with excellent reading on a by-gone way of life in the Big Cypress for anyone who cares to do so.
http://hometown.aol.com/robert4570/myhomepage/index.html

One of the newest additions is some webshot gallery photo links.
4570's is a great collection.

Redbug47's is excellent.

Lot's to learn there.

I visit it often.
Enjoy if y'all desire.
 
All they have to do to sell state owned lands is declare them surplus property ... and then they offer them for sale to the adjacent landowners first ... of course at a fair market appraised value ... yeah right. but always pay attention to the adjacent land transactions next to a piece of state land .. i know a guy who bought a five acre tract so he could get first dibs on a 125 acres of waterfront property when it came up for sale. he also had made large numerous donations to a few campaign funds, naw couldn't be related to that nawww.

No good deed goes unpunished .. I blew the whistle or threatened too on this situation and another one that would really blow your minds and I was rewarded for my efforts .. I wont go into how because it still hurts at times and more good fortune could come my way and I can't afford anymore. Tread lightly when wading into one of these swamps is my advice but ya'll do what you want to.
 
Never telegraph your intentions. If your going after them let it take them totally by surprise after the fact.

Scotty
 
Cntry is absolutely right ...... they can't make you not pursue something, but they can damn sure make you wish you hadn't.

Like the old saying goes, "A word to the wise should be sufficient." These people don't play.

olf
 
Heh, they gamble on folks playing fair and nice and beng easy to scare.

Let me win the lottery. I love playing for keeps, just can't do it without the bucks. In the mean time they are off limits and out of reach for me.

Scotty
 
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