lots and LOTS of misinformation in both the article and the comments……the guy talking about nile monitors preying on “humans and water buffalo” is talking out of his ass………nile monitors pose little to no threat to children and even less to adults….if you respect the reptile’s personal space you wont be harmed. if your stupid and try to catch/corner the animal, theres a good chance you will be bitten and infected by its bacteria rich saliva…….if your a responsible pet owner and dont let your dogs/cats roam all over the neighborhood/ walk without a leash, then there should be no problems with them ending up as prey items……..monitor lizards tend to flee from humans at all opportunities and there is a very good chance that these big lizards are here to stay, so everyone should be doing their best to adjust to that reality…..same with the pythons…….tons of misinformation……there are as of yet NO peer reviewed studies showing that the pythons are actually having a negative effect on native species in the everglades, only conjecture from certain environmentalists and scientists so this ignorant statement that the snakes are “eating everything in sight” (thats “sight” nick, not “site” if your going to be giving out spelling lessons) is as of now, baseless and unhelpful. as for the pythons only being a “florida problem” thats not entirely accurate either………burmese/indian pythons, if left unchecked, could very well colonize southern georgia (the okeefenokee swamp would be prime habitat) a large portion of south carolina and maybe even southeastern north carolina….to the west they could very well thrive in coastal alabama, missisippi, louisiana and all of east texas right down to the rio grande and beyond….so the snakes potentially would be by no means restricted to peninsular florida.

This bill would put tens of thousands of businesses under. Its not just breeders and pet stores that would feel the consequences. Feeder suppliers, cage manufacturers, agricultural, shipping businesses, and more, would suffer. In an economy where the unemployment rate is out of control, do we really need to destroy tens of thousands of businesses and put more people out of work across the country for a problem that will always be limited to one small area of the US? No reasonable person could think so.

The truth is that this bill is backed by misguided, misinformed, fraudulent organizations, like the Humane Society of the United States and PETA, who seek to end the keeping of pet reptiles, altogether.

There are better solutions than Nelson’s s373 and related bills seeking to ban pythons (and boas) altogether. This bill is far over-reaching and based on ignorance and fear.

The death of the child in July was the fault of irresponsible pet owners. The number of accidents from pythons and humans are miniscule, especially when compared to deaths by domestic dogs and horses. Anyone who uses accidents related to pythons as an excuse should look up the statistics on deaths by these to commonly kept animals. It would be like citing deaths by irresponsible dog owners and seeking to ban dogs. Its ridiculous.

Write your Senators urging them to oppose s373 “The Python Ban”. Its bad for the economy, bad for our freedoms, bad for America.

If Florida chooses to ban them, that is their choice, and they do not need a federal law to do it. All snakes are illegal in Hawaii, that did not require federal action.

Passing a federal law (or even a Florida) will not reverse the problem, however. They are there and while they do impact the ecology, their impact is far less than the impact of the Domestic House Cat, but no one seems to want to put a ban on those!

It is ludicrous to pass a federal law stating that I can not move from California to Oregon and take my python with me when it is legal in both states just because an existing problem that can not be undone exists in Florida.

Passing such a law, btw, is likely to result in an increase in released pets. If python owners in Florida can not take their snake with them when they move because it violates federal law, guess what some of them will do? Yup, dump it in the glades.