{"id":457047,"date":"2026-07-22T03:12:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=457047"},"modified":"2026-07-22T03:12:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:12:57","slug":"florida-wildlife-raises-more-doubts-about-climate-fearmongering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=457047","title":{"rendered":"Florida wildlife raises more doubts about climate fearmongering"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Paul Driessen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cScientific studies,\u201d activist fundraising pitches,<\/a> and \u201cnews\u201d stories about apocalyptic threats<\/a> to Earth\u2019s wildlife are as ubiquitous as trees in the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overexploitation and habitat alteration had been the gravest causes of the existential crisis facing Earth\u2019s wild animal species. But now, they assert, \u201cintensifying climate change\u201d has become a third major factor. (See here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alarmists even claim climate change affects bird migration<\/a> and reproduction by disrupting their biological rhythms and schedules. They never mention that wind turbines slaughter thousands of migratory birds, ensuring that they never reach their destination and never reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another cause, rarely mentioned, is invasive species \u2013 such as brown tree snakes accidentally brought to Guam<\/a> during WWII. With no natural predators to keep them in check, they wiped out ten of the island\u2019s twelve native bird species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an endless cycle. Garbage science and theories in = garbage pseudo-scientific fearmongering out = garbage policies imposed = reduced habitats, wildlife, energy, jobs, living standards, heating, air conditioning, and lives<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One has to wonder: What would happen if funding dried up for all this nonsense of insert \u201cclimate change\u201d and out comes research funding<\/em>? Might we get more honest, replicable science \u2013 and less garbage? Almost certainly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for now, let\u2019s focus on an apex predator invasive species case with a happier and truly thought-provoking outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irresponsible \u201cexotic pet\u201d traders brought Burmese pythons to Florida in the 1970s. Irresponsible \u201cpet\u201d owners \u201cintroduced\u201d them into the state\u2019s hospitable wetlands environment not long after, when they discovered how \u201cchallenging\u201d it was to care for critters that grew from 20 inches at birth to six feet or more two years later \u2013 and might happily consume dogs, cats,<\/a> and even children<\/a>. True apex predators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest python ever recorded in Florida was 19 feet long; the heaviest, 215 pounds. Goats, pigs, deer, and anything smaller are all at risk. The gigantic snakes have even eaten alligators<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With females laying 12-100 eggs each year, the invasive \u201cnuisance\u201d quickly became a crisis across the Big Cypress Swamp, Everglades National Park, and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bobcat, deer<\/a>, opossum, racoon, rabbit, and fox populations plummeted by 87-99 percent<\/a>. Birds provided handy snacks. Localized extinction loomed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crisis became a call to arms \u2013 and hunters responded<\/a>. Today, people can legally hunt pythons year-round<\/a> on private land and in 25 Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission areas without a permit or hunting license.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State-sponsored Python Challenges award prizes to successful participants. The Conservation Commission\u2019s Python Action Team offers full-time jobs and pays bonuses based on snake size. Professional python hunter Donna Kalil has caught more than 740, including a 16-footer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their combined efforts put a dent in python numbers and reproduction. But big snake babies were always many slithers ahead of human predation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, Mother Nature is fighting back. Florida\u2019s wildlife themselves may be having a much bigger impact than humans. In effect, prey has become predator. Paws, mouths, and beaks of former and current victims have turned the tables and learned that pythons can be tasty targets of opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The long-term denizens will not go gentle into that dark night or meekly surrender their territories and lives to these foreign invaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A YouTube video<\/a>, \u201cThe Burmese python is disappearing in Florida at an incredible rate,\u201d recaps findings by wildlife researcher Dr. Elena Mars and tells the tale of this fascinating turn of events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alligators<\/strong> are the obvious first choice for role reversal. They\u2019ve been around some eight million years and aren\u2019t easy prey. One python\u2019s stomach exploded<\/a> after it swallowed a six-foot gator. Now, instead of waiting in deep water for random pythons to swim by, alligators ambush them during dry seasons as the snakes come by looking for water. At least one dramatic encounter was caught on cellphone video<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in this prey-turned-predator saga, mammals, birds, and other reptiles are also seeking vengeance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida<\/strong> panthers<\/strong> may be endangered, but they too are stalking the giant slithering reptiles. After pinning a python to the ground with its claws, a cat\u2019s powerful jaws chomp down on the snake\u2019s back, severing the spinal cord, immobilizing the prey, and permitting multiple leisurely meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coyotes<\/strong> are proving that even smaller mammals can dine on pythons. Relying on their quickness and the python\u2019s biological blind spots (python video<\/a> at 18:05) during various points in snake digestive and life cycles, coyotes bite down just behind a snake\u2019s head, severing its spinal cord. The Wile E. Coyote<\/a> then feasts on the brain matter, leaving the body for other wildlife to devour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

River otters<\/strong> have turned their hunting-pack tactics for large fish into a perfect technique for killing juvenile pythons, which don\u2019t swim as well as adults. A few bites neutralize a snake, turning it into a meal for the entire pack. Otters also smell out python nests while mama is off sunbathing to warm her reptilian blood \u2013 and feast on her clutch of eggs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Racoons<\/strong> have adopted the same egg-eating strategy. Although pythons nearly wiped out these masked mammals, those that survived did so because they were probably the most alert and had the best sense of smell \u2013 survival of the fittest. Resurgent coon populations track down python nests, wait for mama to leave, then chow down on her eggs until they sense her returning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eastern indigo snakes<\/strong> also track down python breeding areas and devour babies and juveniles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vultures<\/strong> still eat python and other carrion but are also smelling out python nests and eating eggs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The innovators\u2019 offspring and neighbors learn by imitation and increase the predation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans<\/strong> too have become craftier and more efficient in exterminating pythons. Wildlife specialists install GPS tracking chips and transmitters in captured males, release them \u2013 then follow them to breeding areas, where they eradicate dozens or even hundreds of adults before they can procreate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, this informal alliance of new predators has slashed the survival rate of young pythons to perhaps 15% and falling. The unwanted alien reptiles may have become permanent residents of Florida\u2019s wetlands. But they will not be the existential threat they once were, and the region\u2019s locally endangered species should gradually rebound \u2013 better able to survive than before, hopefully despite new dangers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nature and climate alarmists thrive on farfetched tales, faulty data, wild theories, and GIGO models about greedy people and corporations laying waste to Planet Earth and sending it into a climate death spiral. They show little concern for people whose living standards they throttle back \u2013 or who are never permitted to achieve<\/a> modern living standards and life spans in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor do these self-laudatory, self-serving alarmists show any concern for the habitats and wildlife sacrificed in the name of their fanciful quest for \u201cclean, renewable, sustainable\u201d energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If wildlife can adapt and turn the tables on pythons, they can certainly adapt to slight temperature fluctuations. What they may be less able to overcome are habitat losses and rampant devastation inflicted by wind, solar, battery, and transmission line installations \u2026 and mining the planet<\/a> to build them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cScientific studies,\u201d activist fundraising pitches, and \u201cnews\u201d stories about apocalyptic threats to Earth\u2019s wildlife are as ubiquitous as trees in the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n

Overexploitation and habitat alteration had been the gravest causes of the existential crisis facing Earth\u2019s wild animal species. But now, they assert, \u201cintensifying climate change\u201d has become a third major factor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":457049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"\"Scientific studies,\" activist fundraising pitches, and \"news\" stories about apocalyptic threats to Earth's wildlife are as ubiquitous as trees in the Pacific Northwest.\n\nOverexploitation and habitat alteration had been the gravest causes of the existential crisis facing Earth's wild animal species. But now, they assert, \"intensifying climate change\" has become a third major factor.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691844184,691844186,691818721,691818056,691844189,691844188,691844185,691844187,691844190],"class_list":["post-457047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apocalyptic-threats","tag-exotic-pet-traders","tag-climate-alarmists","tag-climate-change","tag-conservation-commissions-python-action-team","tag-florida-fish-and-wildlife-conservation-commission","tag-garbage-pseudo-scientific-fearmongering","tag-largest-python","tag-wildlife-researcher-dr-elena-mars","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1UTJ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":252333,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=252333","url_meta":{"origin":457047,"position":0},"title":"Another Climate Study Finds \u2018Apocalyptic\u2019 Messaging Causes Disengagement","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"04\/11\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Breitbart reports that \u201c[a] simulation based on apocalyptic images designed to highlight \u201cthe disastrous effects of climate change\u201d had the opposite impact on those who viewed it and failed to shift attitudes, a study from Singapore Management University details.\u201d","rel":"","context":"In \"apocalyptic messaging\"","block_context":{"text":"apocalyptic messaging","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=apocalyptic-messaging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/0apocalipsis_0.webp?fit=1140%2C855&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/0apocalipsis_0.webp?fit=1140%2C855&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/0apocalipsis_0.webp?fit=1140%2C855&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/0apocalipsis_0.webp?fit=1140%2C855&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/0apocalipsis_0.webp?fit=1140%2C855&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":285762,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=285762","url_meta":{"origin":457047,"position":1},"title":"BBC defended by Countryfile star: \u2018Highlighting need for climate action is being impartial!\u2019","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"10\/30\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The BBC's nature shows have come under fire in recent years for their climate change reports\u00a0BBC Botanist Wong told GB News: \"We are in a climate emergency. 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