[Selfdfenz]

AOL is running a story about Nile Monitor Lizards. Seems Florida is becoming home to yet another unwanted foreign species that can only be a negative for native fauna.

I did a bit more checking and these creatures, in addition to being able to run and swim well, are good at climbing trees. And they can get to be 5-7 feet long (depending on the reference).

Seems they are being encountered in ever increasing numbers.

Hope the Florida Wildlife officials are trying to come up with an approach to ko these creatures before they set up house keeping all over the southern US.
S-

[mete]

I understand that they are doing the Gov't thing - they are studying the problem !!

[TallPine]

Back in the old days they had these things called "bounties"

Seems to have done a pretty good job of wiping out wolves in most states.

Of course, that is way too simple and way too cheap - the "study" alone probably costs more than 10 years worth of bounties paid.

[4v50 Gary]

First thing is to get some "designer" to make purses, belts & shoes out of them. That creates a demand. Second thing is to put out a bounty and they'll be extinct in this part of the world.

[gun-fucious]

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=97693

Man found dead, mauled by pet lizards


quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the door to the man’s efficiency apartment was forced open, the victim was found lying by the door with a few of his pet lizards on top of him, police said.

http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2002/01/images/16pmlizard.jpg

[Rebeldon]

We dont' need those things here! Next thing you know, they'll be littering the highways as roadkill.

They will be bad for the local bird population. The smaller lizards like to eat eggs. But they might help keep the rodent population down. Do they eat snakes?

[Beaker]

Studies aren't always to be sneezed at. Bounties are responsible for the disappearance of the gray wolf, but thanks to bounties, there are now at least twice as many coyotes with double the range as there were before European contact. Coyotes are density-dependent breeders; normally, an adult alpha pair in a given area prevents the younger 'yotes from breeding. Kill them, and the rest go into a population explosion. Plus it's been damn good for their species that all their competition (bears, wolves, and cougars) seems to have up and disappeared from many areas. Speaking for myself, I'm damn glad that my state has eliminated a "predator control program" that wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and had neither any impact on the coyote population nor helped the mule deer herds recover. Research stops the waste of my tax dollars on bull???? like that and prevents idiot policies that backfire on the wildlife we want.

Floridian birds have long since adapted to dealing with climbing reptiles (snakes) and will probably be fine. (As for their diet, they eat everything they can successfully swallow.) However, in Africa Nile monitors are one of the biggest predators of crocodile nests- I'd be much more worried about the 'gators than any other species. There's not necessarily any cause for alarm, though; just because an introduced animal can survive well in a new wild habitat doesn't mean it can breed well there. Nile monitors currently seem to be somewhat in vogue on the exotic pet market, but they've got remarkably nasty dispositions and almost any non-professional will find out as soon as they reach adulthood that they're dangerous "pets". The bulk of the animals showing up now could be released captives; no way to know without a little research.

Introduced species are a constant problem for Florida, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't relish the mental image of Nile monitors lunging out of trees at retirees.