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What does "experimentally manipulating" mean? Some how in my mind that means they put rabbits in a precarious situation to get a desired result. When the rabbits were not placed in a controlled site there was a 0% rabbit deaths attributed to pythons. Something just doesn't add up.
Your getting the idea. Contradiction (lying) is everywhere in the study's involving the pythons. They set this study up so that it would give them the maximum desired result. A common game played in the world of scientist. This python business is a huge deal funding wise and they all want in on it. The trouble is no problem no funding so they have to create a problem because they cant prove there is one.
One of the chief fire starters of the Python funding machine is Bob "Narrowfellow" Reed a friend of Bryans. Bob Reeds partner Gordon Rodda prior to his helping to start the python scandal had this to say to his fellow biologist. In Gordon Roddas own words,
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Biodiversity is the bandwagon of the moment. Unfortunately, the concept is sufficiently complex that almost any population biology study, with almost any conclusion, can be framed as an effort to measure or conserve biodiversity. Based on what 1 have seen in the literature and heard at recent scientific meetings, here is a primer on some of the more popular ways to bend biodiversity data.
Suppose you wish to claim that a species is disappearing. With the explanation that time and funding were limited, you might present population trajectories based on as few as two estimates of abundance. Perhaps the final abundance estimate was obtained during a drought year. Use a technique for estimating abundance that has untested assumptions. Avoid stating confidence limits. Under these conditions a coin toss would suggest that about half of the species should show declines. If yours does, publish.
Gordon H. Rodda
From the abstract from the Dorcas 2012 paper on the severe mammal declines in the everglades.
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Before 2000, mammals were encountered frequently during nocturnal road surveys within ENP. In contrast, road surveys totaling 56,971 km from 2003–2011 documented a 99.3% decrease in the frequency of raccoon observations, decreases of 98.9% and 87.5% for opossum and bobcat observations, respectively, and failed to detect rabbits.
But The same group of researchers blames ....
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the failure of their trapping program,[ 6053 trap-nights resulted in three python captures] on the over abundance of prey and not enough snakes.
Snow et al. (2007) the diet of ENP pythons. Only two
out of 54 prey items (3.7%) recovered from a sample of 56
pythons examined during 2003–2006 were raccoons. Opossums
made up only 1.8% of the items. Rodents, all species (including
squirrels), comprised 38.9% of the dietary items recovered from
pythons in the sample.
Reed and Rodda (2009) state that one python was encountered
in the Everglades for every 1,318 man-days of searching.
The Dorcas 2012 paper on the severe mammal declines in the everglades also contained this ,
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The authors state: “However, our reliance on indirect estimates
of mammal abundance in ENP is the result of a nearly
complete absence of actual density or population size estimates based on rigorous and repeatable field methods.”
What this says in everyday terms is that they have no idea how many of the mammals were there, are there or are suppose to be there. They claim massive declines in mammal populations with out having any reliable data to go on. There was no science what so ever in this study.
They had no viable data on the population distribution, habitat preferences/requirements, densities, natural population cycles of mammals in ENP before and after Burmese pythons.
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99.3% decrease in the frequency of raccoon observations , decreases of 98.9% and 87.5% for opossum and bobcat observations
They made sure to place this statement in the abstract released to every major media outlet, its the only part of the paper the press will read. Carefully wording it knowing that the press would take it and run. They didn't say the mammals have decreased by those giant percentages, they just said they are seeing them that much less. Its intentionally deceiving. Its all about creating a desired perception without getting caught in an outright lie.
Ernie Eison
Statistics: Posted by WSTREPS — March 9th, 2016, 9:42 pm