Posted on 11/29/2006 5:15:38 PM PST by Palladin
AP: Feds Collect Giant Rats in Florida By MARGARET EBRAHIM, Associated Press Writer 3 hours ago
As the rising sun danced across Florida's coastal waters, government workers in shorts and T-shirts knelt in a grassy island field and plucked wriggling rats from traps laid the night before. These weren't just any rats. They were 3-pound, 35-inch-long African behemoths. They squirmed as the workers, wearing protective gloves, removed green radio collars that had been tracking the rodents' movements. All 18 of the animals were carted away for research.
Darin Carroll kept a watchful eye on that dawn mission at Florida's Grassy Key Island. Carroll is no ordinary G-man. He's a disease hunter determined to stop the next outbreak.
Carroll works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and for three years he has painstakingly tracked the journey of Gambian rats from their African homeland, through the exotic pet trade, and to U.S. homes.
His quest is to prove what many scientists suspect: that African rodents imported as pets caused a monkeypox outbreak in the Midwest in 2003 that sickened dozens of adults and children with a virus related to smallpox. Scientists suspect Gambian rats may play a role.
Similar outbreaks have occurred in Africa.
While no one died from the U.S. outbreak, it sent warning alarms about the potential dangers of importing exotic pets captured in the wild.
Florida and U.S. officials are trying to raise enough money to kill off the Gambian rats that have proliferated on Grassy Key Island, just a few miles from the coast of one of the country's most populous states. The rats were imported to the island a few years ago.
"We tested about 10 to 20 rats a year ago," Carroll explained. "They were never exposed to monkeypox."
...more at link
Oh my eyes! My eyes!!!
susie
No. I thought the article was about Teddy being back in Palm Beach.
Right after he climbs out of an overloaded dumpster!
My post was intended to be as weird as yours was.
ALL animals are from other places. No one imports an animal for the purpose of releasing it unless they are building a wildlife preserve.
Your attitude about animals is based on a terribly nieve sentimentality and has no foundation in reality.
I am angry about the outrageous idea that animals should be prohibited from moving outside boundaries, that people should not touch anything wild, and that humans are the problem to every environmental problem, especially the problems that do no exist, like global warming.
There are lots worse things in the Everglades than South American snakes and nastier critters in the Keys than big rats.
I do not expect you to understand what I am talking about. You are, obviously, far too indoctrinated to get it.
Where do you draw the line? Snakes, monkeys, spiders, what about people?
Wild babies? Didn't we just recently have a perfect example of someone with more money than brains adopt a child because it was "wild?"
I happen to have an assortment of wild animals in my personal managerie. They are of tremendous interest to me and I care for them diligently. How dare you tell me that I should not pursue my interests.
Remember the great line in the All in the Family when someone referred to "the colored myth" and Lionel's response was could he help if it when it came to choosing myths the whites took Santa? A classic!
Thank your lucky stars. In the next Great Famine, Floridians will never run out of things to eat!
I remember African Rats in Greece. These creatures were larger than a house cat and not shy. The farmers would go out to their vinyards at night at dusk and shoot the ones tye saw with 12 GUAGE SHOTGUNS!
I would never have believed it had I not seen the size of these monsters with my own eyes.
It is not the cutsy little rats shown above. These things are NASTY.
You made alot of assumptions about me, what I know, what I think etc. I'll resist the urge to do the same about you. You certainly have the right to have the opinion that there are not ramifications to releasing non native species into an environment. It would be nice if you allowed other people the same courtesy.
susie
LOL I will be able to eat lizards! Well, I'm sure they are low in fat and high in protein! I'm not sure I'm fast enough to catch most of them tho!
susie
OK, which one is the rat??
susie
Must. Not. Post.
NO! Wid de pot o rice!
Courtesy is what got us into this mess. Most of us have been far too courteous about the outrageous amd malicious demands of the environmental movement. There are, in fact, virtually no instances of a so called non native species driving out a native species. Typically it is the other way around. There are a few exceptions such as cane toads, deliberately introduced in vast numbers by the Aussie government.
I spend agood gbit of time in the Everglades. I see some species that were introduced living side by side with older species. All species are introduced. The concept of native is not meaningful scientifically.
The fascist and utopian demand that the land and all its inhabitants except humans remain untouched and unchanged has brought about more turmoil in nature and in society than any possible introduction of species from another place.
I do not appreciate the glib, unintelligent and holier than thou mantra about the crime of moving animals accross political boundaries. If I am not being courteous, so be it. I am angry and you triggered my tirade.
I do not appreciate your attitude and I will not let it stand because it is wrong.
I guess you don't know much about fire ants and ground dwelling birds in E. TX.
Whatever.
Just stop assuming that anyone who disagrees with you is stupid. It reflects far more on you than it does on the person you rant against.
BTW I'm done with this discussion, so rant away. I won't be answering you.
susie
What about the Rat King?
.............and they can't jump as high, either ;-)
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