Like a thorn in the herp community’s toe, the effort to add nine species to the Lacey Act just won't go away.

The January 8 New York Times features kingsnake.com member Jeremy Stone. The article itself was fair and well rounded, giving all sides the chance to speak:

But it is the first time the government has tried to list animals so widely held as pets. Roughly one million Americans are believed to own snakes of the types listed by the Interior Department, according to the United States Association of Reptile Keepers, and 31,000 were imported in 2008, the most recent year for which the government has data. Trade in these species is big business: more than $100 million annually. Those with rare colors can fetch upward of $75,000.

The move to ban the snakes has set off a swell of anger among aggrieved snake owners and breeders, who have the most to lose financially, as well as a smattering of academic herpetologists, zookeepers and representatives of international conservation groups. When the regulations came up for public review, they flooded the government with objections.
At the heart of their arguments is a critique of the emerging science of invasive species risk assessment. And their response has highlighted the challenges that the government faces as it increasingly moves to protect native flora and fauna not just from current invasive species but also from future threats.

Next up was a New York Times article on the Lacey Act;

Though it is more than a century old, the Lacey Act is neither a well-known nor a well-liked statute. It was passed in 1900 mainly to preserve the native species and plants from overfishing and excessive hunting, but it has since been amended to address imports of non-native species that are either endangered in their own countries or would prove invasive here.

To some critics, the Lacey Act is hopelessly reactive. Others fault it because it has failed to prevent a spectacular number of exotic plants and animals from entering the United States, including the large and hungry Asian carp, which poses a threat to the Great Lakes ecosystem.

Closing out the article was Kristina Serbesoff-King from the Nature Conservency, who basically said these animals should be looked at as guilty until proven innocent. There were also comments from Lyle Vos, who apparently is a Democratic candidate for the Presidency; while I don't think he's anyone we'll be hearing about much, he is very anti-snake (among other things of note found in a quick google search). It's always good when they show us their hand in advance.

Finally, the New York Times followed up today with an article from the perspective of United States Geological Survey scientists Gordon Rodda and Robert Reed, who started this process with their much-disputed risk assessment report:

But the scientists also defend their climate models. They emphasize that the models are not meant to factor in every variable that would affect the ability of the species to thrive, like the availability of prey and human development of the land. In other words, a climate model is not a prediction that the animal will spread to those areas, but an outline of the limits of the areas where they can survive the cold and dryness.

They also argue that scientists who did the alternative climate model incorporated too many variables, far more than standard practice would dictate was necessary, in assessing risk — and that this led them to underestimate the area through which the snake species might spread.

While some pythons have died in winters to the north of the Everglades, Dr. Rodda and Dr. Reddy say, their fate does not necessarily reflect the survival capacity of the species as a whole. Pythons learn adaptive behaviors early in their life cycle, they note, whereas the ones taken from the Everglades had matured without exposure to the cold and therefore might not have known how to protect themselves.

While we may dispute things in each article, this is probably the most encompassing reporting on these issues.

As always, we'll keep watching for further developments.