Invasive watersnakes introduced to California may pose risk to native species

Watersnakes, commonly seen in the lakes, rivers and streams of the eastern United States, are invading California waterways and may pose a threat to native and endangered species in the state, according to a study. Nearly half of California's amphibians are considered Species of Special Concern or are listed under the state or federal Endangered Species Act, and more than 80 percent of the state's inland fishes are of conservation concern.



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I don't see how it could be from people releasing pet snakes considering waters are not that common as pets. Maybe a few, but even then it looks like most of the babies produced by them would be eaten by predators. Why is there so many being found? I can see with the burms in Florida cause they have always been very popular as pets, reptile parks and zoos have been destroyed by storms and some were realeased that way, and their babies are huge, and they have plenty of food and places to hide, but this is water snakes. I know Nerodia has lots of live babies, but I bet only like 3 or 4 out of a hundred would make it to adulthood. I knew this was going on, but didn't realize they had so many. Do you realize how many water snakes are killed each year by cars and by people that thought they were copperheads or cottonmouths? My guess is this has been going on longer then we all knew, but I don't know how they got there. I don't think the majority came from pet snakes though. Just my opinion.

Not a big surprise, where ever there are shipping ports, new animals always have the possibility of being introduced. It's one of the effects that we have on this planet. Just like bees transporting pollen from one plant to the next. We transport animals and floral.

It's funny how when they bring up an animal being introduced into an environment that is the reason why that particular ecosystem is gong to collapse. But what they don't mention is how that ecosystem got so fragile in the 1st place. Mostly human and our normal everyday destructive behaviors. Cars, trash and land manipulation.