INTERNACIONAL
Las pitones birmanas invasoras establecen un nuevo foco reproductivo en este estado de EE. UU., alertan expertos
El estado de Florida enfrenta la consolidación de un nuevo foco reproductivo de pitones birmanas en el suroeste, específicamente en el condado de Charlotte, según confirmaron autoridades ambientales en julio de 2026. Esta situación impacta a la biodiversidad local y obliga a revisar las estrategias de manejo de especies invasoras en la región.
De acuerdo con la Comisión de Conservación de Pesca y Vida Silvestre de Florida (FWC), la detección de esta población fuera del núcleo histórico de los Everglades representa un cambio en la dinámica de invasión de la especie. Expertos y portavoces del organismo estatal, citados por medios como Newsweek y USA Today, señalaron la importancia de este hallazgo para las políticas de conservación y control en el estado.
La expansión de la pitón birmana se monitorea en Florida desde hace más de dos décadas, con registros iniciales en el Parque Nacional Everglades. El reptil, originario del sudeste asiático, se estableció en la zona tras escapes accidentales o liberaciones intencionales, según la U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). El surgimiento de una colonia en el condado de Charlotte presenta nuevos desafíos para el control de especies invasoras en el estado.
La FWC confirmó la existencia de una población reproductiva de pitones birmanas en el oeste del condado de Charlotte, al norte de Naples y Fort Myers, según informes publicados en julio de 2026. El área afectada incluye zonas cercanas a Rotonda West, Placida, Englewood East y South Gulf Cove. Esta ubicación marca la primera vez que se documenta una colonia autosostenida fuera del rango tradicional del sur de Florida, que abarca desde el Parque Nacional Everglades hasta Lake Okeechobee y Key Largo.
De acuerdo con declaraciones recogidas por Newsweek, las autoridades atribuyen la expansión a la conectividad de marismas, canales y áreas naturales que favorecen la dispersión de la especie. Portavoces de la FWC indicaron que no existen pruebas sólidas de una migración natural hacia Charlotte, sino que la presencia de los ejemplares se asocia a escapes o liberaciones desde cautiverio.
La llegada de la pitón birmana a nuevas regiones de Florida genera preocupación entre biólogos y gestores ambientales por su impacto comprobado sobre la fauna local. Investigaciones del Conservancy of Southwest Florida y la Universidad de Florida han documentado la reducción drástica de mamíferos nativos, incluidos mapaches, zarigüeyas, linces y aves, tras la colonización de la especie.
En declaraciones recogidas por ABC News, Ian Bartoszek, biólogo y coordinador científico del Conservancy of Southwest Florida, explicó: “Este es un depredador tope generalista, por eso estamos tan interesados en retirarlos del ecosistema”. El avance de la pitón birmana puede simplificar los ecosistemas, favoreciendo la proliferación de roedores y otras especies invasoras, según la FWC.
La pitón birmana es reconocida por su capacidad para consumir presas de gran tamaño, incluyendo ciervos, caimanes, aves y pequeños mamíferos. De acuerdo con la USFWS, su dieta variada y su presencia en áreas protegidas han alterado el equilibrio ecológico, reduciendo poblaciones de especies endémicas y afectando la cadena trófica.
Un reporte de la FWC citado por USA Today señala que la presencia del reptil ha generado ecosistemas dominados por pocos grupos animales, lo que reduce la diversidad y la resiliencia ambiental. El ecólogo Robert McCleery, de la Universidad de Florida, afirmó en diálogo con ABC News: “Este es un patrón que no hemos logrado detener ni revertir a la escala necesaria”.
Entre 1975 y 2018, ingresaron aproximadamente 180.000 ejemplares de pitón birmana a Estados Unidos, según la USFWS, la mayoría destinadas al comercio de mascotas. La liberación accidental o intencional de estos animales permitió el establecimiento de la especie en estado silvestre. Desde el año 2000, se ha documentado una población autosostenida en el sur de Florida.
La FWC reconoce que la baja detectabilidad de la especie representa un desafío para estimar su población real. Se calcula que la tasa de éxito para hallar pitones en campo oscila entre el 1% y el 3%. En el Parque Nacional Everglades, el promedio de detección es de un ejemplar cada ocho horas de búsqueda. Esta dificultad complica la gestión y el control efectivo del reptil.
La FWC ha reforzado las tareas de monitoreo y captura de pitones birmanas en Charlotte y condados adyacentes como Lee County. Desde 2020, la agencia recibe más reportes ciudadanos sobre avistamientos en áreas residenciales y naturales, especialmente en los núcleos urbanos mencionados.
Cada año, el estado organiza el Florida Python Challenge, una competencia para incentivar la remoción de ejemplares de la naturaleza. Este evento, que involucra a cazadores autorizados y científicos, se considera clave para contener la expansión de la especie e intentar reducir su impacto sobre la fauna local, según Newsweek. La FWC también promueve campañas educativas y regula estrictamente la tenencia de especies exóticas.
La expansión territorial de la pitón birmana plantea riesgos ecológicos a largo plazo, ya que la especie puede desplazar a depredadores nativos y reducir la diversidad animal. Según la FWC, la presencia de la pitón altera las cadenas alimenticias y pone en peligro a especies amenazadas.
La experiencia en los Everglades muestra que, una vez asentada, la pitón provoca la disminución drástica de mamíferos medianos y grandes. Esto genera ecosistemas dominados por roedores y otras especies oportunistas, lo que puede favorecer la aparición de nuevas plagas y enfermedades, según la USFWS.
El control de la pitón birmana exige recursos considerables y la aplicación de diversas estrategias. La FWC y la USFWS destacan la dificultad de localizar y capturar ejemplares en grandes extensiones de marismas y bosques. Además, la rápida reproducción y capacidad de supervivencia del reptil complican las campañas de erradicación.
Las autoridades mantienen la prohibición de liberación o transporte de pitones birmanas y otras especies invasoras. También desarrollan nuevas tecnologías y métodos de detección, como el uso de perros rastreadores y sistemas de monitoreo por sensores. El objetivo es evitar la dispersión hacia nuevos territorios y proteger la biodiversidad local frente a los riesgos ecológicos.
La FWC recomienda a los residentes de Florida reportar cualquier avistamiento de pitones birmanas a las autoridades, evitar el contacto directo y no intentar capturarlas sin capacitación. Las campañas informativas insisten en la importancia de la participación ciudadana para el monitoreo y la detección temprana de la especie.
El impacto para el público se traduce en cambios en la gestión de áreas naturales, restricciones a la tenencia de reptiles exóticos y la necesidad de adoptar medidas preventivas en zonas afectadas. La presencia de la pitón birmana modifica el paisaje ecológico y obliga a las autoridades a mantener esfuerzos sostenidos de control, vigilancia y sensibilización.
El hallazgo de una colonia reproductiva en Charlotte abre una nueva etapa en la gestión de especies invasoras en Florida. Las autoridades estatales y federales mantienen la vigilancia activa, en colaboración con organizaciones científicas y la comunidad. Se prioriza la contención de la población y la protección de la biodiversidad local.
La expansión de la pitón birmana en nuevas áreas genera incertidumbre sobre la eficacia de las medidas de control y la resiliencia de los ecosistemas afectados. La evolución del fenómeno será objeto de seguimiento por parte de la FWC, la USFWS, medios especializados y la comunidad científica.
pitón birmana,Florida,humedal,manglar,especie invasora
INTERNACIONAL
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Harvard astronomer tapped to lead White House UFO council says US government ‘baffled by what they are seeing’
Astrophysicist Avi Loeb explains government secrecy on UAPs
Astrophysicist Avi Loeb, lead advisor to the new Trump-era UAP Governance Board, discusses why the government previously maintained secrecy regarding unidentified aerial phenomena. Loeb explains that some objects are unidentified and could pose national security risks from adversarial nations. He advocates for transparency, noting his council seeks to collect unclassified data to better understand these UAPs and potentially make groundbreaking discoveries.
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Avi Loeb, the Harvard astronomer who was chosen last month by the White House to lead a UFO advisory council, believes he was brought on because federal officials are «baffled» by the many unidentified objects the U.S. military has captured over the past several decades.
Loeb, known for arguing that alien spacecraft may have already reached Earth, said his newly-formed team of more than a dozen scientists is combing through four batches of public UFO sighting disclosures released by the Trump administration in recent months.
His mission began in early June when an official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) visited his home and asked him to form a group of experts to make sense of UFOs — now referred to by the U.S. government as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). This is an umbrella term that accounts for objects seen zipping underwater and in space.
«The U.S. government had me at hello,» Loeb told Fox News Digital in an interview on Saturday. «The fact that they are reaching out to scientists like myself indicates, in my mind, that they are baffled by what they are seeing, and they think that maybe it’s not human-made.»
NASA CHIEF CONFIRMS AGENCY HAS UNEXPLAINED UFO IMAGERY: ‘WE DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS’
Avi Loeb speaks during the SALT conference in Manhattan, New York City, on September 14, 2022. (David ‘Dee’ Delgado)
Loeb’s council will report its findings to the UAP Governing Board, a recently-established body under the direction of ODNI.
According to the council’s website, Loeb and his colleagues will only be reviewing already-declassified materials on UAPs.
However, Loeb told Fox News Digital that he has asked the Pentagon and other agencies for 50 videos, images and other documents related to known UAP incidents. Those materials haven’t been given to him yet, with the custodian agencies citing national security concerns.
«It’s not so much the targets that are the issue. It’s that the sensors that were used were for national security purposes. The U.S. government doesn’t want to reveal to adversarial nations the kind of sensors being used. So that’s the main obstacle right now,» Loeb said.
A satellite image shows a UFO spaceship at night amid an FBI investigation and alien evidence near Area 51, capturing a flying saucer and galaxy survey of a mysterious object in the sky. (Getty Images Creatives)
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON DARES GOVERNMENT TO ‘JUST SHOW THE ALIEN,’ AS DISCLOSURE FERVOR CONTINUES TO GROW
Loeb’s goal is to figure out whether UAPs that have been captured by the U.S. military originate from other nations or if they don’t come from humans at all.
«In the second case, if it’s not human-made, then that’s the biggest discovery ever made by science, and the U.S. government has the privilege of ushering in this new realization that we have a neighbor visiting us,» Loeb said.
Loeb sought to temper expectations, saying that many of the phenomena they are studying could turn out to be mundane. Often, he said, the strange-looking objects people see in the sky are merely space junk or broken satellites.
«Unless they maneuver in ways that cannot be explained by gravity, you should assume that they are space junk,» Loeb said.
In 2014 and 2015, pilots with the U.S. Navy reported multiple UFO sightings during training maneuvers.
DECLASSIFIED APOLLO MISSION UFO FILES CHALLENGE LONG-RUNNING MOON LANDING CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Nonetheless, he praised the White House for its push for transparency on this issue. In February, President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon and other agencies to declassify files related to aliens and UAPs because of «tremendous interest.»
One of the most important aims of Loeb’s council is to recommend better sensors so that the government can capture UAPs with more confidence in the future.
«If we are dealing with drones of some unusual qualities that the Chinese are using, it’s good for the U.S. to have better sensors that can help it identify those. Right now, they are reported as orbs. They may not be drones, but I’m saying that at the very least, we will help national security,» Loeb said.
Loeb’s remarks come after the Department of War on Friday released the fourth and latest batch of UAP materials to the public. Loeb commented on one of the most sensational releases from the first batch, which were photos from the Apollo 12 mission on the Moon in 1969.
One of the photos have five «unidentified phenomena,» but Loeb said federal authorities have now officially concluded that those blue flashes are most likely cosmic rays.
A picture of unidentified phenomena on the moon during the 1969 Apollo 12 mission. (NASA)
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Until 2020, Loeb headed up Harvard University’s astronomy department, where he studied black holes, the formation of the universe’s first stars and extraterrestrial life.
In 2017, when scientists discovered a remnant of a Pluto-like world in the Solar System, Loeb disputed those findings, arguing that the object was possibly a light sail from an alien civilization.
After this claim earned him widespread respect in the UFO community, Loeb founded the Galileo Project at Harvard to search for artifacts from extraterrestrial civilizations.
politics, air and space, national security, ufos, science
INTERNACIONAL
WATCH: Early Graham Platner critic unloads on ‘unapologetic’ Senate candidate in scathing rebuke
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As Democrats scrambled to abandon embattled candidate Graham Platner, after a rape allegation against him torpedoed his insurgent campaign, one progressive lawmaker said it «was a very easy call» to never back him in the first place.
Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., had no endorsement to rescind, having been among a small handful of Democrats who publicly warned against Platner amid growing controversies, even as much of the party continued embracing him.
«I’m relieved. I’m sure Mainers are relieved. He disqualified himself,» Dean told Fox News Digital in an interview after Platner announced his intent to drop out of Maine’s Senate race. He later officially dropped out Friday evening.
«Suspending his campaign, he took no accounting for himself,» Dean said, referring to Platner’s 11-minute exit video, in which he fiercely denied the allegations and blamed the Democratic establishment for forcing him from the race.
Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., speaks at a press conference on Feb. 24, 2025. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu)
EXPLOSIVE SEXUAL ASSAULT ALLEGATION ROCKS PLATNER CAMPAIGN AHEAD OF KEY DEADLINE IN CRUCIAL SENATE RACE
«That’s not the kind of person we want as a senator,» she continued. «I don’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat.»
Dean’s comments echoed a viral CNN interview in early June, when she described the rapidly accumulating controversies surrounding Platner as «distressing» and argued he had already «disqualified himself.»
Her warning came a month before a 41-year-old Maine resident, Jenny Racicot, went public with allegations that Platner, while intoxicated, forced her to have non-consensual sex in 2021. Platner has repeatedly denied her accusation, which was first reported by Politico.
At the time Dean spoke out publicly, Platner was the overwhelming favorite for the Democratic nomination. Few Democrats had publicly broken with him despite a growing list of scandals, including a Nazi-linked tattoo, offensive Reddit posts, infidelity and allegations of misconduct in prior relationships, including an account of physical abuse from Lyndsey Fifield, who dated Platner between 2013 and 2015.
Even Democrats who broke with Platner, including Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., drew fierce backlash from supporters who argued they were jeopardizing the party’s effort to unseat incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
«I said in my mind he had disqualified himself in at least two ways. One was the choice to have a Nazi emblem tattooed to his body. And the other was, of course, the credible allegations of his abuse of women,» Dean told Fox News Digital. «So, to me, it was a very easy call. I wasn’t trying to weigh in. I was asked by a CNN reporter and I just said he has disqualified himself. Not a tough call.»
Graham Platner’s Senate bid imploded earlier this week after an ex-girlfriend accused him of rape. (CJ Gunther/Getty Images)
SANDERS UNDER FIRE FOR PROPPING UP PLATNER AS DEMS TORCH HIS TOXIC ENDORSEMENT ‘PATTERN’
Still, many Democrats continued to defend Platner despite the mounting controversies.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a Platner supporter, said the allegations from ex-girlfriends «seem like a lot of nothing» in an interview with NOTUS, while suggesting that Fifield’s background in Republican politics gave her account a partisan taint.
Other loyal Platner supporters, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., argued that voters should focus on policy issues rather than personal scandal, while appearing to dismiss alleged misconduct.
«I think it’s important for us to focus on the issues facing working families a little bit more than Graham Platner’s marriage,» Sanders told reporters in June in remarks obtained by NBC.
Asked whether she thought Democrats waited too long to denounce Platner, Dean largely declined to weigh in.
«I don’t have a judgment on that,» she told Fox News Digital. «They had to do it in their own way. I did it in my way.»
«Simply…because I was asked,» the Pennsylvania Democrat continued. «I just called it as I saw it. It was not a tough call. The timeline for anybody else, I have no judgment.»
Collins, who is seeking a sixth Senate term, is widely viewed as the GOP’s most vulnerable incumbent, making Maine one of Democrats’ best pickup opportunities — a political calculus Dean said did not justify backing Platner.
«I didn’t want to fall into the trap of contorting myself in order to support a candidate who had succeeded in a primary,» Dean told Fox News Digital. «Democrats are better than that. We have values that we live by.»
«When we get it wrong, we need to simply say that,» she continued.
Some Democrats have admitted fault in the days after the Platner campaign’s implosion.
«I got the Platner call wrong, obviously,» Khanna, one of Platner’s top allies, told Politico’s Playbook, adding the candidate’s unraveling «doesn’t negate the progressive movement.»
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks at a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for judicial nominees in the Senate Dirksen building on July 30, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc.)
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Platner is expected to officially file paperwork withdrawing from the race on Monday — the last day he can do so to allow Democrats to replace him on the ballot. Now, Democrats are working furiously to create a selection process to choose Platner’s replacement.
Whoever Democrats nominate will face an immediate barrage of GOP spending. Collins’ allies have already pledged $8 million in negative advertising against the new nominee.
Fox News Digital reached out to Platner for comment.
politics, graham platner, democrats elections, midterm elections, democratic party
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