Conservation News

From Science Daily:

Decimated by illegal hunting for both food and the pet trade along with habitat loss, many turtle species will go extinct in the next decade unless drastic conservation measures are taken, according to the report, which was released at a regional workshop hosted by Wildlife Reserves Singapore and WCS. Seventeen of the 25 species are found in Asia, three are from South America, three from Africa, one from Australia, and one from Central America and Mexico

....

"Turtles are being unsustainably hunted throughout Asia," said co-author Brian D. Horne of the Wildlife Conservation Society. "Every tortoise and turtle species in Asia is being impacted in some manner by the international trade in turtles and turtle products. In just one market in Dhaka, Bangladesh we saw close to 100,000 turtles being butchered for consumption during a religious holiday, and we know of at least three other such markets within the city."
Liz Bennett, Vice President of WCS Species Program, said: "Turtles are wonderfully adapted to defend themselves against predators by hiding in their shells, but this defense mechanism doesn't work against organized, large-scale human hunting efforts. The fact is that turtles are being vacuumed up from every nook and cranny in Asia and beyond."

At the top of my "must-see" list during this trip to California: Visiting Jeff Lemm and seeing his conservation work with the San Diego Zoo and the Beckman Center for Conservation Research.

Conservation programs run by the Chicago Herpetological Society are what got me involved with the reptile community back in the day, and conservation efforts continue to be where my passions lie.

Uber-herper Jeff Lemm is one of the research coordinators in the Applied Animal Ecology department, and he's long been one of my heroes for his work with Rock Iguanas. He met me, along with my husband, Brian, and my sister-in-law, Cheri, at the Beckman Center for Conservation Research and proudly showed off his Mountain Yellow Legged frogs project, including their goals for re-introduction and on-site breeding project. The current status of these frogs is quite dismal, but it's amazing to watch a species grasp the chance to return to the wild.

Jeff then took us to his newly designed iguana facility. The attention to detail, from the heating and cooling to the humidity sources, was amazing. Juvie Blue Iguanas greeted us in the grow-up cages, and Jeff shared where they would eventually be heading to live out their lives. We also discussed the processes he went through to learn exactly what was needed to breed the more rarer , how they started with the Cuban Rocks, which are stable in captivity.

In what can only be described as a horrendous tragedy, the American Crocodile Education Sanctuary in Belize was burned to the ground this weekend. Today, croc fans worldwide wait to see the future not only for ACES but also for Cherie and Vince Rose, who dedicated their lives to helping rehabilitate the American Crocodile.

From CNN.com:

Bit by bit, their hope turned into reality. They built a two-story octagonal-shaped house that rested on stilts and reached 30 feet into the air. They constructed two smaller cottages for researchers and students to stay in. They dug out two acres of canals for the crocodiles. They acquired two boats.

They called the place the American Crocodile Education Sanctuary.

Most of it vanished Sunday morning, when a throng of angry villagers from a settlement about 10 miles (16 km) away torched the buildings on their property. The villagers had been told by a local psychic that the Americans had fed the two missing children to the 17 crocodiles at the sanctuary, police say.

The Roses were rescuing three crocodiles on a distant island at the time, so were not home to ward off the attack -- or possibly suffer a gruesome fate.

The birth of rare crocodilians is a pretty exciting event, and St. Augustine Alligator Farm is having some nice rare events. TEarlier this week they had a Slender Snout Crocodile hatching, and then today they hatched the first of their Siamese Crocs. Great to see conservation in action at one of my favorite places to visit.

Now for TEH CUTES. The photo to the right is the baby hatchling Siamese Croc -- thanks to Kevin Torregrosa. The photo below is the baby Slender Snouted Croc. So very cute that they made Zooborns.

Several efforts are being launched to create refuges for the Eastern Indigo, one of the largest snakes in the United States.

First up, a congressman who gets it. For those keeping track for voting purposes, this is Congressman Jack Kingston of Savannah, GA. From the Island Packet:

The bespectacled Republican couldn't help but crack a joke about his search for the harmless indigo, one of the largest snakes in North America.

"They're so much more pleasant than the crowd in Washington," he told the TV station.
Kingston, rated by some as the most conservative member of Congress, looks like a typical guy with a wife, four children, two dogs and two cats. But what about those snakes?
"It's golf for one guy, fly fishing for somebody else, it's snakes for me," he told WMAZ.

Antonio said the Lake site provides an ideal arena for study and breeding the reptiles, allowing researchers to construct individual open-air enclosures that mirror the eastern indigo snake's natural habitat. He said the enclosures will keep the snakes in and black bear, foxes and other animals out.

"It's a species that needs to come back," said Commissioner Jennifer Hill, who studied the group's website, met with the property owners and read about the black reptile, a predator of rattlesnakes. "It's a very good snake."

The eastern indigo snake preys on frogs, lizards and small mammals but prefers to eat other snakes.

The World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has listed the Florida Everglades as an endangered -- and it has nothing to do with pythons. From the AP:

Degradation of the Everglades has caused its addition to the list this year, with UNESCO reporting that water inflows have reduced up to 60 percent and high pollution levels are currently killing marine life.

The Everglades is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, with more than 1.5 million acres of estuaries, prairies, and shady stretches of pine. This is the second time the Everglades has been included on the list, the first time was between 1993 and 1997 because of damages caused by Hurricane Andrew.

A huge step for conservation efforts world wide was announced Friday. Thanks due to extensive conservation work, the species are stable on the Galapagos Islands.

The U.N. World Heritage committee at a meeting in the Brazilian capital announced that it was removing the Galapagos Islands from a list of World Heritage sites considered endangered by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The committee hailed efforts by the Ecuadorian government to curb overfishing and combat threats from invasive species as contributing to the delisting, UNESCO announced.

Specifically, the committee said, Ecuadorian efforts to prevent foreign plant and animal species from reaching the islands by using specially trained dogs lead to ecological sustainability.