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The folks in Eaton, Mich., love animals and they are taking steps to show even normal people can become extraordinary heroes.

Going above and beyond their normal daily lives, they are taking steps to ensure the wildlife affected by the oil spill gets cleaned up and a second chance. From the Lansing State Journal:

Then there's the woman known as the "Turtle Rehabber," Kay Frasher. Frasher, who works as a vet tech at the Holt Veterinarian Clinic, is licensed as an animal rehabilitator and specializes in turtles native to Michigan.

"Anytime we get turtles, they go to Kay," Sagaert said. Frasher says cleaning a turtle with Dawn liquid detergent, using cotton tipped swabs for the creases in its neck and legs, can take from 30 minutes to several hours, depending on how tarry it is. It's painstaking work that often involves a few bites, especially in the attempt to grab the turtle's head in order to clean its neck.

Frasher, though, isn't complaining. "I've really been amazed to see this come together in such a short time," she said of the large rescue site in Marshall. "I'm honored to have been called and to be here." There are countless examples of loving dedication every day at the rescue site.

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.

When kingsnake.com visited St. Augustine Alligator Farm, the last thing we expected was for the alligators to sing about our presence, but they did. Walking through their big pond area, we saw that the males were courting and establishing dominance. For the group of friends I was with, this was an amazing experience. My arms were covered in goosebumps from the noise. Walking above the animals, hearing the calls and feeling the bridge vibrate from those calls was one of the most beautiful things I have experienced.

Be sure to tell you rosebuds liked it here!

There are lots of great pet photos in our Photo Gallery... and throughout the year, we'll be featuring the best of the best. So come upload yours... it's free.

Are you really sure what you saw in that river? Some keen-eyed spotter was not quite as keen as he thought. The Crocodile of the English Channel? Nope, it was wood. From the BBC:

Coastguards in Dover and France say a large crocodile sighted in the English Channel was actually a piece of wood.

Officials have said that the wood probably did look like a crocodile from a distance.

Bathing in the sea in and around Boulogne-sur-Mer in France was suspended on Friday as a precaution while a search was conducted.

The claim of a crocodile sighting was made in a message which had been sent to a local newspaper, La Voix du Nord.

In July, I took kingsnake.com to Reptile Gardens in South Dakota. Terry Phillip, previous chat guest and curator, rolled out the red carpet for us, and now I can't wait to go again.

One of the more exciting things Terry did was start to get me hands-on venomous handling experience. We took video of me learning to work with the Timber Rattlesnake, as that is one of two Wisconsin native venomous snakes. Hope you enjoy -- and be kind. I am a newbie with hots.

Clean-up from the oil spill continues in Michigan, and even though news coverage has faded away, Fort Worth Zoo is still bringing in daily loads of animals which need care.

We have an upcoming interview with one of the rehabbers on the scene, but in the meantime, here's a quick follow up from FWDailynews.com:

The turtles need a lot of help. “Many of the turtles are covered in black, gooey oil residue,” says Smith. “It can take hours to clean a single turtle.”

After undergoing required training and donning protective Tyvek clothing, masks, and booties to avoid contact with the toxic oil residue, the zoo keepers begin the meticulous task of removing the thick layer of oil coating each turtle. Using gauze, swabs, and disposable towels, they gradually remove the tarry oil from every bit of a turtle’s body.

“It’s very tedious work,” says Smith. So far, about 370 turtles have been brought to the site for cleaning and rehabilitation. Nearly 150 turtles have been released into the Kalamazoo River upstream of the spill. Map turtles, painted turtles, softshell turtles and snapping turtles are among the species rescued.

Would you kiss a frog to heal Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)? Turns out that amphibian skin, primarily that of frogs, is leading the way in creating antibiotics that combat resistant germs.

From Science Daily:

In a report at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society on August 26, the team of stalwart frog-fanciers described enlisting colleagues worldwide to ship secretions from hundreds of promising frog skins to their laboratory in the United Arab Emirates. Using that amphibious treasure trove, they identified more than 100 antibiotic substances in the skins of different frog species from around the world. One even fights "Iraqibacter," the bacterium responsible for drug-resistant infections in wounded soldiers returning from Iraq.

[....]

One substance isolated from the skin secretions of the Foothill Yellow-legged Frog -- a species once common in California and Oregon but now facing extinction -- shows promise for killing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria. MRSA is a "superbug," infamous for causing deadly outbreaks of infection among hospitalized patients. Now it is occurring in settings outside hospitals, including schools, nursing homes, and day care centers.

The skin of the mink frog, likewise, contains secretions that show promise for fighting "Iraqibacter," caused by multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumanni.

Once you have kept reptiles long enough you will usually have at least one funny escape story and one sad escape story, but as reptile keepers cage security is an every day issue not to be taken lightly.

No matter how good a keeper you are, pet owner, hobbyist or professional, everyone can have a bad day. According to an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution the Atlanta Zoo is having one of those days.

Zoo spokeswoman Keisha N. Hines said workers are "aggressively looking" for an adult female tiger rattlesnake that escaped quarantine Friday. Zoo officials have been working around the clock to capture the venomous creature, she said.

From the island of Borneo, the world's smallest frog is discovered. The size of a pea, these frogs were previously thought to be juveniles of other species. Not so:

The mini frogs (Microhyla nepenthicola) were found on the edge of a road leading to the summit of the Gunung Serapi mountain, which lies within Kubah National Park. The new species was named after the plant on which it depends to live, the Nepenthes ampullaria, one of many species of pitcher plants in Borneo, which has a globular pitcher and grows in damp, shady forests. The frogs deposit their eggs on the sides of the pitcher, and tadpoles grow in the liquid accumulated inside the plant.

With amphibian populations around the world declining quickly and a third at risk of extinction, the unprecedented search could help scientists better understand the crisis.
“The rapid and profound change to the global environment that has taken place over the last fifty years or so – in particular climate change and habitat loss – has had a devastating impact on these incredible creatures,” Conservation International’s Robin Moore, who has organized the search for IUCN’s Amphibian Specialist Group, said in a press release August 8.
“We’ve arranged this search for ‘lost’ species that we believe may have managed to hang on so that we can get some definite answers – and hopefully learn about what has allowed some tiny populations of certain species to survive when the rest of their species has been lost,” Moore said.