Category Archives: herps

USFWS: No More Snakes on Planes

Posted on by
1

“The US Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized a rule that would ban the importation and interstate transportation of four nonnative constrictor snake species,” a press release from the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced today. The four snake species are: the Burmese python, the yellow anaconda, and the northern and southern African pythons.

The four species of snakes are listed as “injurious species” under the Lacey Act.

The press release notes: “The Burmese python has established breeding populations in South Florida, including the Everglades, that have caused significant damage to wildlife and that continue to pose a great risk to many native species, including threatened and endangered species. Burmese pythons on North Key Largo have killed and eaten highly endangered Key Largo wood rats, and other pythons preyed on endangered wood storks.”

Burmese pythons eat alligators. ‘Nuff said?

Florida’s congressional representatives have wanted the ban for years, says an article from the McClatchy news syndicate. A powerful pet snake lobby has stood in the way, the article says. Who would have thought that a story about nonnative snakes would require “following the money”?

Read the entire article — which includes a lovely graphic — here.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service release says that the ban of five more big, nonnative snake species is on the horizon. Read the entire press release here.

The service also gets in on “following the money.” Its handout on the cost of large constrictor snakes is here.

Photo: A Burmese python and an American alligator duke it out in the Everglades. Photo by Lori Oberhofer, courtesy National Park Service

More Info on Solar Power Impacts Needed

Posted on by
Reply

If you have felt lost while trying to evaluate the impact of a solar power project on wildlife, you are not alone. A literature review published in the December issue of BioScience says there is just not enough information out there.

The article focuses on the desert Southwest, but has broader implications. It goes through potential impacts by category, including habitat fragmentation, dust and noise.

You can find the entire article here.

You can read the editor’s note that summarizes the paper and findings here.

And, since the authors are U.S. Geological Survey scientists, you can read the USGS press release, which also summarizes the findings, here.

Photo: A desert tortoise. Photo by: Jeffrey E. Lovich, courtesy USGS

More Info on Solar Power Impacts Needed

Posted on by
Reply

If you have felt lost while trying to evaluate the impact of a solar power project on wildlife, you are not alone. A literature review published in the December issue of BioScience says there is just not enough information out there.

The article focuses on the desert Southwest, but has broader implications. It goes through potential impacts by category, including habitat fragmentation, dust and noise.

You can find the entire article here.

You can read the editor’s note that summarizes the paper and findings here.

And, since the authors are U.S. Geological Survey scientists, you can read the USGS press release, which also summarizes the findings, here.

Photo: A desert tortoise. Photo by: Jeffrey E. Lovich, courtesy USGS

Calif. County to Ban Bullfrogs

Posted on by
Reply

Bullfrogs are invasive outside of their native habitat in the northeastern U.S. They are also bred for food in China, and, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times, the conditions of commercial food production are ripe for the growth and spread of chytrid fungus, which has been plaguing amphibians worldwide.

What can a state do? California is being asked to ban the import of bullfrogs, which is a tough sell because of the state’s high percentage of Asian-Americans, for whom eating frogs (as well as turtles and shark fins) is as culturally significant as steak-and-kidney pie, kielbasa and manicotti are to other ethnic groups.

Nationally, Defenders of Wildlife has proposed that only frogs proven to be disease-free be allowed in the country. But more locally, one California county, Santa Cruz, plans to take the big leap and ban bullfrogs to protect its imperiled amphibians, which include the California tiger salamander and the California red-legged frog.

Read all the ins and outs of this complex topic in the Los Angeles Times.

Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, this will be the last State Wildlife Research News post this week. We’ll be back on Monday, Nov. 28th with more wildlife research news.

Road Salt and Vernal Pools

Posted on by
Reply

There have been plenty of studies on the effects of road salt on wetlands, and particularly on the amphibians that live in those wetlands. (Here’s a bibliography with seven pages of peer-reviewed papers on the subject, plus over a page of other information sources.)

But because so much of that work was done by Nancy Karraker when she was at State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, James Petranka of the University of North Carolina – Asheville wanted to know how road salt effected amphibians in the southeastern United States — the site of enormous salamander diversity, says an article in the Charlotte Observer.

What he found was that road salt’s impact on the invertibrates in a vernal pool is crucial to the development of the amphibians there, and possibly, to public health. That’s because the salamander larvae eat water fleas, copepods and other invertebrates that don’t fare well in salty water. What’s more, mosquitoes didn’t seem to have any problem with the salty water, and one of the mosquito species that volunteered in the salty test pools carries West Nile Virus.

Read the excellent article in the Charlotte Observer.

A paper on Petranka’s research was published in the journal Aquatic Ecology in 2010. Read the abstract here. (Fee or subscription required for the full article.)

The Adirondack road salt journal article that the newspaper article refers to is most likely this comprehensive 2008 paper on the impact of road salt on wood frogs and spotted salamanders in New York. (Because this article is cited in Petranka’s 2010 paper.)

But Karraker also published a compelling 2011 paper showing how road salt shrivels the egg masses of spotted salamanders that does not appear in her 2007 bibliography.

Photo: Spotted salamander by Tom Tyning, courtesy of the US Department of Transportation

Georgia Surveys Hellbenders

Posted on by
Reply

North Georgia has one of the healthiest eastern hellbender populations in North America. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division began a long-term survey and monitoring project of the large salamanders this year.

Using nets, sometimes snorkeling, the research team surveyed stream segments in four watersheds this season, ending last month. The hellbenders found were weighed, measured, swabbed amphibian diseases, sampled for DNA and tagged with  Passive Integrated Transponders (PIT).

The purpose of the study is to establish baseline data for the species in the state.

Like the Ozark hellbender, which was listed as federally endangered last month, the eastern hellbender has experienced sharp population declines. It is state-listed as threatened in Georgia and has already disappeared from eight streams where it was once found in the state.

The eastern hellbender is found in 12 states ranging from southern New York to northern Mississippi, with a western population in Missouri.

Get all the details in the Georgia Department of Natural Resources press release, here.

Also read about previous eastern hellbender research in New York State, here.

Photo courtesy of Pennsylvania Boat & Fish Commission

Dead Lamprey Juice May Be The Answer

Posted on by
Reply

Sea lampreys are the source of much angst among wildlife biologists. Are they native to this body of water? How long have they been here and where did they come from? In many locations, including the Great Lakes, sea lampreys are a huge problem that must be dealt with.

Lampricide, in theory at least, kills larval lamprey but doesn’t harm other stream residents. However some other species are sensitive, and there are always those native, non-trouble-making lamprey to worry about. Dams — temporary and permanent — across breeding streams have been tried, too.

The latest weapon in the war against invasive sea lamprey may be the odor of the decaying lampreys themselves.

Research at Michigan State University showed that the “stink” was easily extracted from rotting lampreys in the lab. Lampreys in tanks and swimming in raceways avoided areas that were treated with the dead lamprey extract.

The dead lamprey juice’s most likely use will be to deter lamprey from certain sensitive breeding streams. Or, it may be used to concentrate lamprey into a few streams so that lampricide applications can be more effective.

Field tests will be conducted this summer.

Read the open-access paper in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, here.

Read the Michigan State press release here.

Read an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel here. 

Photo by Kurt Stepnitz, courtesy of Michigan State University

Nevada Pulls Up PVC Stakes to Save Birds

Posted on by
Reply

PVC pipes are cheap, light and visible from a distance. They are used all over the country as stakes to mark everything from foundation contours to mining claims. In Nevada, it’s the mining claim stakes that are the problem.

Ground nesting and cavity nesting birds are flying into the pipes, thinking they are nesting sites. But the birds don’t get out, because the pipes’ smooth interior doesn’t give them anything to grab on to. The Red Rock Audubon Society says that thousands of birds have died in Nevada in these PVC pipes. They say that bees and lizards are also trapped and die in the pipes.

It’s been illegal to mark a mining claim with an uncapped PVC pipe in Nevada since 1993, but the law has been ineffective. A new state law, SB 108, took effect last week. It allows citizens to remove upright, uncapped PVC pipes on inactive mining claims or place the stake on the ground nearby if the claim is active.

Read about the hazards of PVC pipe markers from the Red Rock Audubon Society. News of the bill’s passing is here.

Read an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal about the new law.

Here’s the text of the law as it was actually enacted.  You can see the whole history of the bill, including the wording when it was introduced, here.

The law requires that the pipes, whether metal or PVC, be capped or crimped at the top. Comments on the Review-Journal article point out that filling the pipes with dirt would also protect birds, bees and lizards from the pipes too. Claim holders had three years to cap or crimp their pipes before the clause that allows citizens to pull them up took effect.

Photo: plerophoria67 on Flickr

Nevada Pulls Up PVC Stakes to Save Birds

Posted on by
Reply

PVC pipes are cheap, light and visible from a distance. They are used all over the country as stakes to mark everything from foundation contours to mining claims. In Nevada, it’s the mining claim stakes that are the problem.

Ground nesting and cavity nesting birds are flying into the pipes, thinking they are nesting sites. But the birds don’t get out, because the pipes’ smooth interior doesn’t give them anything to grab on to. The Red Rock Audubon Society says that thousands of birds have died in Nevada in these PVC pipes. They say that bees and lizards are also trapped and die in the pipes.

It’s been illegal to mark a mining claim with an uncapped PVC pipe in Nevada since 1993, but the law has been ineffective. A new state law, SB 108, took effect last week. It allows citizens to remove upright, uncapped PVC pipes on inactive mining claims or place the stake on the ground nearby if the claim is active.

Read about the hazards of PVC pipe markers from the Red Rock Audubon Society. News of the bill’s passing is here.

Read an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal about the new law.

Here’s the text of the law as it was actually enacted.  You can see the whole history of the bill, including the wording when it was introduced, here.

The law requires that the pipes, whether metal or PVC, be capped or crimped at the top. Comments on the Review-Journal article point out that filling the pipes with dirt would also protect birds, bees and lizards from the pipes too. Claim holders had three years to cap or crimp their pipes before the clause that allows citizens to pull them up took effect.

Photo: plerophoria67 on Flickr

Artificial Nest Sites for Wood Turtles

Posted on by
Reply

Scientists built an artificial nesting mound for wood turtles in the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey when development and invasive plants made the original site less viable. A paper in the journal Northeastern Naturalist describes the successful transfer of nesting turtles from one site to the other. The mound has produced 142 nestling wood turtles in four years.

But more important than describing the success, the paper gives an idea what was required to produce it. The artificial mound was just 100 meters from the old mound. Nest-bound females were fetched from the old site and hand-carried to the new site. While one turtle returned to the artificial mound for the next three years, several others were brought back from the old site in another year.

Read the whole article, subscription or fee required.

Photo: cliff1066(TM) via Flickr