2003 HerPET-POURRI Columns by Ellin Beltz

January 2003

Greetings from Australia!

We left Ferndale, California on the 14th, a day earlier than planned because the Eel River was rising so fast from the first winter rains that the main road into town was flooding. Ken drove our rental car through about 15 inches of water, slowly so the battery didn't get wet and our trip stopped before it began. Driving south on 101, the rain was falling so fast that we saw salamanders swimming across the road and I was waiting for the salmon to leap up on their way to spawn! Finally we arrived in a town north of Marin and decided to spend the night. The next day, in glorious sunlight, we got to San Francisco, turned in the rental car and got on a plane to Los Angeles. From LAX, we flew eleven hours to Sydney, Australia - arriving on December 17. Remember you lose a day crossing the international date line and get it back when you return. Everybody clears customs at this point; a jumbo jet of smelly, tired people arrived at the customs stations at local 6:00 a.m. to be met by very friendly Australians. I was surprised by their good nature having cleared U.S. customs and dealt with the high falutin' attitude of our uncivil servants on more than one occasion. From Sydney we flew to Perth and were met at the airport by Geoff Russell Kinetic Coordinator for the Mt. Lawley Rotary Club, and a wonderful friend of our friend.

We got our rental car, but were extremely grateful to Geoff for riding in front of us to the local photography store so we could buy film unfogged by international x-rays. We then had a coffee with Geoff and he put us on the road south from Perth, waived goodbye and went back to work. It's very strange to drive on the left side of the road, especially after umpteen hours in midair, practically no sleep and the sun to the north. Fortunately for us, once you get out of Perth itself, the traffic thins to practically nothing and so he could learn how to shift a five speed with his left hand, push the turn signals with his right hand and try not to flip the windshield wipers every time he signaled for a turn. When I first started driving (later in the trip), I flipped on the wipers instead of the blinkers several times. Ken very seriously told me, "By the time today is over, you're going to want to rip the wiper lever right off the column!" And he was right.

Four hours later, we arrived at Wrong Road on the Leeuwin Estates. At the very end of the road is a tiny caravan (trailer to us Yanks) occupied by our friend and California neighbor, Hobart Brown. He was very glad to see us and we were very glad to see him, but mostly what we wanted to see was any flat surface on which we could go to sleep after three body days of traveling.

Since it is summer in Australia, the sun woke us up very early, so all three of us went into Margaret River for breakfast and a trip to the tourism bureau to pick up maps and brochures about stuff to do in the far south-west corner of Western Australia. You know you're not in the U.S. when you see kangaroos hopping along in the fields along with the cows and sheep. We found we could check our email for 20 Australian cents per minute ($0.125 US) on a superfast line and so discovered that Ferndale had been totally isolated from the outside world when the Eel River flooded. Fortunately, the town is high enough that few houses would have been affected, but folks in the river bottoms were probably hanging their furniture off hooks in the ceilings (permanently installed) and taking their cattle to higher ground.

We weren't accustomed to the heat and it was Hobart's day off, so we sat around in his caravan watching DVD movies in the outback. It was odd watching 007 oozing and shmoozing in Baku on the Caspian Sea and looking past the "telly" to see roos and joeys hopping along. We took a short walk later when it was cooler. We saw more kangaroos, a heron, green ringneck parrots, some magpies and fascinating fences full of spiders. We didn't see any kookaburra, an odd relative of the kingfisher that had woken us up from our jet lag with its hyena-like laughter in the middle of the first night. The sunset was beautiful reds and pinks, with clouds overhead that scudded in from the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica. Hobart went to bed early and since our bodies thought it was the middle of the afternoon, we stayed up a little longer, listening to the frogs calling from the cows' tank and watching the unfamiliar southern stars.

Curiously here, both the moon and the sun are to the north of the observer, rather than to the south as they are north of the equator. The moon's "face" also is standing on its head and you can't see the milky way except far to the north where it looks like light interference from a small town with blue street lights. The southern cross is beautiful and quite recognizable as it is on the Australian flag and many logos that we've seen before. It is a strange feeling to see the zodiacal constellations upside down. Here my dyslexia is an advantage, since it doesn't matter to me which direction anything is facing anyway.

The next day, we went with Hobart to Leeuwin Estates Winery where he is artist in residence. The winery is one of Australia's most prominent and well known vinters. In addition to the art of wine, Leeuwin buys paintings that they then use for their labels, provides Hobart with a workspace on their veranda and sponsors concerts with big-name musical artists like Julio Iglesias and k.d. lang. Hobart pointed out a large black skink sunning himself on the brick pavement. We tried to sneak up on it to take a photo, but lizards down here are on something's menu and they are all as fast as racerunners. Later that day we saw a squished gecko in the car park. It was the same color as the black bitumen of the paving, but we didn't take a picture because it was rather gross.

Ken's photographic mission down here (besides landforms and critters) is to attempt to document Hobart's southern sculptures. Hobart welds steel, brass and bronze. His northern work tends to be either abstracts or recognizable things like planes, trains and whimsey. However, his southern work is mostly people - stealing chickens, hanging chandeliers, gazing through windows and piloting improbable transportation devices like hot air balloons and unicycles with wings.

Hobart is also the Glorious Founder of the Kinetic Sculpture Race [KSR], an event which has been running every year since 1969 in Ferndale and around the nation and the world ever since. The Mt. Lawley Rotary Club sponsors the Australian KSR in Perth every year. Their proceeds financially benefit the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children and gives participants and spectators a wonderful experience. As they say, "It's all for the glory."

Ken photographed the pieces in Leeuwin's gallery that first day. Fortunately he finished all of them because the next day was really hot and he was overcome by the heat and fainted on the veranda. He hit his head on the way down and was totally knocked out, but came to in less than a minute, but was bleeding profusely and was dizzy and said he felt sick. So Leeuwin called an ambulance and we began our adventure with the Australian socialized medical system. First of all the ambulance arrived just about as soon as it was called and there were two EMT's, a driver and a trainee. They fitted Ken with a neck collar and put him on the trolley and loaded him into the van. One of the groundskeepers at Leeuwin had kindly brought our rental car around. I learned how to drive Ozzie by following the big green and white box with flashing lights.

The next big surprise was the hospital. No one asked our name or anything other than medical questions for at least the first hour. The ambulance service is all volunteer and since we aren't citizens here, apologized for having to present us with a bill for their services. The bill was about equal to a four person ride to O'Hare in rush hour. The doctor was a slender young woman in trendy bell bottoms and clunky heels who checked Ken all over while also pulling some kind of spines out of a bloke who'd wiped out surfing at Redgate Beach. No attitude and no worries, mate - but they didn't have a computerized tomography machine and they wanted to be sure that he didn't have any lasting damage from the bump on his head, so they stitched him up, called the ambulance and shipped him 90 kilometers (55.8 miles) to Bunbury. We drove right back up the road we had just come down two days before, but now I was following someone who knew the road, so I didn't worry about the street signs, just about Ken with his bloody bandage and uneven pupils. One CD later, we were there. They rolled Ken into the hospital and took him straight into emergency. No paperwork, no waiting, no nonsense. After another lovely young female doctor had examined him, they apologized for the inconvenience and asked me to step into an office to fill out the paperwork for the billing. No one there had seen our kind of insurance card, but no worries, they called the U.S. insurance company (it was 8:00 a.m. in Connecticut) and cleared all the charges with the nurse/operator. They did x-rays and electrocardiograms and a CT of his head. The doctor, a local reporter (we are, after all quite exotic in Western Australia) and the CT operator and I sung a chorus of "I'm Looking Through You" while we watched the computer slice and dice Ken's brain.

They finally let him go at ten p.m. after tea and sandwiches a full 12 hours after he fell and we had the late night joy of phoning every hotel in Bunbury. Only one answered the phone and offered us a room with a single bed and breakfast for $88.00. I accepted and asked if it would be possible to get a pillow and a sheet so I could sleep on the floor. By the time we got lost and then found the hotel, they had chased someone else out of a room with a double bed and put us in it for the same price as the single. This was our first introduction to true Ozzie hospitality. They cooked us a full breakfast the next morning and wished us well. Then we drove back. But as I was driving we took the scenic, through the last remaining Tuart Forest, stopped at the Point Naturaliste lighthouse and Yallingup Beach which has fantastic granite boulders both at the shore and out in the surf. At Sugarloaf Rock, we saw a very large and very flat blue-tongued skink on the road. It was also too gross to photograph.

We drove down Caves Road to Leeuwin instead of taking the Bussell Highway where they drive 110 kilometers per hour (68 mph). Some Australians have a real problem with road rage, tailgating and flashing hand signals more appropriate to the inner city than to one of the most beautiful and unstressful places on Earth.

We went to Redgate Beach the next day. Ken took photos of the rocks in the surf, I built a sand castle and played with the sand crabs. We stopped for a sign that said "Raptor Rehabilitation" and saw fourteen species of Australian birds including eagles, kites, owls, cockatoos and galahs. My personal favorite was the Tawney Frogmouth. We saw a wild peregrine falcon hanging around the cage with the injured peregrines, I wondered if it was a mate, a child or just a friend visiting. We've seen most of these birds loose since then and I was really glad to have learned what they were from the injured captives. That night we fell asleep listening to at least two kinds of frogs calling from the cattle tank. I would really like to see some frogs here, but water is rare in the outback in the dry season and so they only call from the midst of fields defended by large bovine bulls or possessive sheep. It's certainly not a good idea to go bushwhacking in the dark with bulls.

Christmas Eve we drove back to Perth to spend the next few days with Hobart's Kinetic Sculpture Race cohorts. On the way, I pulled through an alley to turn around and came face to face with a huge, three foot long racehorse goanna. I stopped on a dime and shouted "lizard!" Ken was out of the car in a flash, but the racehorse deserves his name and had disappeared. So we didn't get a photograph of him, either.

As everything closes down for the 25th and 26th, everybody said we would be much better off in Perth than in the middle of nowhere for the holidays. Unfortunately, Perth was over 100 degrees F the whole time we were there, so our experience of it was the inside of a shopping mall (gloriously cooled), and people's houses. Surprisingly, only one of the four houses we visited had air conditioning. Ken kept busy sweating over his camera taking pictures of Hobart's sculptures and I helped our hostess wrap presents for her family and tried not to drip on the ribbons. It just didn't seem like Christmas at 100 degrees!

They took us to see Romeo and Juliette in King's Park Botanical Garden. Shakespeare in Australian accents was interesting. The swordplay was stupendous and the actors superbly cast for their roles. The kookaburras sang from the trees and ducks dabbed about on the grass cadging handouts from the audience which dined alfresco and watched 2:40 hours of play with nary a trip to the bathroom, cell phone call or baby crying. This would be a good place to point out that Australian children are astonishingly well behaved. They do not pester for constant attention and I've yet to hear one whine or say "I'm bored," even if they are in a totally adult situation like the play. I'm not sure what is different about the parenting, but the results are superb and Americans could learn a lot about peace and quiet by learning Ozzie parenting skills.

Boxing Day was another party and then a trip to a subdivision south of Perth to meet Geoff and Maureen's daughter and son-in-law on their 10-acre starter home. Their neighbor has a WWI Tiger Moth biplane and he did loop-the-loops and stall loops and hammer loops over head while we watched. It was like a private airshow when one of his friends showed up in a more modern small plane and did rolls and spins, finally buzzed the airstrip and flew off towards Perth. The horses, dogs and puppies were unimpressed and the bright pink galah parrots happily ate seeds from the feeders while we sat on their veranda and talked.

We left Geoff and Maureen's the next morning stuffed with food and good times. We drove through Rockingham (sort of a newer Gary, Indiana) and to the lovely town of Madurah on the Indian Ocean. Don't miss Madurah if you ever get out to Western Australia [WA]. It seems a typical tourist town, until you realize that the boats are going out to watch whales and that the shoreline is bordered by a sculpture garden of works by local artists. We have met no other foreign tourists anywhere in WA, so tourism is geared to locals, mostly people from Perth down for a weekend.

The next day we went to the studio of a one-armed glassblower. He not only manages to make beautiful glassware but creates passionate works of art in a medium so fragile and light that you are almost afraid to touch it. I lined up the pieces I wanted to get and Ken said, "They'll never survive the shipping" at which point the woman who worked there tossed one down on the tile floor. It bounced several times and came to rest against the door brick. She said, "These will not break before you get home because they are cured for days from fire hot to room temperature." And she was right, there wasn't even a chip in it! When the glassblower found out that I am Hobart's welding apprentice, he invited me back to his studio to work on some hot glass and also sent some lovely things to Hobart. We found one of Hobart's pieces he'd completely forgotten about at the glassblowers and photographed it.

Then we went to Calgardup Cave, a solution cavity in the local limestone. Unlike the U.S., the national parks rented us helmets and torches (flashlights) and sent us down into a cave on a set of steps that would make OSHA blanche with horror and personal injury lawyers rub their hands with glee. In places, the ceiling is so low that you bend over double and scrape under the stalactites to get to the end of the cavern where we found a ring of benches and we sat down in the glorious coolness (about 50 degrees F) and turned out the torches and talked. I think we scared the bejezums out of the next group of tourists who didn't see us or hear us until they were about 10 feet away. They wanted to know if our torches had burned out; apparently sitting around in the utter blackness was not to their taste, although they tried it for about 30 seconds. We learned a lot about local natural history from the wonderful park workers when we checked in our helmets and lights and even found (for the first time) some books on local natural history. All this at a place that doesn't even show on the tourist maps because it is not a for profit entity.

Driving back to the caravan, Ken spotted a snake on the road. Although it was a very flat and fly infested four foot long tiger snake, we stopped and took pictures. Finally an Australian herp that would sit still for pictures! I turned to get back into the car and saw a skull in the roadside brush. I picked up the skull, three jawbones and some vertebrae of a small kangaroo! At that point, I realized I wasn't in California anymore.

Today we stood in both the Indian and Southern Oceans when we went to the Cape Leeuwin point at the very southwesternmost point of this glorious continent. We were hunting for stromatolites when I came across a lizard convention. There were about a dozen lizards all sunning themselves on rocks. They looked like "cnemies" from our southern deserts. Of course, all of them disappeared before I could get my camera out or call Ken back to see them. I hope to see more herps both here and when we fly over to Brisbane for 10 days in about 10 days. I'll tell you all about it in February.

Please do not stop sending clippings! I'm going to need them when I get home and have to kick out a column in full jetlag! Send whole pages of newspaper with your name and publication/date firmly attached to each piece to me.

February 2003

Where we left off last month, Ken and I had seen no live herps in Western Australia. When I typed my column in Hobart's caravan I wished I had a better species list to share. "Be careful what you ask - for you might just get it," my grandmother used to say and the rest of the trip sure was like that.

The very day I sent my column electronically to Chicago, we saw a Carpet Python slithering rapidly across a blacktop trail in a dune shrub habitat restoration area. Everybody usually drives around it and parks at either end. There were lots of small lizards at this and every other beach in Western Australia. Probably to eat the millions of flies and small bugs at the beaches.

Even on this day of cloudy skies, high winds and waves with dozens of surfers in wet suits waiting at the Margaret River Mouth for that perfect curl, snakes and lizards were about. The sheer heat of the land keeps them active and they don't seem to need as much sun heat as they do up north. Perhaps higher temperatures in dinosaur times would have permitted this type of activity in cold-blooded creatures, too. Every animal we saw on the rest of the trip moved faster than the animals we are accustomed to in the U.S. I wondered if it was being on the menu for 40,000 years making all the critters speedy or just the heat.

The next morning after we saw a small Dugite snake sunning itself on some builders blocks and then we headed away from Margaret River towards the town of Nannup, photographing another flat snake. We were pleasantly surprised to find this CALM office (Land Management Agency of Western Australia) open and full of information and an outgoing and knowledgeable officer. We checked into a motel later in Pemberton and watched New Years fireworks both on the television from Sydney and out the door over the town.

Then we drove through the Karri forest. Karris are giant eucalyptus trees with different color bark in strips (sometimes spirals) that are said to be the third tallest species of tree on earth. As there are specimens of both of the taller ones in our neighbor's yard here in Ferndale, we found the Karris big, but not amazingly tall. What I found fascinating was in the recently burned areas, the Karris dropped their stringy bark and leaf ash in little cones around their bases. You could just imagine the fire running up the tree and the ash falling directly down.

The center of Australia's giant trees area is the town of Walpole. I liked Walpole. The people there were really trying to be helpful and outgoing. They also had great cottage industries and good food. We bought our tickets to the Tree-Top Walk and drove there still not really knowing what to expect.

The Tree Top Walk was amazing. It deserves its press in that they have very carefully built a boardwalk through some very ancient trees and a hanging walkway through another grove of the very tallest. The walkway is suspended from pillars, so the footprint on the forest is very small. The suspended walkway goes about 20 stories up in the air and swings a little. The tread of the walkway is welded metal screen so you can see down as well as over the top and out both sides. We saw more tourists from other places at the TTW than we ever did again in Australia. And more minicams, digicams, flashicams and posi-please-picture in various languages than I have seen in a long time.

For most people I think the walk was more an endurance thing, especially for those afraid of heights. They even had "I survived the TTW" tee shirts and certificates in the gift shop. But for the more eco-inclined, and willing to stand aside and let the tourists fly past, it was a view into the tops of the trees in a fascinating grove on the edge of a giant valley.

We then drove through the town of Denmark and to the seaside town of Albany. We found a darling Best Western motel which had the standard Australian room furniture of one or two beds, several small tables, a dresser, an iron and ironing board, a hot-water kettle, a mini refrigerator (stocked with milk for your tea of course) and a passthrough door for breakfast. We never used the last, but you could see other people having their breakfast plates delivered at precisely the time they were ordered. Some parts of Australia are so British and other parts are so not. Albany is almost trying to be part of the US. They have a Kmart and a Target and several one-hour photos. But get me out of town, always into the bush! We drove too two rock features nearby.

This coast of Australia is where the split occurred between this continent and Antarctica. What got left on the Australian side are high rock walls. In these huge walls of granite, gneiss and quartz veining. Being granitic, it breaks in large blocks which then weather down with rounded edges. So we had seen lots of "elephant rocks" and one cliff at Point Leeuwin which almost looked like columnar granite, but wasn't quite so regular.

What we saw now was truly amazing. The Gap is a natural joint in the rock that is about 30 stories high. You walk across bare rock to get to a concrete platform with a waist-high railing. Each wave, 30 stories down crashes into the rock wall and a fine plume of water and spray gets sent high up the crack, straight towards the viewing platform and the approach walkway. There is the usual understated sign about your survival being up to you after a long list of ways you could hurt yourself here. Of course we saw people trying all the things on the list.

After the Gap, we went to the Natural Bridge which is just enormous. You could park four or five 18-wheel trucks end to end on the unsupported span of fractured gneiss which overhangs an airspace in which you could put one or two of those same trucks standing on end. Under the Bridge is a washed rock platform. We were there at low tide, so we could see the rocks, if we'd been later, all that would have been below it would have been crashing surf. A little further along are some blowholes. This is really reassuring for a geologist. You are standing on some sort of a formation which has a direct connection to the sea. Every once in a while, a big wave will send spray up 20 or 30 stories. Sometimes rocks pop out, but they mostly looked like fractured pieces of the formation, so I suspect they are little bits which have fallen off the walls of the blowholes and are not being sent up from the ocean below. It was cold and windy, but the surf wasn't cooperating. We heard some noises and rumblings and went back toward town.

On the road we found an amazing walkthrough bird aviary. For a minimal entry fee, they gave us flowers of one of the local plants and sent us through double screened doors to commingle with cockatoos, parrots, galahs, cockatiels, budgies, zebra finches, and a bunch of other birds I hesitate to even guess what they were. Colors included the whole spectrum from delicate blues through vibrant reds on the King Parrot.

The next day we left Albany by way of the back roads. I drove some single track and some gravel and we hit some towns that were far off the beaten track and not even in the Lonely Planet guide we'd hauled all the way from home. We saw some "truck trains" and ranches and some more granitic mountains in the distance. We stopped at a salt lake - perhaps one of those we'd seen on the airplane coming in. Due to cutting down the forest, the landscape lost a large amount of evapotranspiration. The result has been the raising of the water table and the freeing of salt ions held for eons in the soils. Where all this salty water runs off, these huge salt lakes form. Now they're planting huge forests on the lakes in an effort to reverse this trend.

Just like in the U.S., the huge forests were all cut down in the early days of Euro-cultural habitation, which in this part of Earth is only about 1805 and onward. All the wood was shipped back to Europe in ships that brought people (mostly English "convicts") on the other leg. The wood was used to make wooden paving, curbing and sidewalks. The Australian who told me this was convinced that their wood was still in place. After two world wars, I'd be surprised if any wooden blocking survives, but I hadn't the heart to tell her.

Driving along for hours in this fascinating landscape, listening to Midnight Oil, we noticed we hadn't seen anything of the Aboriginal people but one monument to an aboriginal who helped the white people settle Albany. There were no Aboriginal parks or villages of even the most touristy type. None of their fabulous art was in the stores except the occasional "authentic" boomerang (made in China). The landscape needs burning to stay in good shape and it was fully habitated when the whites arrived. So where were the original people? We hadn't seen any slums, but we hadn't seen any but one family group in Perth either.

Our rental car just rolled along amidst endless fields and vineyards. Houses, barns, windmills, fences flashed by with hedgerows of grass tree, bright yellow Christmas tree wattle and gray eucalypts with those Glossopteris-like leaves waving as we flew by. We got back to Margaret River got some great fish and chips, headed back to Hobart's caravan and got ready to go back to Perth the next morning.

We stopped near the town of Mandurah to see some of the oldest life forms on Earth: thrombolites. Created by a similar process to stromatolites, these pillows of colonial bacteria live from the high tide zone all the way to the offshore zone in Lake Clifton which is a long narrow lake bounded by sand dunes and having a calcareous input from water percolating through the shell-rich sands. The water was lapping back and forth over these ancient things, known only from the Bahamas and this one strip of Australia's western coast. Their ancestors made our air and only these few were able to survive in it. Our friend Hobart said they even made him feel young and we went off to town.

We got Hobart too the airport the next morning, then drove with Geoff and Maureen to the Pinaroo Cemetery to photograph kangaroos which just sort of hang around like Canadian geese at the tollway pond. Then we went to Freemantle where I met an Aboriginal man in full feathers and string (and not much else). He said he was playing the Joker and when I joked him back, he enjoyed it very much. He asked what I do and I told him about teaching Environmental Ethics last year. Our book had a chapter for each continent's ethics. This elderly man in a a tassel and feathers screwed up his eyes and said, "I betcha the European chapter was the shortest!" And when I stopped laughing, I realized - he was right. But he had vanished into the crowd to joke with someone else in this essentially whites only shopping/dining hotspot with the young bucks cruising by in gleaming muscle cars.

The next day we went to the Armadale Reptile Park where we saw heaps of reptiles, a croc, some turtles, frogs and huge 12-inch long bats. They also had walk through aviaries with smaller kingfishers, but no kookaburras yet - we'd only heard them. We heard several great reptile-rescue stories from the staff. Many were familiar, but one new one was a side splitter.

Nature Center Lady (NCL): Madam, please describe this snake.
Hysterical Woman (HW): It's huge and it's got four legs...
NCL: Ma'am, snakes don't have legs.
HW: Yes they do, they just fall off when they get older.

The next day we went to the AQWA Aquarium where there is an underwater tunnel and a moving walkway so you just stand still and the sea life swims over your head. We saw sharks, rays, a sea turtle and innumerable fish. They also had sea dragons both the plain ones and the leafy variety. If you've never seen a leafy sea dragon, log on and search out a picture. These things are poetry in slow motion. Absolutely fascinating, and the AQWA worker pointed out that they wash up along the beach all along this part of the Perth coast. AQWA also had a petting pool where we touched a soft velvety ray.

The day after that we went to the Western Australia Museum where we were bored in the rocks and fossils (very generic and nothing really of local material) and then fascinated by the "Stolen Generations" cultural exhibit. If you get the opportunity to see an Australian movie called "Rabbit Proof Fence," do see it - its all true.

Our next whole day was spent flying from Perth to Brisbane where we were met by our friend Andrea. That was particularly good as the rental agency we'd booked our car from was not at the airport, a fact they'd neglected to mention to our travel agent. She drove and we talked for the next 45 minutes and ended up at her fairy tale beautiful seaside palace south of Brisbane along the coast dotted with offshore sand islands.

The next few days are full of expeditions. Andrea has been around the world a couple of times and wants to see everything everywhere on tours, so the first few days were a whirl. First we went to the offshore islands on a wonderful ferry that reminded me of a W.W.II landing craft complete with drop down front gate. On the island we saw flattened cane toads and sulfur crested cockatoos. After that we went to a nature preserve and saw a wild koala sacked out in a paper bark eucalyptus tree.

This is the place to point out that in flying across Australia, we covered as much landscape as flying from San Francisco to New York. Where the west side was arid and hot, the eastern side is a tropical rain forest edged by blinding white beaches, fringed in glittering high-rises catering to a global holiday crowd. One town reminded me a lot of Miami Beach plus Las Vegas, lots of sand and flashing lights. But the back theme is Asian, many of the shops have signs in Japanese and Korean and the shopping seems oriented (pardon the pun) to this market.

Unlike the west, where everybody ignored the wildlife, here a natural area had wallabies just hanging around the parking lots where children stopped to feed them highly nutritious wallaby chow like Vitamin 12 Bread. We also saw a Lace Monitor flashing around in the trees and went looking for platypus, but the pools which would have supported them were dry. All of Australia is having a terrible drought and even this wet eastern shore is no exception.

The town and place known as Mount Tambourine is worth a visit if you are ever near Brisbane. It is a charming mountaintop town full of art studios and galleries. The view from the top is worth the drive alone, but it is substantially cooler on top of the hill and we got a light dusting of rain, too.

Along with all the day travel, we were renting videos made in Australia and watching them at night. Highly recommended are: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Babe; The Dish; The Castle; Rabbit-Proof Fence; Muriel's Wedding and all three Mad Max movies. Obviously, we did not even try to watch all of these on one night!

The next day we went to downtown Brisbane for the Sunday market on the Riverwalk. We also saw the dinosaurs at the Queensland Museum. There were water dragons basking on the rain forest boardwalk and humans basking along a manmade beach perched high on the shoreline above the river. All this backed up by tall high-rises of this eastern commercial center. Otherwise, this too was rather like the US. Lots of three or four lane highways, public transport up one side, multiple person commuting lanes and so on. But they also have speedy water taxis and ferries to connect up with all the shore line housing and islands.

The next day Andrea drove us two hours north to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo in Beerwah. Everyone will tell you how Steve and Teri live very simply and the whole thing is run for the purposes of conservation. They buy habitat. I enjoyed the whole thing very much but wonder how it is that the map that would show you how to get there is the only chunk missing in the "About Brisbane" handout that is everywhere in the region. It mentions the Zoo, but one map stops short and the other one picks up after it. So even with a relatively native Queenslander driving, we got lost.

When we did get there, we parked somewhere in the next county and walked in feeling a bit like we'd arrived at 6-Flags, but all the staff was wearing Steve: khaki top and shorts, elastic sided or work boots and cap or visor. What an outfit! It felt like Jurassic Park for reptiles and other Australian animals. When we first got there the crowds were at the photo with a giant snake. Then they arrived around the croc pit for the feeding show which was led by Teri Irwin. Then everyone headed off to the Feeding Frenzy food court for lunch. Then to the other croc pit for some singing and another croc feeding. Then to the reptiles for the feeding. Then the American Alligators. Those are really near the exit at the gift shop. So most of the crowd left.

We saw a couple of the shows, but went the other way from the crowds, walking through the open kangaroo habitats where you can walk right up and feed them special kangaroo chow or just take lots of pictures. We walked through the wetland bird habitat and the netted bird enclosure. Got to the raptors in time to hear the usual raptor rehab stories, just with alien species and arrived at snakes in time for venomous snake feedings.

The snakes included the king brown snake, black tiger snake, eastern tiger snake, taipan, green python, carpet python, red-bellied black snake and more. Every enclosure was clean, the snake backgrounds were habitat paintings and the foregrounds included things very similar to those we had just seen when we were photographing this stuff squished and alive in Western Australia.

We also saw wombats, Tasmanian devils, dingos, koalas, a pond full of turtles that just looked for all the world like small snappers, but were side necks, and more lizards, monitors and otters. We were some of the last people out, through the gift shop and into the land beyond Steve. Of the whole experience, I was surprised only by the gift shop. With all the emphasis on conservation, there was very little factual information in the shop. It was mostly souvenirs and cult-of-Steve stuff. I almost expected to see a box that said, "Now! Dress your ankle biter as mini-Steve! Everything you need to feed Junior to a croc!"

Actually and rather surprisingly, there were more adults that children at the Zoo and it was school holidays. The other place where that ratio was surprising was at the "Hyperdome," the local supermall. It was almost all teens and up. They had the ubiquitous Kmart and Woolworths (here a grocery store) and a bunch of smaller stores. The whole feel was so very mall. There was nothing of Australia except the ubiquitous "Made in Australia" tags on the usual household stuff, just like what we get at home in the US, except all the screws are metric.

We went back to Andrea's to make dinner. Her daughter went outside to feed the fish and discovered a cane toad in the ornamental pond next to the swimming pool. Ken immediately went out and caught it and because it was nearly dark we put it in a bucket over night so we could take photos of it in the morning. When we got a good look at it in the morning, we noticed it was deformed, one arm stuck out at an odd angle and it was missing a toe and a half.

So photos and then a humane death for this other convict, carried here against its will and only doing its toad thing of spread and conquer. Unfortunately, the Australian wildlife can't handle Bufo's toxins and so are diminishing or vanishing as the toad spreads. We were rather surprised that there were no organized efforts afoot to catch them or try to stop their spread across the continent. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The only placental mammal 40,000 years ago may have been the bats, then humans and early dogs (dingos). Since then a whole host of plants and animals and several more human cultural waves have followed. Each wins a few, loses a few. Some, like humans and toads, spread everywhere. Others, like the platypus which we saw at Brisbane Forest the last day we were in Australia, are pushed so far into extinction that you have to call a nature center to find out when and where you can go platypus watching.

The other animal we finally got a great look at in our last days in Australia was the kookaburra. As soon as they were sure we were leaving, they showed up and sang. Also that last night, by the light of the full moon, the black and shiny 12-inch bats went swooping by the hundreds then the thousands, across the cliff that separated Andrea's patio from the bay and the smoke and glow of a bush fire burning its way across a natural area on one of the offshore islands. These are fruit bats, they were coming for the Macquirie Island figs from the neighbors' giant tree.

Frogs croaked and the winds from Cyclone Zoe had finally calmed down enough to sit outside without a sandblasting. The next day (days?) we spent on airplanes eating tiny meals at inconvenient intervals and trying to stay patient while sharing a metal tube with 365 other people none of whom will talk to you except the help, maybe. We arrived in Los Angeles and marveled at the instant diversity. The happy Hispanic fellow driving the link bus around from terminal to terminal. The melting pot of security screeners, flight crews, shop help. We hadn't realized just how white Australia was until we arrived in LA. San Francisco was fun too, although here the rainbow nation was an antiwar protest that the papers reported was 65,000 strong. All I can tell you is it took 2 hours to do 15 minutes of driving and by the time we got home it was nearly dark and we were exhausted after 23 body hours of travel.

And then the next day we got our mail! A whole month, including Christmas and clippings for my March column from wonderful contributors. As always, if you see a great herp article (or conservation in general), please send it to me. Photos for the Australia trip are available on Ken's website http://kmier.net (click on Australia). Read me next month when we return to our usual format!

March 2003

Next time, use a neon sign

Hissing in action

Creative use of a Barbie skateboard

Once warned, once busted

Two snakes, two outcomes

Fourth IN Froggies

Getting a head in business

Biohazards

• "Fishing, boating halted [at Lemon Lake] after countless tadpoles die... until [park officials] can determine what's killed... tadpoles no bigger than one's thumb... While more mature tadpoles also have been found dead, they have been those at the shore line where there are more weeds and grass to restrict... oxygen... [a park spokeswoman] said she believed the dead tadpoles have caused a stir because of the spraying for the West Nile virus [now in its second year in the Chicago area]... An emergency coordinator for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management did not discount the probability of natural causes claiming the tadpoles... alkaline levels tested within normal ranges... ammonia nitrate... indicates the presence of fertilizer... low... no spills into the lake." Test results should have been back within a week. Other speculations included low oxygen due to heat followed by an influx of rain water. [Port Local Times, August 27, 2002 from J.N. Schoenfelder]
  
  
• In addition to effects of West Nile virus on more than 200 species of birds, reptiles and mammals which became ill this year, 200 individual alligators died from the virus on Florida alligator farms in 2002. In other zoos, other exotic animals killed included cockatiels, emus, seals, flamingos and penguins. Over time, species will adapt, but the speed at which the virus spread across the U.S. has shown weaknesses in American defense to biological agents. It is expected that the virus will reach the U.S. west coast in spring of 2003, home to giant poultry farms of chicken and geese as well as endangered whooping cranes and condors. It may also leap to the American tropics this year, putting already stressed populations of parrots and hummingbirds at risk. West Nile originally appeared in the fall of 1999 when it was found in a dead crow in New York. Some scientists suspect it arrived in an infected bird brought in from the Middle East, but there is - of course - no way to know. [The Chicago Tribune, December 31, 2002 from Ray Boldt]
  
  
• Something I would have never thought of, is that West Nile Virus is in the same family as St. Louis Encephalitis and is heat sensitive. So you can cook and eat something that died from either without apparent risk of getting the diseases. [Leesburg, FL Daily Commercial, November 14, 2002 from Bill Burnett]
  
  
• A total of 3,587 human cases and 211 deaths from West Nile were officially accepted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Perhaps as many as 200,000 Americans have been exposed, and 38 states and Washington, D.C. had cases in 2002. Researchers studying the affected alligators noticed the classic symptoms of West Nile: walking in circles, tilting their heads and appearing off-balance. How the mosquito manages to infect the tough-hided alligator has not yet been observed. [Orlando Sentinel, November 14, 2002 from Bill Burnett]
  
  
• Meanwhile Avian Newcastle disease has been getting around near Los Angeles, CA. First discovered in backyard flocks, it was soon documented in the giant chicken farms, some caged and some uncaged which abound in that area. All bird imports and exports from the area were halted. [Eureka Times-Standard from AP, February 2003]

Mahalo for finding them

A 1.5-foot long rosy boa (Lichanura trivirgata), native to the desert southwestern U.S. was turned in to authorities on Kaua'i. Under the state's amnesty program, anyone voluntarily surrendering an illegal animal is immune from prosecution. [Honolulu Advertiser, January 8, 2003 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

Two snakes were turned in on O'ahu, a 4-foot ball python and a 2-foot California King snake. [Honolulu Advertiser, August 20, 2002 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

Turtles

About 20 Kemp's ridley turtles were flown from Cape Cod to Orlando, Florida after they were found stranded along the cold northern shores. All told in 2002, about 101 sea turtles have been flown back to warmer waters. The juveniles are often afflicted with pneumonia and other fungal and bacterial infections. [Orlando, FL Sentinel, December 20, 2002 from Bill Burnett]

Loved in PR / Hated in HI

A man who heads the Coqui Hawaiian Integration and Reeducation Project [CHIRP] criticized the way that state park workers were removing non-native vegetation and spraying citric acid in an effort to control non-native frogs on the Big Island. The work includes plans to replant with natives which may be less beneficial to the alien amphibians. CHIRP's website is - http://www.hawaiiancoqui.org/ and a more official perspective may be heard at - http://hear.org/AlienSpeciesInHawaii/species/frogs/ -. [The Honolulu Advertiser, December 16, 2002] In another article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Mr. CHIRP suggests capturing coqui by hand and shipping them back to Puerto Rico. Authorities pointed out that there are major legal hurdles to pass to do what the frogs managed to do by themselves. [January 4, 2003 both from Ms. G.E. Chow]

The Hawaii Department of Agriculture approved the use of 16 percent citric acid in water (double lime juice) for homeowners and nurseries to attempt to eradicate non-native amphibians. The solution is made with food-grade citric acid usually used to make juice or soda so it is not regulated by the EPA. Nurseries are buying citric acid in 50 pound bags and repacking it for use by homeowners. Even so officials concede wiping the frogs off the Big Island and Maui could be impossible. [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, December, 13, 2002 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

Four-winged dinosaur

Still deadly after all these years?

Revenge of the turtles

Nice to know they're there

The hiss of life

Death and lawyers

"The killing zone starts right down there, by that lawyer's office..." said a Florida herpetologist. He has found that a seven mile stretch of road north of Tallahassee is huge. About three years ago, he walked and picked up 90 dead turtles in just one third of a mile. He also found that ninety-eight percent of the turtles that try to cross the road don't make it across. There's only one culvert from the dry uplands to the wetlands on the other side of this old road which is now carrying much more traffic than it was originally built too take. Matt Aresco has started a website and posted pictures of the carnage - http://www.lakejacksonturtles.org - and tried to get authorities to do something to stop the carnage. He has personally drift fenced and saved 8,016 turtles in the past 33 months. He marks and measures them, then carries them over the road. Even so, in 2000, he counted almost 200 turtles killed by raccoons. Now DOT is funding a $50,000 study to see what can be done. [Orlando, FL Sentinel, October 23, 2002 from Bill Burnett]

Supertyphoon aids supertramp

"The greatest risk [from the situation caused by the supertyphoon] will be when emergency equipment shipped from Hawai'i to Guam, such as telephone repair equipment, power generators, etc., begins to return to the state. Everything used there has to be checked." Hawai'i has no native snakes and hopes to keep it that way. [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, December 11, 2002 from Ms. G.E. Chow] The brown tree snake is reported to be native to Indonesia.

Letters:

January 18, 2003 "[Ferndale] is lucky to have the rain. Winter here in Chicago has been gray, cold and dry... Ray Boldt." Thanks, Ray. Our Pacific treefrogs think so, too. They've been calling morning, evening and night for the past couple of weeks.

February 3, 2003 "In October, 2003, the Post Office will issue a block of stamps featuring the scarlet king snake, blue spotted salamander, reticulate collared lizard, ornate chorus frog and ornate box turtle... Not much more to report. Hope you have recovered from your trip down under. Regards. Ray Boldt."

Thanks to everyone who contributed for this month's column. You can contribute, too. If you see a herp-related article, please send the whole page (not very heavy) with your name on each piece to me.

April 2003

April 1987

"Thank God I only have amphibians!" exclaimed a CHS member upon reading the weekly grocery list of the Lincoln Park Zoo. In an average week, the Reptile House uses 50 lbs of fresh water smelt for its alligator, 50 lbs of salt-water herring, 9 anoles, 8 lbs of bananas, 18 lbs of apples/oranges/sweet potatoes, 6 bunches of celery, 28 lbs of carrots, 10 heads of lettuce, 8 bunches of spinach, numerous other fruits and vegetables, 400 lbs of rat chow, 1100 small rodents, 48 chickens, 1500-2000 crickets, 3.5 dozen raw/hard cooked eggs and 3 lbs of Reptile Fare. (courtesy of the Lincoln Park Zoo Review)

Through the determined efforts of hundreds of local volunteers and world wide conservation groups, Britain has opened its first tunnel under a motorway for the protection of toads migrating to their breeding ponds. The road has been edged with a barrier which will divert the creatures into the tunnel and thence, safely to their pond. Lord Skelmerdale dedicated the project in the name of Queen and amphibian and snipped an appropriately small ribbon. This tunnel is the first of a series planned to prevent the yearly slaughter of some 20 tons of toads by British drivers. Until now the toads were carried across the road in buckets by volunteers. One said, "Our evenings won't be the same without a bucket of toads to carry."

April 1988

Two protesters from Earth First chained themselves to a fence at a city park in Taylor, TX during the local rattlesnake roundup. Another 10 people picketed stating that the roundup disturbs the central Texas environment and harms wildlife. My personal thanks to those committed individuals.

The Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission will permit hunters to legally "harvest" alligators next September for the first time in 26 years. Environmentalists pointed out that hunting may have endangered the animal in the first place and that people are likely to get hurt since the law prohibits the use of firearms to hunt gators. Officials expect the hunt to net about 1,500 animals. Currently about 1,000 are killed each year for research and 3,000 are killed after they become a "nuisance." Well, at least they're not following the famous cartoon's advice about what to do when you're up to your ears in alligators, they have few enough swamps left as it is!

April 1989

The next time a person says that snakes are bad because of the serpent in the Bible, calmly ask, "Which one?" A religious member of my family recently pointed out two quotations which make it appear as though God really doesn't have snakes on His hate list after all. Numbers 21: 8 and 9 says, "And the Lord said to Moses: Make a brazen serpent and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look at it, shall live..." John 3: 13-15 refers to the brazen serpent and uses it as a metaphor for the Son of Man.

China has issued a stamp to commemorate the Year of the Snake. Designed by Lu Shengzhong, a teacher at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the stamp portrays the reptile in a positive light. He said, "Snake designs on pottery and bricks dating from the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AC) show that originally the snake was a symbol of safety. In folk stories, it is often related to love and kindness. The stamp is spare and shows a flowered and decorated snake coiled on a white background. The overall design represents traditional Chinese beliefs that the earth is square and the sky round. ical. The forked tongue of the snake which is usually a symbol of evil, was replaced with a sprig of the Chinese herb used to symbolize the power to restore life. In much of Chinese tradition folklore, the snake is one of the "five evil things," along with scorpions, toads, geckos and centipedes. In modern China, the snake is being put to "practical" use. Venom is an ingredient in a variety of medicines, snake's gallbladder and medicinal herbs are combined to make effective cough medicine, snakeskin is used to produce handbags and shoes for the export trade, and in southern China, snakes are considered a delicacy - a custom considered strange in the north. Chinese astrology says that people born in the year of the snake are intelligent, mysterious, tender, and kind!

April 1990 (No Column)

April 1991

With great big thanks to -- everybody who volunteered for the 25th-Anniversary Party of the CHS including: John Christianson, John Levell, Brian Jones, Meg Shepstone, Ilene Sievert, Todd and Amy Hixon, Eloise Beltz-Decker, Howard Weiner, Joel Weiner (with family and friend), John Raymond, Holly Collins, Stacy Miller, Ron Humbert, Don Wheeler, Mike Dloogatch, Ralph Shepstone, Ken Mierzwa, Paul Sievert, Matt Morris and Daelyn Erickson. Our guests included founding members Yolanda and Kris Erickson - and Ellis Jones, the only current CHS member who was also a members of the Chicago Herpetologists' Club. Entertainment included exceptional geckos by Jim Zaworski and marvelous gecko slides by Mike Miller. Several people suggested making a party a regular part of our year. [The first Gulf War started the same night as the party.]

Quote of the Month -- "As human activities increase, native species are lost. When we lose keystone species, we can expect fairly rapid and unexpected changes. This shows we need to more about what kinds of species have disproportionately large effects when present or removed, something surprisingly little research has been done on." Dr. James H. Brown, Professor of Biology, University of New Mexico. (New York Times, December 25, 1990)

April 1992

Venomous mystery uncoils -- A pastor of the Church of Jesus With Signs Following and his wife are facing each other in an Alabama courtroom trying to solve the puzzle of "did she get bitten by a rattlesnake attempting to pick one up to kill him - or did he force her hand into the cage in an attempt to kill her?" [Akron, Ohio Beacon Journal, February 13, 1992, contributed by Steven L. Frantz]

Beam me up, spotty -- A few Japanese red-bellied newts will blast off in the NASA Space Shuttle's Microgravity Lab II. Female newts will be hormonally stimulated to drop their eggs, which a male astro-newt will then fertilize. Development of their offspring will take place in a gravity-free environment and the offspring will be studied to see if they have difficulty adjusting to earth's gravitational pull. [Technology Review, February/March, 1992, contributed by Mike Dloogatch]

April 1993

Sea turtle in Kansas? -- Researchers who use satellites to track ocean going sea turtles were confused when their signals definitely pinpointed one of the giant reptiles in Salina, Kansas! An on-the-ground search for the turtle turned up just the transmitter in a farmer's back yard. He had found the device while on vacation in Texas and taken it home. [Destination Discovery, February 1993, contributed by P.L. Beltz]

Animals rights activists protested at Epcot Center -- Known for cute rodents, Walt Disney World recently penned up dozens of gopher tortoises and bulldozed their dens for development. Some tortoises may be resettled elsewhere on Disney's 30,000 acres, some may be given to the University of Florida, and some may be euthanized. The trade off of all this is that Disney is giving $20 million to buy and protect the 8,500-acre Walker Ranch, 17 miles to the south in Osceola County. In exchange, wildlife officials gave Disney the right to wipe out up to 2,300 tortoises during the next 20 years. Disney executives say they will donate the tortoises to the University of Florida along with $700,000 to study upper respiratory disease. Central Florida's largest environmental groups gave the deal support in a new approach to making amends for ecological damage by protecting large areas of land instead of setting aside small parcels that can't sustain a species. Holly Jensen, a Gainesville environmentalist and animal-rights activist said, "Disney has made billions off the commercialization of wildlife and nature. They have a moral obligation to go beyond the letter of the law." [Orlando, FL Sentinel, February 1, 1993, contributed by Bill Burnett]

April 1994

An opinion piece in the Phoenix, AZ Gazette from Tom Taylor of Tempe suggests that the drive for legalization of toad venom may be lead by CROAK (Committee Reacting to Our Amphibian Kinships), GROSS (Group Recommending Organized Slime Sucking) and BARF (Biting Amphibians is Really Fun).

After several years of reporting amphibian decline, the press really went overboard on the recent announcement that one study had linked disappearing frogs and an increase in ultraviolet- B rays striking the Earth's surface due to a thinning ozone layer. Andrew Blaustein and John Hays of Oregon State University, in an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (March 1, 1994) report that ultraviolet radiation is killing the eggs of frogs in the Cascade mountains of the Pacific Northwest. In addition, they found that species in decline have a limited ability to repair damage from the ultraviolet radiation which causes change in their DNA or genetic coding molecule due to the absence of a protective enzyme. Blaustein was quoted, "Showing damage to an animal means there probably will be an effect on humans. So I think that it's very important that people listen to this warning signal." One frog species studied, Pseudacris regilla, the Pacific Chorus Frog was found to have six times as much of the enzyme as the other two species. The Western toad (Bufo boreas) and the Cascades frog (Rana cascadae) had far less of the enzyme and are both in decline. [March 1, 1994 South Bend, IN Tribune from Garrett Kazmierski, Memphis, TN Commercial Appeal from Bill Burnett, Chicago Tribune from Claus Sutor, Phoenix, AZ Gazette from Tom Taylor, and March 2 Orlando, FL Sentinel from Bill Burnett, March 6 Editorial Chicago Tribune from P.L. Beltz]

April 1995

Nature Conservancy Magazine [March/April 1995 from J.N. Stuart] reports that ranchers in southeastern Arizona have been hauling water to frog ponds by truck in an effort to help the Chiricahua leopard frog. The ponds are actually isolated stock ponds and constitute a "bull-frog free zone" where the smaller species has a hope of survival.

From the Chicago Reader "The City File," February 17, 1995 by Harold Henderson [clipping from Steve Ragsdale] "Come here often? I SAID, COME HERE OFTEN? ` In other experiments, anurans living near highway noise could not determine the direction of sound sources as well as those living in quieter places,' reports Ronald Larkin in Illinois Natural History Survey Reports (January/February). `The males near highways altered their calling and spaced themselves differently when attempting to attract females. We obtained similar results by playing recorded highway noise from loudspeakers,' thus verifying `that it was the noise generated by the highway traffic and not other kinds of pollution or indirect causes that affected the anurans.'"

"Hello my honey, hello my baby" hello my new t.v. network? Michigan J. Frog, a "song-and- dance amphibian" who starred in a 1956 Chuck Jones cartoon called "One Froggy Evening" is the spokes-frog for the new Warner Brothers television network. His creator said, "I only made the one cartoon with him, and it was probably the best-known single cartoon that I ever made. I've ended up spending the last 30 or 40 years trying to figure out how to make another one. But we are making it, calling it `Another Froggy Evening.' It will be Michigan J. Frog through history, his effect on history. Eventually it will go on television, but it's not designed for that purpose. All of our cartoons, from the time I started as a director in 1937 until the present were made for theaters." [Chicago Tribune, January 19, 1995 from Steven Ragsdale]

Recent flooding in California has washed up all kinds of odd debris including snakes on California beaches. Twenty-six snakes, mostly venomous, were removed from Del Mar Beach and four others from Solana Beach. Both are near San Diego. Snakes are not rare sunbathers in southern California, but they are usually relocated by "lifeguards" more accustomed to hauling other types of vertebrates. [The Las Vegas Review-Journal and Las Vegas Sun, March 11, 1995 from Bob Pierson and Houston Chronicle, March 12, 1995 from Gary Durkovitz]

April 1996

"The breeding habitat of the golden toad has been monitored by either experienced volunteers or paid staff every year since their disappearance in 1989. There have been a couple of false alarms (e.g. Eleutheradactylus that are very orange) but no confirmed sightings since the single male I caught in 1989. The hypothesis we presented was not simply that rainfall was inadequate, but that the transition from dry season to wet was too abrupt and this disrupted the toads' natural breeding pattern. Alan Pounds subsequently presented an analysis of the El Nino events of the early 1980s and their possible effects on the hydrology of the site. Alan hypothesizes that the toads were extirpated by an underground drought. His paper was published in Conservation Biology in about 1992 or 1993. One attempt was made to age golden toads thru skeletochronology on toe tips that were removed as part of a mark-recapture protocol. No rings were apparent in the bone. Thus we really have no idea of how long the toads live. The golden toad may represent one of the few (only?) vertebrate extinctions that has been observed and recorded by humans, but not caused by humans. On the other hand, we're keeping our fingers crossed that they will reappear, and keeping in touch with the people who monitor the habitat. Frank Hensley, Elon College & Duke University" [via Internet]

Remember dime-store sliders? -- Louisiana turtle breeders hope to bring back the ubiquitous pet of yesteryear after trying for years to overturn the Federal Food and Drug regulation which prevents domestic sale of turtles with a carapace length of less than four inches. The breeders have been busy building up an overseas market. Last year 6.5 million baby turtles were shipped out of the country. The breeders claim the babies have been cured of Salmonella bacteria by means of a method developed by a Louisiana State University microbiologist Ronald Siebeling. Only 2 percent of baby turtles hatched at the farms have been found to carry the bacteria. Turtle farming is regulated by the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, but has recently come under fire for alleged price fixing by the U.S. Department of Justice. Farmers deny price fixing; one said, "What we've got here is the cleanest, most documented pet in the world." [The Baton Rouge, LA Sunday Advocate, February 5, 1995] In Mississippi, turtle farmers are not as common as catfish farming, cotton, soybeans or rice farming. Even so, one farm sold 350,000 babies in one year, the offspring of 50,000 to 60,000 wild-caught breeder turtles. Two-thirds went to Southeast Asia, the rest to Canada, Europe and the People's Republic of China. Some of the offspring are retain for future breeding purposes and a very few are released in the wild. The Salmonella cleansing process is done to the Mississippi eggs, too, mostly by school kids earning summer money. [Houma, LA Courier, August 13, 1995. Both articles from super-clipper Ernie Liner]

April 1997

Smoking can be hazardous -- A Dutch tourist returning from a Caribbean vacation was shocked when authorities found a drugged iguana in his suitcase at customs control in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Authorities believe that the iguana as planted in his luggage for confederates to retrieve later. The man had gone through the "anything to declare" lane at Customs because he had too many cigarettes. [Reuters newswire, February 22, 1997 from Allen Salzberg]

Bud-wiser! Bud-wiser! -- In a February 10, 1997 reply to a letter by Steve Grenard, a Budweiser spokesman wrote: "Anheuser-Busch. will not sponsor any rattlesnake sacking competitions [at rattlesnake roundups] this year. We were a participating sponsor in previous years, but have decided to place our sponsorship funds with other events. Anheuser-Busch has a longtime commitment to protection of wildlife and to preserving the environment. We do not knowingly participate in any events that are contrary to this corporate philosophy." http://www.xmission.com/~gastown/herpmed/med.htm

Spring, glorious spring -- "But on this night a slight rain fell, and the temperature hovered in the low 50s... The hikers smelled the swampy, earthy aroma of decaying vegetation. They saw their breath hang like smoke in their flashlight beams. They heard the calling of frogs, spring peepers peeping and chorus frogs trilling, like a thumb running down a comb." [Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 6, 1997 from Mr. Laverne A. Copeland]

April 1998

An unidentified resident of South Dade, Florida was bitten by a black mamba and taken to the emergency room by ambulance. Bill and Nancy Haast were contacted by the poison control center, but had no black mamba antivenin. They called a private collector who quickly sent nine vials of antivenin. Haast said, "I heard that the man did not receive a very serious bite, that perhaps it was only one fang." [The Miami Herald, March 14, 1998 from Alan Rigerman] The average cost of medical treatment for a venomous snake bite is $11,000.

Do unto shippers?-- The Caymanian Compass reports "Willemstad, Curacao - Hundreds of tropical lizards suffocated in cardboard boxes without ventilation on a flight from the Caribbean Dutch island of Bonaire to Amsterdam, KLM Dutch airlines said... the airline... halted shipments of unaccompanied animals from Bonaire while it investigates... Eight hundred lizards arrived dead at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport ... after a nine-hour flight... It was not the first time the lizards... had been exported ... to Amsterdam, but it was the largest shipment yet... [A] local government official... said the reptiles were not protected and no export license was required." [February 13, 1998 from L.W. Reed]

April 1999

Don't drink the water -- "A new study suggests that atrazine - the nation's most popular weed killer - may be partly responsible for the abnormal hormone levels and undersized male genitals found in some Florida alligators... computerized wind models show that large amounts of atrazine are wafting from sugar fields and falling or raining into four lakes north of Orlando. Those are the same four lakes where [researchers]... have found sexually altered alligators... [A vice president for one sugar company said,] "He's jumping to conclusions..." Atrazine's Switzerland based manufacturer, Novartis Crop Protection, has shown that any amount of the chemical falling with rain would be far to diluted to harm wildlife, said ... the company's environmental products manager." [Leesburg, FL Daily Commercial, January 3, 1999 from Bill Burnett]

Ravens following development in the Southwest are eating desert tortoise babies. One researcher said that until their shells harden around seven years of age, baby tortoises are "like walking raviolis," to the ravens. Other threats include loss of habitat, road kills and an upper respiratory disease. [National Wildlife, April/May 1999 from Mark Witwer]

April 2000

Keep washing your boots anyway -- While a recent report in Science News suggests that frog killing chytrid organisms are implicated in declining amphibians, they also report that chytrids have been found in museum specimens from the 1970s from widely spread areas of the world. The earliest Australian specimen is from a dainty tree frog which was pickled in 1978. Closer to home, U.S. researchers have found that 2 of 12 preserved leopard frogs from various collections, and some Bufo canoris from the Sierra Nevada, California were also infected. The "wandering herpetologist" theory of the chytrid spread has also been discounted; one researcher pointed out that "you'd have to have a really active person who had nothing else to do," because the dieoffs are so widespread in place and time. She also pointed out that the "major cause of amphibian declines is habitat loss." [Volume 157, February 26, 2000 from Marty Marcus]

Life imitates art -- Another writer was annoyed by that "we were surrounded by snakes" automobile advertisement which seems to have disappeared utterly and unlamentably from the airwaves. Writing in the Albuquerque Journal, Jim Belshaw (a westerner through and through) describes the commercial for a luxury sedan automobile with a built in help button. The couple claimed they had a flat tire and were surrounded by snakes and scared and that the nice people at "On Star" helped them get out of their distress. Belshaw interviewed a herpetologist who pointed out that snakes would have just left the scene of the blowout since most snakes would rather slither away than stay anywhere near a person with a tire iron. But it was what his nonherpetologist Western friend said that stuck with me even more than the reasonable argument. The man pointed out that the snakes were an allegory. "For `desert' substitute `Mission District.' For `snakes' substitute `people who look funny.'...the true subtext... If you break down in a weird neighborhood, all you have to do is lock the door ... and push that button and wit for the brawny guys from the towing service to come do whatever they do." Belshaw gives a third reason, "Plus it irritates herpetologists in the desert, and you never know when you might need one if your magic button breaks down about the same time your tire goes flat." [January 21, 2000 from J.N. Stuart] I finally realized that the luxury car maker is marketing a car to people too dumb to know how to get or use a cell phone. I haven't driven near one since.

April 2001

Happy Year of the Snake -- Chinese folklore reports that at the dawn of civilization, the Emperor of Heaven let all animals compete for the 12 spots on the zodiac. The snake made it. The creator of the universe in Chinese mythology, Pan Gu has the body of a snake and the head of a dragon. [China Daily, February 1, 2001 from P.L. Beltz]

Is this news? -- "International drug syndicates are smuggling rare Australian reptiles out of the country for private overseas dealers, according to Environment Australia. [A] Federal Government intelligence reports suggest smugglers bring in drugs and take out reptiles. In the past decade, the world trade in reptiles has increased to the level where about $14 million worth of reptiles are imported legally into the United States. The US black market is believed to deal with more than $1 billion worth of reptiles every year. Reptiles native only to Australia can be bought on the Internet from specialist shops throughout Europe and the US. [Environment Australia, March 2, 2001 from Raymond Hoser]

April 2002

Loose lizards found in Hawai'i -- You knew it would happen one day, but the future is now. The fourth iguana found since New Years 2002 on Oahu was discovered by the owner of two pit bulls. The dogs went crazy night after night and finally their owner saw a 4.5 foot-long iguana in the yard. After what is described as a wild chase, the iguana was locked in a dog kennel and " everyone took turns looking at the largest reptile they'd ever seen, next to Godzilla." [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, March 7, 2002 from Ms. G.E. Chow] Not even two weeks later, a dead 16.5 inch-long veiled chameleon was found in a Maui field and turned into wild life officials. Speculation abounds. Was the animal a solo release, or was it part of a breeding population? Other animals have been released to breed here so that their descendants could be utilized. Veiled chameleons are even more of a threat to the environment than Jackson's chameleons because the veiled eat insects, plants, small mammals and birds. [The Honolulu Advertiser, March 19, 2002 both from Ms. G.E. Chow]

Lake Griffiths mystery continues -- After four years, researchers are no closer to explaining why more than 400 gators became lethargic, acted strangely and died in Lake Griffiths since 1997. Some biologists feel that toxic algae (Cylindrospermopsis and Microcystis) found in the water are the key. It has been suggested that fish eat the algae, gators eat the fish and so the toxin - or its metabolic effect - is concentrated up the food chain. Autopsies of dead gators have revealed vitamin B ("thiamine") deficiencies and brain lesions. The biggest mystery is why Lake Griffiths, when many lakes around it are subject to similar runoff and impacts. Bass, other sport fish and birds are affected, too, but only at Lake Griffiths. The state legislature has refused to fund more studies. [Orlando Sentinel, December 26, 2001 from Bill Burnett]

May 2003

"Day of the Lizards: Museum of Science stages its own creature feature." [Miami Herald, July 15, 2002 from Alan Rigerman]

"Party animal comes out of his shell." [Chicago Tribune, July 17, 2002 from Ray Boldt]

"Gator-busters find plenty to do as reptiles flourish." [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 30, 2002 from Bill Burnett]

"Fishing, boating halted after countless tadpoles die." [South Bend, Indiana Times, August 27, 2002 from Jack Schoenfelder]

"Homeowner rescues stray sickly python." [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, August 1, 2002 from Bill Burnett]

"Three Texans nabbed with slain gator, 7 eggs in Miller County, Arkansas" [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, August 30, 2002 from Bill Burnett] Guess what, guys? Arkansas requires a permit before you go a'killin' things.

"Hissing in action: Snakes elude hunt." and "Cops arrest man wearing bone: He brought in this other bone and it was just upsetting to the customers." [Chicago Tribune, August 14, 2002 from Ray Boldt]

"West Nile Found in Alligators: Experts seek virus link in recent Florida death spurts." [Orlando Sentinel, November 14, 2002 from Bill Burnett]

"Hunters of rare turtle find big mess: Volunteers snag some creatures from black lagoon." [Chicago Tribune, October 8, 2002 from Claus Sutor] `Twas some folks muckin' about in Jackson Park, but what a great headline.

"Herbicide could be behind frog decline." [USA Today, October 31, 2002 from Alan Rigerman] Ya think?

"How Herbicide May Alter Sex of Frogs in Wild" [The Wall Street Journal, October 31, 2002 from Mrs. P.L. Beltz] Why is it not enough to know it does and quit making it?

State to take a look at alligator trappers: Complaints are rising while the number of trappers and their income are falling." [Orlando Sentinel, November 17, 2002]

"Involuntary sex changes in Midwest." [Chicago Tribune, November 24, 2002 from Claus Sutor and Ray Boldt] Don't worry guys, it's about the frogs.

"Turtles face killing zone on US 27. Activist sticks neck out for turtles: found the most deadly crossing on the continent for 10 species of the reptile." [Orlando Sentinel, October 23, 2002 from Bill Burnett]

"Fruity solution overcomes coqui frogs: State workers employ citric acid on Oahu and the Big island." [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, December 15, 2002 from Ms. G.E. Chow] We know about acid rain and declining frogs, here we learn that acid kills frogs. Could there be a link?

"Still no relief for gator trappers." [Orlando Sentinel, December 3, 2002 from Bill Burnett]

"Wetlands making their way back: Native species return on Downstate land that once was farmed" [Chicago Tribune, no date, obviously from my mother. Yea! September 10, 2002 from Ray Boldt]

"Illegal shipments of wildlife cargo prey on airport in Alaska." [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, December 4, 2002 from Bill Burnett]

"Meat from turtle kills 3 people, poisons 91." [Chicago Tribune, December 8, 2002 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

"Discovery of rare poisonous [sic] snake stirs hope at dunes." [South Bend Tribune, December 24, 2002 from Garrett Kazmierski]

"Invasion of the Everglades: Watch where you put your feet. Giant snakes, likely abandoned pets, have a new hangout." [Miami Herald, December 22, 2002 from Alan Rigerman]

"Activists stewing over threat to species: Conservationists are battling culinary tradition to save Mexico's dwindling sea turtle population." [Chicago Tribune, December 29, 2002 from Ray Boldt]

"Turtle doctors learn on job." [Orlando Sentinel, December 28, 2002 from Bill Burnett] This one's not as dismal as it sounds, the sub-lead reads, " Volusia County's Marine Science Center is writing the book on the new field of turtle rehabilitation and improving treatment methods."

"Venomous and Sublime: The Viper Tells Its Tale." [The New York Times, Science Times, December 10, 2002 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

"Can turtles live forever? A quite backwoods study opens a huge window on Aging." [Discover, June 2002 from Eloise Mason]

"Would-be turtle rescuer charged: Lawyer broke law, state says." [Miami Herald, January 19, 2003 from Alan Rigerman]

"Amphibian monitoring program hops to action." [South Bend Tribune, January 31, 2003 from Garrett Kazmierski]

"Frogs hop through Calaveras County loophole." [The Honolulu Advertiser, February 7, 2003 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

"Calaveras frog fest gains new leap on life." [Chicago Tribune, February 7, 2003 from Ray Boldt]

"Endangered olive ridley turtle lays eggs at Hilo Bay: Officials are asking the public to not disturb the rare nest, which has 124 eggs." [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, October 12 , 2002 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

"Humane Society raids home: Alligator, pythons, pit bulls removed." [South Bend Tribune, February 15, 2003 from Garrett Kazmierski]

"Frog invasion resembles film: Thousands of young amphibians invaded an animal control agency in the Panhandle, where the eco-horror movie `Frogs' was filmed 30 years ago." [Orlando Sentinel, October 17, 2002 from Bill Burnett]

"Crock around the clock: Joe Wasilewski's undying fascination." [Miami Herald, July 17, 2002 from Alan Rigerman]

"Snake confiscated after flight in pocket." [Honolulu Advertiser, February 6, 2003 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

"The beastly behavior of us humans." [Gainesville Sun, June 9, 2002 from Ken Dodd]

"Experts hatch plan for threatened turtles [in McHenry County, IL]." [Chicago Tribune, January 30, 2003 from Mrs. P.L. Beltz and Ray Boldt]

"Sharing a pen, Monroe County, Florida, Jailbirds tend to the animals at adjacent petting zoo for kids." [MetroMiami, August 4, 2002 from Alan Rigerman]

"Officials on Maui discover more banned chameleons." [Honolulu Advertiser, January 31, 2002 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

"St. Croix man charged with swiping turtle eggs from west end beach. [The Avis, September 25, 2002 from Ken Dodd]

"Elderly woman loses forearm in alligator attack near condo." "Iraq crisis reaches the verge of war." [Miami Herald, February 25, 2003 from Alan Rigerman]

"Arm retrieved after gator attacks woman." [Chicago Tribune, February 25, 2003 from Ray Boldt]

"In Bahamas, some indulge taste for dwindling iguana." [Miami Herald, July 7, 2002 from Alan Rigerman]

"Military targets environmental law." [Chicago Tribune, March 13, 2003 from Ray Boldt]

"Bad driver has best intentions, but alligator still ends up dead." [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, February 26, 2003 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

"Search continues for Maui snake." [Honolulu Advertiser, February 21, 2003 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

"It's pond sweet pond for endangered turtles." [MetroDade News Tribune, July 19, 2002 from Alan Rigerman]

"Snake Day draws faithful - and fearful: Museum event dispels myths." [Miami Herald, August 5, 2002 from Alan Rigerman]

"No charges after live pups fed to snake: Animal control worker fired." [Honolulu Advertiser, November 25, 2002 from Ms. G.E. Chow.]

"Gator trappers are enduring tough times." [Orlando Sentinel, December 2, 2002 from Alan Rigerman]

"Seal from milk jug made sea turtle ill: People should be more careful with their trash." [Orlando Sentinel, July 24, 2002 from Alan Rigerman]

"Fertile turtle astounds local researchers: Laid three, maybe four times this year on Maui." [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 2002 undated, from Ms. G.E. Chow]

"Thumb missing, circus dream intact: He works with `T-rex' the same alligator that bit him in February." [Chicago Tribune, Backstage, November 8, 2002 from Ray Boldt]

"Lovelorn crocodile returns to sea." [Miami Herald, March 1, 2003 from Alan Rigerman]

"Eradicators concede Big Island to frogs." [Honolulu Advertiser, February 28, 2003 from Ms. G.E. Chow] Can you imagine, frog shopping centers, frogs in cars, frogs in restaurants and humans in decline?

"Tracked turtle tells tale." [Honolulu Advertiser, February 21, 2003 from Ms. G.E. Chow] All of a sudden, there was a vehicle, and a bright light. And strange creatures emerged from the vehicle and a bright light shone all around. Then they picked me up and I went to sleep and when I woke up, I found they had put a box on my shell and a wire down my tail and put me back where I was. If it wasn't for the box and the wire, wouldn't no turtle down here in Wet Pond believe a word of it.

"State confiscates snake, lizard." [Honolulu Advertiser, March 28, 2003 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

"Long lines of fishing boats add to leatherback turtles' woes." [The San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 2003]

"Mortal Coils: Pythons thrice the size of the largest indigenous snakes are making room for themselves in the Everglades." [Street: Miami, March 21-27, 2003 from Alan Rigerman]

"Gator-toting driver panics over 'felony in the back seat.'" [Orlando Sentinel, February 25, 2003 from Bill Burnett] Ran it over, left the scene, went back, got the gator into the back seat, ran into a mailbox because the gator was thrashing around, left car, walked home. Person picked up immediately. Gator put down.

"Officials baffled by alligator sprawl [in Arkansas park]." [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, February 7, 2003 from Bill Burnett]

"Turtles may move slowly, but sulcatas grow up fast." [Chicago Tribune, March 11, 2003 from Ray Boldt]

"Virginia turtles return to sea in Keys." [Leesburg, Florida Daily Commercial, January 6, 2003 from Bill Burnett]

"Turtle trends cause worries." [Orlando Sentinel, January 7, 2003 from Bill Burnett]

"Pretty in Green: Homeless iguana captures the heart of a Sherwood Animal Shelter worker." [The Times, North Little Rock, Arkansas, January 23, 2003 from Bill Burnett]

L.A. man receives [sic] deadly cobra in mail." [Times-Standard, Eureka, California, February 26, 2003 from Bradford Norman]

"Frantic uncle rescues boy from gator's death grip." [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, March 11, 2003 from Bill Burnett]

Thanks to everyone who contributed these past two months, but count `em, folks, there's not that many headlines from March, April and May. Please do send all your reptile and amphibian story clippings, cute postcards, ardent opinions and anything else you think would make good column fodder to me.

June 2003

Don't Mess With Texas Toads

Adhesive Design Based On Gecko's Toes

SARS/Animal Link?

A Chinese public security official in Shenzhen, in the southern province of Guangdong, said on Wednesday China had raided tens of thousands of markets, restaurants and kitchens to crack down on the trade and consumption of protected animal species. `In Guangdong, we have a law which says consumers must also be punished,' said the official, who declined to be named. `This law has been around for a while, although we have never punished anyone for consuming. But we will punish them from now on, if we find them guilty.' The operation, code named `Spring Thunder,' is part of China's belated battle to stop the spread of the global SARS virus, which some medical experts believe may have originated from the wild game that Chinese are so fond of consuming. China's official Xinhua news agency reported that 170,000 forestry police took part, raiding 14,900 animal fairs and 67,800 hotels and restaurants across the country. Officials confiscated 838,500 endangered animals and arrested 1,428 suspects. Neighboring Hong Kong is also criticized as a conduit for the trade in endangered animals into China.

China's failure to adequately inform the World Health Organization when SARS broke out in Guangdong in November last year has made mainland China and Hong Kong global epicenters of the deadly and infectious new disease, with almost five thousand cases, and nearly 300 dead. "Several Chinese doctors have blamed the appearance of SARS on the [wild game] business. They say some of the first SARS cases were in people who slaughtered and cooked game birds for restaurants. This link is not proven, but southern China's towns and farms, where humans live cheek by jowl with their own stock, and pack markets with endangered species in cruel and unhygienic conditions, have historically been the place where some of the world's most deadly plagues have begun. When a virus manages to leap the barrier between species, chances are it will be virulent and have no known cure.

The public security official said hundreds of markets, kitchens and restaurants were raided between April 10 and 20 in Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong. Protected snakes, pangolins, anteaters, cranes and turtles were confiscated. `The operation is aimed at stopping the trade and consumption of protected species. In Shenzhen, we raided at least a few hundred restaurants, kitchens and markets and arrested traders there,' he said. Traders of protected species face jail terms of up to 15 years in China. Those found smuggling China's top protected species, the panda, face death, the Shenzhen official said.

Scientists in Hong Kong have identified the SARS virus, which is from the same family of viruses that causes the common cold, as an animal strain that is new, or which they have never seen before. Scientist Dennis Lo, who was among a group of experts at the Chinese University that cracked the genomic sequence of the SARS virus, said it may have come from wild animals. `The virus is close to viruses found in rats and bovines. It's likely that the virus may have come from an animal that's not been studied before, such as wild game,' Lo said. The consumption of wild game is not as rampant in Hong Kong as it is in Guangdong, although residents here consume reptiles such as snakes and lizards during the winter months. Smugglers often use this former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, as a transit point to spirit exotic and protected species such as monitor lizards, pangolins, rare snakes and turtles into the mainland, where they end up on dinner tables." [Reuters, Science April 30, 2003 from James Harding]

Chinese Province bans Wild Game

Turtles dying in record numbers

More viruses to be released in wild

New germs causing problems worldwide

The concrete rolls on

A tale of two species

Hopping not to kill native frogs

The concrete rolls on II

News About Herp News

"Pretty Darn Fine" Bibliography

Thanks to all the online contributors, Wes von Papineäu, Allen Salzberg, Jim Stuart, Desiree Wong, Raymond Hoser, Karen Furnweger and others. And thanks to everyone who mails clippings about herps and oddball tidbits of life to me.

July 2003

Hot breaking taxonomy news

In this case, first it was one, then two, then nearly a dozen new species of freshwater turtles and land tortoises from Southeast Asia and China. Unlike most new species, these weren't caught in some pristine natural habitat heretofore untrammeled by western academics; rather 10 of these were bought from two reptile dealers who claimed to have acquired them in remote villages. The species were published from 1987 to 1997; their describers include a who's who in the turtle world and always as co-author William McCord, a New York veterinarian, who actually bought the turtles from the dealers. The apparent rarity of most of the species resulted in four being included in the China Red Data Book of Endangered Animals. Turtles are in big trouble in Asia where zooming human populations with a taste for "bush meat" results in harvest pressures on the 90 or so species of native turtles. About 70 species are endangered.

The dealers who supplied the exciting new turtles were Anson Wong from Penang, Malaysia and Oscar Shiu from Hong Kong. If these names sound familiar, the former is now in US prison for six years on a smuggling conviction. Federal agents are now attempting to extradite Mr. Shiu from Hong Kong because of his animal shipments into the US. Dr. McCord has continued to publish on specimens provided by the two men even as charges were filed and convictions obtained.

The plot thickens as James Parnum, a graduate student who describes himself as "just a guy working on fossils" began to have suspicions as to the identity of the new Asian turtles. The graduate student made repeated trips to China and teamed up with a local researcher. They visited turtle farms and discovered that some of the turtles described as "new species" were really hybrids bred for sale as medicine, food and for collectors. Turtle farmers freely admitted selling hybrid turtles to the dealers.

Two papers were published in 2001 suggesting that two of the "new species" were hybrids. An independent German group did genetic analysis and added a third to hybrid status. In the final shake out, it appears that six "new species" are probably hybrids from captivity:

• Mauremys iversoni
• Mauremys pritchardi
• Cuora serrata
• Sacalia pseudocellata
• Ocadia glyphistoma and
• Ocadia phillippeni.

Three are species previously named

• Cuora chriskarannarum (sunk) = Cuora pani
• Cuora pallidicephala (sunk) = Cuora zhoui and
• Cyclemys atripons (sunk) = Cyclemys pulchristriata

Which leaves only one which is actually a new species. Curiously it is named Cuora mccordi (Ernst, 1988) for the veterinarian with the big turtle collection. Embarrassed coauthors and other researchers point out all this effort and money could have better been spent conserving real species from Asia - 75 percent of whom could really use the help. [Nature, Volume 423, May 15, 2003 from Mike Dloogatch]

Several years ago, a CHS member who shall remain nameless, spent a fortune on two "new species of turtle from Korea." When the box arrived, it was opened with great ceremony and the two "new species of turtle from Korea" were found to be Red-eared Sliders. Yes they were new to Korea in that their parents had only lived there a few years. No they weren't "new species," nor were they worth what was paid for them except as a reminder that things which seem too good to be true usually are.

Wait til he grows up

You are what you eat

Or perhaps what eats you

Arrivaderci arribada!

Ova and ova now over?

Indestructible Worms and Giant Squid

• Searchers found a canister from the Columbia space shuttle on the ground three months after the crash. When opened it was found to contain live "C. elegans" described as a "tiny soil worm" which had been used in experiments on board the ill-fated spaceship. The New York Times speculates, "Whether this was mostly luck... or because of the worm's hardiness, is not clear. Their survival lends plausibility to the notion that life might have descended on Earth from other worlds in ancient times." [May 7, 2003 from Isadora Jarr]
  
  
• Antarctic fishermen have caught a "colossal squid with eyes as big as dinner plates and razor-sharp hook on its tentacles," according to The Chicago Tribune. The "young female" squid weighed 330-pounds and was 16 feet long. Researchers point out that the "adults are much bigger." [April 4, 2003 from Ray Boldt]

Deja vu all over again

Seven pounds for five dollars

M*A*SSSSSH*

"Frog-odendron?"

If it bleeds, it leads

Keys release me, let me go!

Duh!

Who's nuts?

"Revenge of the snake on me"

"Do you miss Chicago, much?"

Great career move

Hog heaven

Clone alone

Unlucky 13

UK law grows teeth

Thanks to everyone who contributed this month and to you, because you're about to send me a great clipping about reptiles, amphibians, animals or conservation issues. Aren't you? Mail whole pages of newspapers or magazines with your name on all the pieces in nice big envelopes (save on that origami) to me.

August 2003

More new species!

More busts!

New indictments!

Another slow news day in South Bend!

Snake his day

Kittens of the turtle world?

Oh, say can you see?

• By the dawn's early light around the 4th of July holiday, volunteers looked in vain for sea turtle nests. Seem the turtles didn't like all the "whee!" and "pop!" and "fizz!" and "Bang!" of all the fireworks sold in beachfront shacks. Every morning all they'd find were "false crawls," tracks up the beach, and then back out again. No eggs. In previous years early July has been the peak of the nesting season. Holiday celebrants also littered the beach with the plastic and cardboard explosive debris, cigarettes, bottles, cans and feces. Oh, by the way; fireworks larger than sparklers are illegal in Florida if you're not farming or mining. "I've got 10 to 15 groups of people shooting off fireworks every night, seven nights a week," said the local mayor. People can't sleep and turtles can't lay because some people are out of control. [Orlando Sentinel, July 2, 2003 from Bill Burnett's mom]
  
  
• In an annual event since 1990, the Mauna Lani Bay hotel on the Big Island of Hawai'i has released 3-year-old green sea turtles on July 4. Around 1,500 people show up, about half local to watch. A traditional hula was performed portraying huge supernatural turtles that looked like islands when they surfaced, traditionally to save people in rough seas. The turtles are raised in the hotel's ponds, then released. One swam around the Hawai'ian islands with a transmitter on his back. His time? Nine months, 3000 miles which was judged not bad for a turtle that spent his first three years in a pond. The educational fair and carnival atmosphere create a memorable event and one which benefits turtles in many ways. [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, July 2, 2003 from Ms. G.E. Chow] Last year I got a letter from a Hawai'ian resident who felt that the article I was working from was less than respectful about this annual event. All I can say is that I get and summarize so many articles in a year that I can't even remember if I wrote about this before; but if I upset anyone - I certainly didn't intend to be upsetting. I like turtles and enjoyed immensely swimming with the turtles when I was last on the Big Island. You can read all about that on my website [http://ebeltz.net/hawaii1.html].

Cryptozoology 307

DAPTF finds a sponsor

Coqui Monsters & Other Invaders

• Hawai'ian State officials are looking for new ways to stop the arrival of any more invasive species. "The catchwords these days are `early detection' and `rapid response,'" said a zoologist from the Bishop Museum. Another pointed out that once a new species becomes established, it is even more expensive to get rid of it. Private property rights enter into the equation, as well. For example, without a private land owner's permission or a court order, wildlife officials could not chase a brown tree snake across private property. [Honolulu Advertiser, March 13, 2003]
  
  
• A golf course worker discovered part of what appeared to be a freshly shed snake skin and wildlife officials spent the next few days searching for something three inches in diameter and three to six feet long. A special snake-finding dog may have caught the scent, but the snake was no longer in the garage where the skin was found. [Honolulu Advertiser, February 21, 2003]
  
  
• A spray of citric acid is believed to have killed all the coqui frogs on Kauai Island. Officials hope that small populations on other islands can be wiped out as well. One nursery owner suggested that trying to control coqui frogs on nursery plants shipped off the Big Island is "throwing money down a rat hole." On the other hand, researchers feel they can stop or slow the spread of the species, warning that if the do not, a huge frog population could provide food for the next invasive alien species. [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 24, 2003]
  
  
• "A team of invasive species scientists and administrators traveled from Hawai'i to Guam... to practice trekking through wooded areas at night, spotting snakes hanging from trees and capturing them," according to the Honolulu Advertiser, June 13, 2003. One of the participants said, "it's not as drama-filled as... `Crocodile Hunter.'" They learned that "before [Guam's] bird population was almost completely killed off by the snakes, the reptiles also caused a number of electrical blackouts on the island. They would climb transformers to get closer to their prey, and arc their bodies between power lines. Once the birds were nearly eradicated, the snakes switched to lizards and skinks... Population densities are estimated in some areas at up to 13,000 snakes per square mile." While there are no snakes on Hawai'i, yet, there were 236 snake sightings over the past 10 years. Of that number, 63 snakes were found dead or wandering around; 74 were pets and 99 were never found at all.
  
  
• A search of an area where six veiled chameleons were found in December 2002, found 21 more. The multi-agency team suspects they may have become naturalized in the residential area. Also captured were 102 Jackson's chameleons which are also not native to Hawai'i but which have become established in many areas of the island. [Honolulu Advertiser, January 31, 2003]
  
  
• Plant shipments spread coqui frogs (Eleutherodactylus coqui) from infested nurseries on the Big Island to most of the other parts of the archipelago before officials really realized what was happening. Now, they're working with private landowners to use citric acid spray which kills frogs but which also can burn vegetation. Some parks are treating tropical plants, then ripping them out and replacing them with native Hawai'ian plants which are less hospitable to coquis. [Honolulu Advertiser, December 30, 2002]
  
  
• Coquis are native to Puerto Rico and for a long time were thought to only be able to live there as previous translocation efforts failed. Whether they arrived under their own power, in an imported plant or in some Puerto Rican tourists' luggage it would seem they are now in Hawai'i to stay. On February 28, 2003 the "eradicators concede Big Island to frogs." The US Department of Agriculture realized that their $10.7 million plan to rid the state of coquis would have to be "updated to acknowledge that eradication is no longer possible on the Big Island... the coqui ... and the greenhouse frog (E. planirostris), have tripled their range statewide in the past year... have found habitats in 2,000 acres across the state." [Honolulu Advertiser, February 28, 2003; all articles from Ms. G.E. Chow]
  
  
• Coquis in Puerto Rico are just as explosive breeders as they are when they get to Hawai'i. One of the controls on their survival is the whip scorpion. Another weird island endemic, it has no tail and its body is only the size of a quarter, but its arm span is the size of a salad plate. [Science News, January 4, 2003 from Jack Schoenfelder]
  
  
• Recently I received an email which asked if the coqui frogs which have invaded Hawai'i are live-bearers or egg-bearers. I did a little research and found that "With the exception of only one species, eleutherodactylid frogs lay eggs that undergo direct development in terrestrial situations, rather than in water like most frogs. The "tadpole" stage occurs entirely within a terrestrial egg, rather than as a free-living larval stage, and adult features form directly..." [http://invasions.bio.utk.edu/invaders/coqui.html] Also, "eleutherodactylid" means "free-fingers" and refers to the lack of membranes between the fingers which other types of tropical frogs use for aquatic movements and/or gliding surfaces when they hop, fall or jump out of trees. [http://www.cnnet.clu.edu/procoqui/eng/ekarlschmidti.html] There apparently was one form of live-bearing coqui, but it had a very restricted distribution and none have been seen since the early 1980s. [http://endangered.fws.gov/i/d/sad0e.html]

#1 Killer of Wildlife strikes Again

Besieged by an invasion of toads

So what happened?

"Fingerlings"

• "A restocking program by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission saw the relocation of more than 2,800 Louisiana alligators in south Arkansas [after the reptiles were put on the Endangered Species List in 1973]. Thanks to the commission's gator aid, alligators are thriving and have been seen in 45 Arkansas counties. A recent study showed an average of 1.2 gators per square mile in south Arkansas." The state herpetologist quoted in the article is the same Kelly Irwin with whom we shared a memorable lunch many years ago. [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, February 7, 2003 from Bill Burnett]
  
  
• A photographer in Alabama caught a by now almost cliche photograph of an alligator in the road, surrounded by conservation agents with poles and ropes, and an official pickup truck. One wonders if they waited for the photographer to get going. The gator looked lethargic, but as we all know, that can change quickly. Of course, if there had been any Steve Irwin-ism, the photographer would have caught it and the editor would have used it, so the gator probably was cooperative. [Chicago Tribune, June 4, 2003 from Ray Boldt]
  
  
• A Lake County, Florida man received a $180 citation for lassoing a 5-foot-long alligator he said was threatening a woman and four children near the local elementary school. The man was unapologetic; this occurred in the same town as the fatal attack on a 12-year-old boy who was swimming at dusk in the Dead River. He had the animal under control when police arrived. They ordered him to cut the rope and let the gator go. When the game officer arrived, he issued a ticket and called for a gator trapper to go get the gator which had just been set free minutes before. [Orlando Sentinel, June 22, 2003]
  
  
• After a weekend of public outcry, the $180 ticket was rescinded and replaced with a warning. The man sought legal advice and has decided not to appeal the warning. Wildlife officials still insist people need to call 911, not take matters into their own hands. [Orlando Sentinel, June 24, 2003]
  
  
• Officials estimate there is now one alligator for every 17 people in Florida. About 17 million Floridians live in gator habitat. You do the math. [Orlando Sentinel, June 20, 2003]
  
  
• Commentator Mike Thomas wrote about the death of the boy and the response: "The deputies have pretty much cleared the Dead River of gators. They killed 11 big ones. That may soothe some people, but it's only a gesture. When you kill 11 big gators, all you do is make room for 11 more. As one cop said, they're like crack dealers. This tragedy may bring on a demand to slaughter more gators. If that's the case, we might as well kill all the rattlesnakes and moccasins, too, then put concrete bottoms on all the lakes and chlorinate them. Alligators are not vicious killers. They are mindless, amoral predators. What we had at the Dead River was the tragic convergence of an alligator acting like an alligator and a 12-year-old boy acting like a 12-year-old boy." [Orlando Sentinel, June 22, 2003 all from Bill Burnett]

Voice of the people

• "I'm just glad the gators don't run a[n article] ... that asks, `Too many people?'"
  
  
• "Get rid of the alligators... the `endangered species' has now taken over... crawling into our swimming pools, carports and retention ponds... eating our pets, and they are trying to eat us. They are everywhere. I think we can easily spare a few of them."
  
  
• "I don't hear people saying that we should get rid of cars when a child gets hit by one or ban swimming pools when someone drowns. When do we stop destroying God's creatures to satisfy human control?"
  
  
• "People come to Florida to see its natural beauty, including alligators... by getting rid of all nuisance animals... our state will no longer be Florida and will turn into another urban environment without natural beauty."
  
  
• "What good are they, anyway?... great shows of water-birds nest over masses of swimming gators, who unknowingly act as guardians of the nests, which are out of reach to them. The birds have this figured out and flock there. In case any raccoon, opossum or rat snake gets the wild idea it would be fun to swim to a nest bush for a snack, it's in for an unforgettably exciting experience... baby gators are commonly eaten by herons and large egrets, especially by black-crowned night herons... Large fish, big gators and all sorts of mammals eat them, too... As long as we have wetlands, we will have hazards and deaths from drowning, boat and auto accidents, waterborne diseases and even entrapment in water-weeds, and wildlife."

SARS, monkeypox and us

Envelope of the month

Thanks to everyone who contributed this month and to Bradford Norman, Jack Schoenfelder, Eloise Mason, Bill Burnett's Mom in Florida, Wes von Papineäu, and everybody else who even considered sending material for this column. Mail whole pages of newspapers or magazines with your name on all the pieces in nice big envelopes to me.

September 2003

Thanks to everyone who contributes to my column,

Great use of a shovel

Familiar tales - unfamiliar places

• "A snake that eats frogs and rats as an infant and works its way up to chickens, rabbits and even wild pigs, is believed to be responsible for this summer's gradual disappearance of the familiar chickens in front of the Metro Police West Patrol sector [in Nashville, Tennessee]. A boa constrictor is believed to be living somewhere in the precinct... after two intact snake skins were found recently that indicate the predator is roughly 8 feet long and `pretty big' in the center. `The chicks disappeared and then the chickens disappeared and then we had, finally, one rooster left and then he disappeared,' [said the police official who also] speculated that somebody had the snake as a pet and took it to the woods when it got too big." [Nashville City Paper, August 25 to Wes from Desiree Wong]
  
  
• "A heat lamp in a snake cage is believed to have caused an apartment fire Friday morning in Beloit. When Beloit Fire Department personnel arrived at the apartment complex... they found heavy smoke in a first-floor apartment and hallway... The fire started in the apartment's bedroom, where officials believe a heat lamp in a snake cage overheated. The snake survived the blaze and was picked up by the Rock County Humane Society. The fire was contained to the bedroom and caused an estimated $6,000 structure and content damage." [Beloit, Wisconsin Daily News August 23]
  
  
• "Animal Rescue League of Boston officers, responding to what they thought was a bogus report of an alligator in Jamaica Pond, could hardly believe their eyes yesterday afternoon when they spied a roughly 2-foot-long reptile swimming in the water. `He kept popping up,' said an amazed [Lieutenant], who along with [a] native Louisiana [woman] netted the pint-sized gator after about two hours of trying. `Someone obviously dumped it here.' It's not exactly a man-eater, but the pond's resident ducks should sleep easier tonight... it's illegal to keep alligators as pets in Massachusetts without a state license. [Boston Herald, August 22]

Another way to fossilize

Seychelles giants breeding

Does the house always win?

Remember "-icide" means to kill, part 227

All venomous, some deliver

We move in all directions when we can

Rabbit-proof fence, dingo-proof fence, toad what?

Are they worried about salmonella?

Sixty years in the desert

How many snakes in Blackpool?

1,205 Stars fall back to earth

Frog and Turtle Tunnels

Chytrid appeal

Also thanks to the folks who sent clippings which I will use next month and to those of you who are about to send some clippings. This column runs on the material sent by its regular readers. Send whole pages of newspaper or magazines with date/publication slug and your name on each page to me.

October 2003

Things don't go better for coqui

Fangs for the memories?

Or just par for the course?

Amphibians continue decline on all continents

• New Zealand's native frog populations are so low, that researchers can't be sure if that's a natural condition or one caused by recent die offs. The chytrid fungus has been identified in New Zealand, but perhaps a greater danger comes from common mosquito fish, Gambusia sp. Mosquito fish eat frog eggs, small tadpoles and even tadpoles their own size by nibbling at the tadpoles' tails. Mosquito fish have been widely introduced around the world. Meanwhile 15 species of frogs have disappeared entirely from Australia. [MOKO, newsletter of the New Zealand Herpetological Society, June 2003]
  
  
• Ranavirus has been implicated in unexpected and catastrophic die offs of tadpoles and young frogs. The first reports of the virus from Ontario have sparked a request for information about any dead tadpole or juvenile frogs found in Ontario. You can visit http://www.trentu.ca/biology/tadpoles/welcome.htm for more information or to make a report online. [Amphibian Voice, 13:1 Spring 2003 from Bob Johnson]
  
  
• Australian researchers have developed a mix of water and salts in which they wash frogs for 15 minutes after which the solution can be tested to reveal the presence or absence of chytrid fungus. "The chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) may have already contributed to the extinction of six frog species in Australia. It first appeared there in 1993; now more than 30 species carry the disease, including seven under threat. The fungus also infects toads and salamanders in New Zealand, the United States, South America and Europe. [Nature News Service, MOKO, February 2003]

Tortoise T and H

Had to happen someday

Deja vu for the umpteenth time

• A woman with her two grandchildren found two tiny turtles while walking along a beach next to the sea in Florida. Even with all those clues, it never occurred to the grandmother that these tiny turtles might be sea turtles, let alone potentially 400 pound loggerhead sea turtles. So she permitted the children to take the turtles with them in a plastic bag all the way from Florida to the upper Midwest. She kept one, but when the grandchildren brought their turtle home to Indianapolis, their mother called officials for help. She did the right thing. The turtles are being cared for by the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and the Indianapolis Zoo. They will be encouraged to grow a little and eventually released. [The Chicago Tribune, August 3, 2003 from Ray Boldt]
  
  
• A 38-year-old man faces 15 years in prison and a $750,000 fine if convicted of smuggling dozens of protected animals into the United States. In January, 198 fly river turtles, 25 Indian star tortoises and three monitor lizards were shipped into the U.S. in a box labeled books. The man, a native of Singapore, was arrested in June when he came into the U.S. [Miami Herald, July 31, 2003 from Alan Rigerman]
  
  
• Key Biscayne gardeners are upset because a tribe of iguanas has taken to chomping the local flower beds and lawns. The animals are probably released pets, the Miami Herald now calls them a "Godzilla-sized problem." One park manager suspects that his local flock of spiny-tailed iguanas is eating peacock hatchlings as well as his prettiest exotic plants. "South Florida has had a small population of wild iguanas for many years, but it's only in recent years that their numbers have grown out of control and their diet has expanded. So far, plant lovers have not found an effective way to stop them," reports the Herald. [August 1, 2003 from Alan Rigerman]

Some odds: 1/1000 or .001

• "Biologists estimate that just one of every 1,000 eggs laid survives to become an adult [sea] turtle," according to the Orlando Sentinel, which adds "About 90 percent of the nesting in the United States takes place on the east coast of Florida... Last year, 62,905 loggerhead turtles nested in 27 coastal counties in Florida." The primary consumers of sea turtle eggs are natural predators, natural causes and egg poachers. "Active black markets for the eggs - one in Riviera Beach and another... in West Palm Beach" have sprung up. A state law that took effect on July 1 stipulates that egg poachers who have 12 or more eggs will be charged with a felony with penalties up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Catching the poachers, however, is rare, even though officers have night vision goggles and other high tech goodies. [July 27, 2003 from Bill Burnett]
  
  
• A $1,000 bounty has been offered for information relating to the theft of loggerhead sea turtles from nests on the Marquesas, a remote chain of islands off Key West. The recent egg snatching was discovered by a US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist during routine turtle nesting surveys who said, "I have walked these beaches for 18 years. It was like a guy doing brain surgery with a hatchet." [The Miami Herald, July 13, 2003 from Alan Rigerman]
  
  
• Since the egg market is based on a mistaken belief that the eggs have aphrodisiac powers, and after watching the bush-aphrodisiac market in China dry up as Viagra became widely available, perhaps herpetologists should sponsor Viagra billboards. The slogan perhaps, "Don't be a yolk-el, take the blue!"
  
  
• A-69-year-old man on St. Croix, Virgin Islands has been sentenced to one year of probation for taking 13 hawksbill sea turtle eggs. The Virgin Islands Daily News reports "Sea turtles once were so common in the Caribbean that Christopher Columbus recorded in his journal that he thought his ship had run aground on shoals when, in fact, sea turtles were bouncing off the hulls." [July 22, 2003 from Ms. G.E. Chow]

Expensive supper

Wildlife monitors

Give `em some Gator-aid

Record holder

Deliberate fire gets out of hand

Chillin' in Florida

Gator hunting, 2003

• A class in Tampa on how to hunt an alligator was protested by about 20 animal rights activists. The annual gator season runs from September 1 to October 8. Hunters have to apply for a $270 permit which are issued by lottery. [Miami Herald, August 4, 2003 from Alan Rigerman]
  
  
• Gator hunters in Florida are actually going out at night to hunt alligators without guns. Hunters can only use hand-held harpoons, snatch hooks and manually operated spears, spearguns, crossbows and the old standby, bows and arrows. The state plans to issue permits to about 2,300 people to take no more than two alligators each. The hunts are not a population control program but a way to for the public to make use of this renewable resource, according to an alligator management biologist. Animal rights activists oppose the hunt because of the "barbaric methods," according to one activist. [Miami Herald, September 1, 2003 from Alan Rigerman]

Dinosaurs and Expeditions, continued

CHS members may lose pets

Thanks to everyone who contributed recently and to Ray Boldt, Ms. G.E. Chow, Jim Buskirk, Alan Rigerman, Mrs. P.L. Beltz, Eloise Mason, K.S. Mierzwa, and Wes von Papineäu for stuff they sent which I enjoyed reading but couldn't summarize for this column. You can (and really could) contribute, too. Take whole pages of newspapers or magazines, leave the publication slugs up there in the corners and put your name on each piece. Those little labels they keep sending us in junk mail are great for this task. Fold a minimum of times and mail to me.

November 2003

New Salamander Described

Two new contributors in one month!

My other new contributor, Donna Moe sent a piece from the Kankakee Daily Journal, (October 23, 2003) which tells how a 10-year-old Kentucky boy found a two headed black king snake. The 8.5-inch snake hadn't eaten since it was found, so they turned it over to a herp enthusiast for care.

Not gone yet

• A lizard which had not been seen in the wild since it was discovered in 1971 has been found again in the eastern Indian state of Orissa. The Barkudia skink (Barkudia insularis was found on Badakuda Island in a brackish lagoon. The four lizards seen appear to be healthy, the full size of the population is unknown. [October 6, 2003: The News Tribune, Tacoma Washington from Marty Marcus and The Honolulu Advertiser from Ms. G.E. Chow]
  
  
• In June, scientists in the Queensland National Park announced they had found a male Lavarack's turtle which had been presumed to be extinct because the only previously found members of this species were all fossils! What happened to the turtle? It was flown, without a mate to Park headquarters in Brisbane and put on display. [Chuck Shepherd, News of the Weird, The News Tribune, October 1, 2003 from Marty Marcus]
  
  
• Not quite so recent, but still in the lost-and-found department, are the Mississippi gopher frogs (Rana capito) which researchers at the Memphis Zoo are trying to spawn in captivity. The frog used to be fairly common all over the southern coastal plain in the U.S., but died out and were presumed extinct. In 1987, they were found at one pond from which 75 tadpoles were taken for the breeding program. The species received endangered species status in 2001. Less than 50 frogs are believed to persist in the wild. [Memphis, Tennessee Commercial Appeal, September 26, 2003 from Bill Burnett]

Back in the Shallows again!

• Reuters news agency reported that nearly 100,000 tadpoles of the Puerto Rican crested toad which were raised in zoos around the world have been repatriated to the Caribbean island in the past decade. Unfortunately, as with most small vertebrates, less than one percent grow to adulthood in the wild. [October 24, 2003]
  
  
• China's Xinhua news agency reported that 250 captive bred giant salamanders were released into the largest reservoir in Guandong Province. [October 6, 2003 from Mrs. P.L. Beltz]

Cricket frogs still missing

It's Halloween, not April Fool's

"PERTH, Australia -- An award-winning British film producer and conservationist pleaded guilty Thursday to 33 charges of trying to smuggle 187 frogs and reptiles out of the country but said he would fight a charge of subjecting them to cruelty. .. [the man] was arrested at Perth International Airport on October 20, after customs officials found 187 frogs, lizards, snakes, 26 reptile eggs and some insects in his suitcases... [The man is the] producer of the British wildlife program, Survival, pleaded guilty to 31 state offenses for which he could be fined up to $87,000. He also pleaded guilty to a federal charge of removing animals from Australia, but he entered an innocent plea to a second federal charge of cruelty to animals. Both charges carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail. Prosecutors allege [his] suitcases had held 27 different species of Western Australian wildlife, including three cockroaches. The reptiles included types of geckos, skinks and snakes. Frogs included clicking froglets, squelching froglets and desert tree frogs. The court was told that [the man], who has worked for National Geographic and written several books on amphibians, acknowledged to customs officers he knew his actions were illegal. He also allegedly admitted to police that in January, he had smuggled two spiny-tailed geckos out of the country. That admission led to one of the federal charges. [He] was released on bail, to reappear in court on December 12. Western Australia's Department of Conservation and Land Management said the animals were discovered by X-ray at the airport, following a tip-off from a member of the public. Officers have since released the animals back into the wild." [October 31, 2003]

The Wisdom of Old Age

Exceptional Lake Griffin

Culling improves the breed?

• More than 2,000 applied, but only 180 gator hunters were chosen in Georgia's first official alligator hunt since gators were placed on the Endangered Species List in 1987. "state officials hope the hunt will curb the problem of gators getting into carports and swimming pools," according to USA Today. Only the hunters paid for the $50 license which lets them take one four-foot or longer alligator. [September 16, 2003 from Bill Burnett]
  
  
• Gator are now being hunted in Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana. Florida officials estimate their state has more than a million alligators while Louisiana's may number more than 1.5 million. As Newsweek reported, these high numbers "would be fine if [alligators] weren't such a pain." All states require catching the alligator before killing it, pointing out "you don't want zinging bullets around [because] they tend to skip [over water]." The hunt brings in a lot more to local economies than just the price of meat and skins. Louisiana estimates that combined impact on their economy from alligators totals $54 million a year including tourism, hides, meat and other processing. [September 15, 2003 from Bill Burnett] The $54 million annual economy boost in Louisiana seems like a lot, but works out to $36 per living gator.
  
  
• "Family seeks new dog after gator killed pet" Only the day before, the family's pet sheepdog escaped from the 9-year-old child set to mind her, ran through a hole in a fence towards a Florida canal and was seized and killed by an 8-foot long alligator that was later killed by trappers. [The Daytona Beach News-Journal, September 15, 2003 from Bill Burnett] The story probably should have been subtitled, "Why you should have and use a well-fitting leash on your pet at all times."
  
  
• "A 5-year-old Lake County [Florida] boy was in the hospital... recovering from an alligator bite he got while swimming in a Sumter County lake..." with his dog splashing around in the late afternoon. This almost recipe for disaster ended well because the child was wearing a life jacket and popped back up to the surface when the alligator let go. Trappers suggest the gator realized it wasn't the dog he had caught and opened his mouth. The gator was later trapped and killed. [Orlando Sentinel, August 19, 2003]
  
  
• "Since 1948, there have been 200 unprovoked alligator attacks in Florida on humans. Twelve people have died. The latest death occurred in June when a 12-year-old boy was attacked while swimming with friends," according to the Orlando Sentinel, August 17, 2003] As all herpetologists are aware: (1) The standard times of day for alligator activity are early morning and late afternoon, when most other wildlife is equally active. (2) Do not feed any gators as that will make them unafraid of people and more likely to attack. (3) Swimming in Florida lakes is strongly discouraged due to the high concentration of alligators in the lakes. (4) Don't let your dog splash around in the surface waters of the states of Florida or Louisiana if you still want to have a dog.

Encouraged to do what?

Vliet's new "Crunch Bar"

Actions speak louder than words

A previous article in the Leesburg, Florida Daily Commercial pointed out that ""Gopher tortoises were listed as threatened in 1975 but as their numbers grew, the designation changed in 1978 to a species of special concern. Since 1988 it has been illegal to kill them" without an incidental take permit. One small town mayor pointed out that part of the problem is the system was designed for the one or two homes a year that used to be built to the five or 10 per month that are going up now. Next up for his town is an 800 home development on about 380 acres; the mayor promised that tortoises would be looked for and considered on that project. [August 16, 2003 from Bill Burnett]

Gecko Tape

Expensive Fish Food

December 2003

Hoppy New Year!

Quote of the month

A year without snake soup...

Fangs for the profits

Smiley's frogs found

I want to hold your toepad?

"Toad tossing blacks out town"

Free pets, or pests?

Real or just a slow news day?

Finally two salamander stories

• "Amphibian Casanovas beware: the ladies aren't likely to take infidelity lying down. Male salamanders returning home after a night of disloyalty can expect a beating... [The study] surprised behavioral researchers: most instances of infidelity punishment place females on the receiving end of the abuse. Female red-backed salamanders... don't just take it - they dish it out too... 'This is the only species I know of where the male is intimidating the female and the female returns the favor,' says [the researcher]. No one is sure how common infidelity is among salamanders. But male red-backed salamanders are known to be aggressive toward female partners that have visited other males. But as males and females of this species are evenly matched in size... 'It almost looks like the females are waiting at home with rolling pins when these poor unfaithful males come back,' [he added]... The tactic is intended to coerce males into being monogamous, he suspects... Until now, nobody has looked into how the monogamy [in these salamanders] is enforced... Pheromones from a male's mistress stick to his skin... The game is up when his partner spots this amphibian equivalent of lipstick on his collar... Because the male salamanders do not help to care for their young, it isn't clear why the females want them to stick around. The most likely explanation is that the females are trying to keep their partners from bringing other females back to their territory, where they could compete for resources such as food and shelter." [Nature Magazine, November 21, 2003]
  
  
• For those of you old enough to remember the 80s, you may recall wonderful puzzles sold at the toy store across the street from Treasure Island Foods in Old Town. They were called "Shmuzzles" and each piece was shaped like an Escherian salamander. Each piece interlocked with every other piece in three different ways. This led to huge connectivity, but a low probability of success of the thing ever getting assembled in any configuration even close to the cover design. They were also fabulously expensive, which led to us just staring at them a lot and never actually getting one. Modern manufacturing technology has brought salamander shmuzzles down to the affordable. You can see how cool they are at http://shmuzzles.com/ and watch animations of how they assemble. Reminds me of springtime at Ryerson in the pond.

New Frog Scare

Tourism just wasn't an argument

Northerly Sea Turtles

• More than 400 endangered leatherback sea turtles were reported off Canada's East Coast near Halifax, Nova Scotia. This tops the previous record of 200 in 1998. Scientists do not know if there are (a) more turtles off Nova Scotia than before or (b) if the fisherman's reporting network is just seeing more turtles. Fishermen have been telling tales of turtles there for years, but even people with turtle-talking fisher-folk in their families say there is an increase, particularly in 2003. Flipper tags installed off Cape Breton have been reported by researchers from Trinidad, Costa Rica and Panama. Since they eat jellyfish, and the area offshore Canada has zillions of jellies, researchers suggest they feed there from May to October and turtles seen after that are just late. Of course, disrupted ecosystems produce more jellyfish, so the increase in turtles may be related to an increase in jellyfish. Even the researchers admit they're confused. One said, "It's a year I don't expect to see anything like again. It was remarkable." [Nova Scotia Leatherback Turtle Working Group, http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2003/11/30/273221-cp.html]
  
  
• Researchers further south along Cape Cod are reporting that the sea turtles they've found stranded this fall have been in better shape than in years past. The survival rate during transport to care facilities has been higher than in the past. Curiously of the 29 living turtles, 27 are Kemp's ridley turtles which are the most endangered of all the sea turtles. One of the other two is a green turtle, the last one is described as a possible hybrid between a ridley and a green. [Cape Cod On-Line, November 28, 2003, http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/strandedturtles28.htm]