HERP NEWS 218/2009
THE OBSERVER (Sarnia, Ontario) 06 August 09 In hot
water over turtle possession (Neil Bowen)
Possession of
endangered turtles landed a Scarborough man in jail for nine months Tuesday in
Sarnia court.
Pak Chung, 56,
a herbalist, pleaded guilty to the August 2007 possession of 26 Blanding's
turtles and one spotted turtle in violation of the federal Species At Risk Act.
The 2004
federal law was created to protect endangered plants and animals from
extinction.
The turtles
belong in the wild, not in the pet trade or whatever, said David Critchlow of
the Ministry of Natural Resources, who had been involved in the original
investigation.
Jail time for
wildlife offences is not common and Chung's sentence was the longest in
Critchlow's knowledge.
Chung's 13 previous
convictions for similar offences and $28,000 in unpaid fines made further fines
"completely unacceptable," said Justice Mark Hornblower.
Fines would
only be seen as a licence and in Chung's case a free licence, he said.
Chung's plans
for the turtles is unknown but herbalist treatment of patients was a strong
possibility, said a person involved in the case.
The crimes
were a clash of cultures, said defence lawyer Peter Peterson.
Chung's
practise of herbal-ism is not in keeping with the law, he said.
The hardy,
intelligent and attractive turtles are appealing targets for poachers who sell
them as pets, to use in Asian medicines and exotic meals.
Such turtles
sell for as much as $175 (US) each.
Canadian law
protects people's rights to maintain their culture as long as the country's
laws are followed, said Hornblower.
Chung was also
sentenced to presentence custody that was the equivalent of four months after
he also pleaded guilty to buying deer meat and possession of bullfrogs obtained
through violations of provincial wildlife laws and violation of a previous
court order prohibiting his possession of wildlife.
Chung was
arrested after two vehicles were followed by conservation officers from Walpole
Island to a highway rest area near Dutton.
The investigation
had started after a turtle trapping camp had been found on the island.
An exchange of
an assortment of animals was underway at the rest stop.
Along with the
endangered turtles there were bullfrogs, snapping turtles, fish and three large
frozen pieces of meat from white-tailed deer.
The turtles
were returned to the island except for the spotted turtle that had died.
It is possible
some of the turtles did not survive in the wild due to injuries from the
trapping and transportation, said federal prosecutor Michael Robb.
Loss of the
long-living but slow to reproduce turtles could have had have a huge impact on
the local turtle population, said Critchlow.
Neither turtle
is capable of reproduction until they are approximately 25 years old.
The Blanding's
population growth could have been set back decades due to the number removed by
Chung, said Critchlow.
The low
reproductive capacity makes it difficult for turtle populations to recover from
habitat loss, road kill and poaching.
Spotted
turtles are an endangered species with less than 2,000 in Canada. The
Blanding's population is estimated to be 10,000.
Ontario's
southern Great Lakes area, including Walpole Island, is the prime habitat for
both.
http://www.theobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1686137
THE STAR (Toronto, Ontario) 06 August 09 Toronto
man jailed for capturing protected turtles
Sarnia (CP): A
Toronto man who pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawfully capturing protected
turtles has been sentenced to nine months in jail and three months probation on
federal wildlife charges.
Court in
Sarnia heard that Pak Sun Chung was found in possession of 26 Blanding's
turtles and a spotted turtle in August 2007, contrary to the federal Species at
Risk Act.
He also
received 106 days in jail and a lifetime ban from hunting or fishing in Ontario
under the provincial Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act.
The turtles
were taken from the waters of the Walpole Island First Nation, south of Sarnia.
At sentencing
this week, the court heard it was the second time in less than six weeks that
Chung had been arrested for illegal possession of specially protected turtles,
and that he was already under prohibition from engaging in those activities.
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/677379
THE ADVANCE (Yarmouth, Nova Scotia) 06 August
09 Leatherback
turtle found on Cherry Hill Beach (Mark Roberts)
A dead
leatherback turtle, an endangered species, was found on Cherry Hill Beach July
30.
Cherry Hill
resident, Tom Bannister said he watched two researchers from Dalhousie
University take measurements, samples and photographs. They also removed the
head of the large turtle.
“They keep the
heads for educational purposes and also because they hope someday that
researchers will be able to correlate data from the skull with age or use with
the skulls as a source of other data. The samples go to Europe where there is a
DNA database of Leatherback populations from around the world.”
He continued.
“It was interesting to see the interior of the neck after the head was removed.
The neck had spines (sort of like catfish whiskers) that function like teeth.
They lay away from the mouth into the body and have the dual purpose of
shredding the consumed jellyfish and preventing it from coming back out.”
The turtle was
bloated and, therefore, probably has been dead for a lengthy time. The cause
was unknown at deadline.
http://www.novanewsnow.com/article-364060-Leatherback-turtle-found-on-Cherry-Hill-Beach.html
NIAGRA FALLS REVIEW (Ontario) 06
August 09 Smuggling snakes, tree frogs proves costly (Karena Walter)
Customs
officials are used to finding people trying to slither across the border with
undeclared goods, but one case turned out to be ssssurprising.
A 43-year-old
Thorold man was caught with four venomous snakes and six tree frogs hidden in
the lining of his jacket when he crossed the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge.
Anthony
Preston pleaded guilty Wednesday in St. Catharines court to attempting to
smuggle the 10 reptiles. He was fined $1,000.
Federal
prosecutor Darren Anger said the fine reflected the fact officers' safety was
put at risk when they discovered the pit vipers April 25.
Preston
entered Canada around 8 p. m. and said "no" when asked the standard
questions about whether he was bringing food, plants or animals into the
country, Anger said.
But officials
were aware of a reptile show across the border and an inspection of Preston
found two white-lipped island pit vipers and two Vogel's Beautiful pit vipers
in containers in his coat lining.
Six American
green tree frogs, which were food for the snakes, were also in the jacket.
"He paid
$800 for the snakes and the frogs were thrown in for free," Anger said.
The creatures
were confiscated. Anger said that if Preston had presented proper U. S. Fish
and Wildlife documentation for exportation, they would have been allowed into
Canada.
Preston, who
represented himself in court, told Judge Joseph Nadel the documentation costs
about $60, but takes several months to get.
"I take
it you're a snake aficionado and like to collect these things," Nadel
said.
Preston told
the judge he was going to declare the snakes, but changed his mind because he
knew they'd be taken away.
"I
thought I would take my chances and I lost."
http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1687710
WTOP (Washington, DC) 06 August 09 Snakes
in the attic! Fire yields slithery surprise (Hank Silverberg)
Hayfield, Va.: A slithery surprise awaited firefighters
responding to a smoky house fire Thursday morning.
Dozens of
snakes, scorpions, lizards and other reptiles were trapped in an attic after a
fire broke out at a home in the 5700 block of Shropshire Court around 8:40 a.m.
Five people
inside the home got out safely. But 30 snakes died, officials say.
Zachary
Frodge, who was breeding the snakes and other animals for sale, looked dejected
as he described his menagerie.
"I had 35
snakes, seven scorpions, five lizards," Frodge said.
Two snakes
that survived the blaze were in a cage on the front lawn as firefighters
cleaned up the scene.
Fairfax County
Fire Department spokesman Dan Schmidt says they were able to knock down the
fire relatively quickly once they knew more about the snakes.
"The one
thing we really wanted to know was if the snakes were poisonous or not,"
Schmidt says.
Non-poisonous
ball pythons, corn snakes, rat snakes, Columbia red tail boa constrictors,
bearded dragons and a green iguana were among the animals killed, Frodge says.
Damage to the
home, which is in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County, was extensive.
Officials say
the accidental fire was caused by an extension cord. Damage is estimated at
$90,000.
The fire began
in an upstairs bedroom.
Fairfax
County's animal control officer was also on the scene. It's not clear if Frodge
will face any legal problems because of the reptiles.
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=1734428
DAWN (Karachi, Pakistan) 06 August 09 Wildlife
smugglers get creative
Photo: A shipment of snakes from South
America arrived in the US with the right permits, but customs officers found
that most of them had died. It turned out that the snakes were full of condoms
stuffed with cocaine.
Geneva: To slip their illegal cargo through customs,
wildlife smugglers still use traditional methods like bribery and threats but
can also go creative — like hiding live geckos in their underpants.
John Sellar,
chief enforcement officer at CITES, the UN agency against illegal wildlife
trade, gave several examples.
Caviar might
add a touch of class to the average dinner table, but it might have gotten there
thanks to prostitution, bribery and death threats orchestrated by the Russian
mafia.
Sellar said
the ‘crime’ starts with the poaching of sturgeon from the Caspian Sea and the
processing of caviar.
In one
instance, the delicacy was then smuggled into a Middle Eastern country where
officials were offered cash bribes or prostitutes or, if they did not comply,
given death threats to issue genuine CITES documents for the illegal caviar.
‘With the
documents, the caviar then enters national markets as genuine certified
caviar,’ said Sellar.
Once the
caviar is certified as legal, the trade helps the mafia to launder their money.
Criminals have
been caught smuggling animals such as beetles or snakes with proper CITES
documentation, but using them as drug mules.
Sellar pointed
to a case where a crate of beetles were found dead at customs. ‘Officials
thought initially that they must have been smuggled for collectors, but they
were all stuffed with amphetamines,’ he explained.
In another
case, a shipment of snakes from South America arrived in the United States with
the right permits, but US customs officers found that most of them had died.
It turned out
that the snakes were full of condoms stuffed with cocaine, Sellar said.
If that
shipment had passed through, the criminals would have made money in several
ways — not only the drugs, but also the snakes would have earned a tidy sum,
dead or alive, said Sellar.
Alive, they
could have been sold to collectors; dead, they could have been offloaded for
their skins, he explained.
And the
downright bizarre
Some
individuals who want to bring rare birds across a border sometimes smuggle in
eggs before they have hatched, said Sellar.
‘You will get
men and women with special constructed vests with eggs,’ he said. ‘There are
women smuggling eggs in their bras or men smuggling live lizards and geckos in
their underpants.’
THE PRESS (York, UK) 06 August 09 Walkers
warned of adder danger on Strensall Common (Mark Stead)
Dog-Walkers enjoying
a stroll around a York common have been put on alert against some slithery
customers.
Venomous
adders – which can inflict a nasty bite if they feel they are under threat –
have been spotted in the Strensall area as the summer warmth drives them out of
the undergrowth.
Now an
organisation which protects the city’s wildlife is asking for anybody who comes
face-to-face with the snakes to get in touch with them as they aim to compile a
picture of where the creatures are calling home. The first sign of the lurking
adders came at the weekend when Christine Green, who lives near the common, was
exercising her daughter’s two dogs on part of the patch of open land.
“We were on
part of the common known as the bivouac area, quite near the car park, when my
partner suddenly said ‘Stop – there’s a snake!’” said Christine, 52.
“It was only
about two metres away from us and just sunning itself on the footpath, and we
both just froze and took a close look at it – I could tell it was an adder
because of its colour and the diamond shapes on its skin.
“The snake was
probably between 18 inches and two feet long and I was really surprised to see
it there. I’ve never seen something like this on the common before.
“I just wanted
to warn people that there may be creatures like this and to be careful, because
they are venomous and they’re obviously coming out into the open at this time
of year. But it’s also nice to see that wildlife such as this is still around
and has not been killed off.”
Adders are the
UK’s only venomous snake, but they are regarded as placid and only likely to
bite if they feel threatened or if people try to catch or handle them.
“However,
their venom can be lethal to pets.
A spokeswoman
for Yorkshire Wildlife Trust said: “Our lowland adder project has been working
hard to develop prime adder habitats on selected heath sites.
“Both the
habitat and the unique species of snake are extremely threatened and this
project will help restore vital habitats, which are also essential for many
other species of plant and animal.
“Strensall
Common forms part of an internationally important lowland heath.”
Anybody who
sees adders in their neighbourhood should email lowland adder conservation
officer Claire Jackson at claire.jackson@ywt.org.uk
http://www.thepress.co.uk/news/4532208.Walkers_warned_of_adder_danger_on_Strensall_Common/
LAKE COUNTY NEWS SUN (Illinois) 06
August 09 County to build home for snakes
The Lake
County Forest Preserve District will soon install a man-made over-wintering
site for western fox snakes at Fourth Lake Forest Preserve near Lindenhurst.
Installation
is expected to begin next week.
Fourth Lake
and its fen ecosystem are home to a variety of state-threatened and endangered
plant species and hosts the county's largest known population of western fox
snakes.
Currently, a
house near Fourth Lake Forest Preserve is the over-wintering site of the
largest known population of fox snakes in Lake County. These snakes utilize the
basement and adjacent crawl space of the "fox snake house" as a den
to survive the harsh winters.
For more than
12 years, Dr. Michael Corn of the College of Lake County has been studying
these snakes. Over 300 individual fox snakes have been captured, marked and
released from the basement of the house.
Forest
district officials said the snake house had previously been rented to tenants
who understood the importance of the hibernacula and allowed Corn to continue
his research on the population. However, the tenants of the house have recently
moved out and the land owner has sold the property.
With the heat
shut off, Corn and Rob Carmichael of the Wildlife Discovery Center collected
these snakes to protect them from likely death as a result of sub-zero temperatures.
Today, over 40 fox snakes are being housed at the College of Lake County until
the man-made hibernacula is installed.
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/news/1702710,5_1_WA06_FPSNAKES_S1-090806.article
THE TELEGRAPH (London, UK) 06 August 09 Sea
snake fools predators by making tail look like head
Despite being
highly poisonous, the yellow-lipped sea krait is vulnerable to attack while
probing for food with its tail exposed.
But it fools
sharks, carnivorous fish and birds with a sideways twist which makes the
snake's tail appear to be its head, which is recognisable by its distinct black
and yellow markings.
Even sharks
are wary of sea snake's heads because the creatures are among the most venomous
of all snakes.
The discovery
was made by Danish naturalist Dr Arne Rasmussen during a diving trip off
Bunaken Island in Indonesia.
Spotting one
of the snakes, he was surprised to see its "head" rear up towards him
while the tail investigated the coral.
Dr Rasmussen,
from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Conservation in
Copenhagen, only recognised the illusion when the real head emerged.
Each time the
snake stuck its head into a coral crevice, it twisted its tail. Viewed side-on,
the tail tip looked strikingly similar to the top of the snake's head.
Further
studies of 98 sea kraits housed in museums in Paris, Berlin and Copenhagen and
wild snakes in the Solomon Islands confirmed the find.
All had
distinctive long black bands on the tip of the head and tail as well as a
bright yellow horseshoe that was deeper in colour than markings on the rest of
the body.
"The
value of such an adaptation is twofold; it may increase the chances of
surviving predator attack by exposing a less 'vital' body part, but more
importantly it may deter attack in the first place if attackers perceive the
tail as the venomous snake's head," said Dr Rasmussen, whose research
appears in the journal Marine Ecology.
Other species
of sea snake - such as the thick-tailed sea snake, the curtus sea snake and the
Persian Gulf sea snake - may employ the same trick, Dr Rasmussen believes. All
have matching markings on the head and tail.
More than 65
species of sea snakes inhabit the tropical waters of the Southern Hemisphere,
and all are extremely poisonous.
THE STATESMAN (Kolkata, India) 06 August
09 Are
reptiles chasing legislators?
Bhubaneswar: Snakes continued to haunt legislators in
Orissa. It had ventured into the Assembly during session twice causing
disruptions and panic last month, while today one of the slippery reptiles was
found at the MLA Guest House lawn.
It was a 7foot
long non-poisonous rat snake. A driver noticed it and promptly the Snake Help
Line was alerted.
The help line
activist, who had failed to trace the cobra which had reportedly entered the
Assembly on home demand discussion day last month, however, managed to catch
the rat snake today.
From the
Legislature to the MLA guesthouse, snakes seem to have taken a liking to the
political domain.
In fact, quite
a sizable number of legislators were worried when a staff of the Assembly said
he had seen a cobra in the Well of the House on 23 July. The House was
adjourned and experts launched a massive combing operation. They failed to find
the cobra.
Members
expressed apprehension and the next day Assembly session commenced with all
holes sealed, doctors and snake help line activists staying put on the Assembly
premises for any exigency. Again on 25 July , a non-poisonous wolf snake was
caught in the Well of the House and that, too, immediately after the Assembly
had adjourned for the day.
This again
caused considerable anxiety amongst members who wondered how the snake could
enter the House again when it was secured and sealed.
Today’s
appearance of the reptile in the lawns of MLA guesthouse, is said to be very
normal as it is an open space and rate snakes are plenty in the state capital,
which was a forest before the capital was carved out of it.
It is also
pertinent to note that Bhubaneswar is perhaps the only state capital in the
country which still has a "traditional snake charmers' village" in
its periphery.
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=9&id=296162&usrsess=1
THE STATESMAN (Kolkata, India) 06 August
09 Snakes
claim three lives
Kendrapara: In separate incidents, at least three people
including a woman died of snake bite during the last 24 hours.
With the
latest reports of death, the toll due to snake bite has gone up to 17 across
this district since the onset of monsoon. Dependence on sorcery and quacks
resulted in most of the deaths recorded in the recent months, according to
official sources.
The victims
bitten to death by poisonous snakes are ~ Keshab Chandra Jena (50) of Kurunti
village, Bishnu Ch Cethy (42) of Alailo village, Matan Swain (22) of Radhanagar
village.
Though the
victims were rushed to the nearby government-run health centres they could not
be saved. "They could have been saved had they been brought to the hospitals
on time," said a health department official.
“The people in
most of the village areas are still under the false notion that snake charmers
and sorcerers can save a person bitten by snake. Most of the deaths recorded in
recent months was due to the fact that the patients were brought late to the
hospitals. By the time they were administered anti-venom vaccines, it was too
late,” said a senior health department official at the district headquarters
hospital here.
The health
centres across the district are equipped with adequate stock of life-saving
anti-venom vaccines. But people bitten by superstition rely more on snake
charmers and sorcerers.
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=9&id=296161&usrsess=1
BRADENTON HERALD (Florida) 06 August 09 Python
menace: Sightings keep residents jittery (Nick Walter)
Manatee: Nina Turlington was walking a pair of
Chihuahuas in her east Bradenton neighborhood one night recently when she
noticed cats pawing at a bush by her garage.
She pointed
the beam from her flashlight under the leaves.
“Oh, my God,”
Turlington said. “This can’t be.”
Turlington had
been talking to friends about the rash of loose pythons in south Florida, and a
3 1/2-foot ball python had taken up residence in her yard. She called 911.
“They asked
how big he was,” Turlington said. “I said I have no idea. I’m not getting close
enough to this snake to know how big he is. I just want someone to come and get
him.”
Justin
Matthews of Matthews Wildlife Rescue captured the snake in the 4900 block of
34th Avenue East, and is keeping it at his facility at Mixon Fruits Farms.
Matthews is also keeping a 14-foot python, nicknamed “Sweetie,” captured
recently a block from a Sweetbay supermarket in East Manatee.
Public
awareness about the python menace increased dramatically after a 2-year-old
girl was strangled by a Burmese python in central Florida July 1.
Gov. Charlie
Crist visited the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Wednesday and said
capturing the giant creatures is a public safety issue.
Wildlife
officials touted the captures of six snakes in the first two weeks of an
eradication program. But they added there may be more than 100,000 of them
slithering through the saw grass of the Everglades, some of them up to 26 feet
long. Most of them are in remote western Miami-Dade County and in the Upper
Keys.
Crist visited
the Commission to get a status report on controlling the python population.
“My greatest
concern is for the people,” he said.
The Commission
began a permit program allowing reptile experts to capture and kill Burmese
pythons on state-managed lands around the Everglades.
The U.S. House
Judiciary Committee recently approved legislation that would prohibit
importation and interstate commerce of Burmese and African rock pythons, which
the committee deemed the most dangerous, for the pet trade. The bill, H.R.
2811, has moved to the full House of Representatives for consideration.
The sale of
exotic pets, and the ensuing costs of attempted containment of the snakes, will
ultimately cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a press
release from The Humane Society.
Although there
have been attempts to control python populations, it may be too late.
“It’s way too
late for pythons,” said Roy “Chick” Parker, an environmentalist and former
president of Manatee-Sarasota Fish and Game. “There’s no way they can get them
all. They have no natural enemies.”
The reports of
loose pythons seem to have made some Floridians a bit paranoid.
A 17-foot,
2-inch, 207-pound Burmese python was caught and destroyed on private property
in Okeechobee County; and a five-foot python was found crawling across a
Daytona street. Now, Matthews said he’s received calls from Manatee County
residents about harmless snake species such as black rat racers and yellow
rattlesnakes.
Still,
Matthews thinks it’s a good idea to prohibit Burmese and African rock pythons
from being imported into the United States.
“I don’t think
people should be able to have large constrictors without a permit,” Matthews
said. “They ought to have really strict penalties for people who let snakes get
away. I think it should be a criminal penalty.”
Pythons could
possibly endanger agriculture, but it’s not likely, according to Mac Carraway
of SMR Farms.
“It hasn’t
really hit our radar in terms of something affecting our operations,” Carraway
said. “I haven’t heard of (pythons) being a threat to cattle. But theoretically
they could be.”
http://www.bradenton.com/847/story/1621394.html
ORLANDO SENTINEL (Florida) 06 August 09 Is ban
on pet pythons next? (Anthony Colarossi)
Florida
wildlife officials are considering a ban on Burmese pythons and other exotic
reptiles after a pet python killed a 2-year-old Sumter County girl last month.
Col. Julie
Jones, director of law enforcement for the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission, told Gov. Charlie Crist on Wednesday that her agency
is studying the option.
However,
commission officials later said that the wording and implementation of a ban
likely will not come this year.
"The
colonel's point is that we are considering all things, and that [a ban] is
certainly one of them," said Pat Behnke, agency spokeswoman in
Tallahassee.
Non-native
snakes have gained statewide attention after a python escaped its enclosure in
rural Oxford on July 1 and suffocated 2-year-old Shaiunna Hare as she slept in
her crib. Tens of thousands of the constrictors may be thriving in the
Everglades, state officials say.
Any ban
probably would cover Burmese pythons and other designated "reptiles of
concern," including four python types, the green anaconda and the Nile
monitor, Behnke said. Such reptiles might be barred as pets but allowed in
educational displays.
Andrew Wyatt,
president of the United States Association of Reptile Keepers, said talk of a
state ban on Burmese pythons amounts to little more than political
grandstanding, given that people who have the snakes legally already must have
permits, pay annual fees and keep the snakes in secure containers.
The owner of
the snake responsible for the child's death did not have the state license to
keep the reptile.
"Whoever
is legally keeping Burmese pythons is stepping up to professional
standards," Wyatt said. "We're coming up on an election year, and
this Burmese python issue won't go away. All these Florida politicians want
their little piece of the pie. Everybody wants to be perceived as being on top
of the issue and leading the way."
Wyatt
predicted that wildlife officials ultimately won't change much. Florida lacks
the resources to have "snake police" checking to see whether people
are in compliance.
"The
animals are already here. They're already in Florida," Wyatt said.
"If you make them worthless and totally illegal, then what are their
owners going to do?"
Meanwhile,
state Rep. Darren Soto, D-Orlando, questioned whether the wildlife commission
has authority to ban problem reptiles without legislative authorization. He
said state Sen. Lee Constantine, R- Altamonte Springs, proposed a ban on
importation of "reptiles of concern" during a discussion he and Soto
had with Jones and others this week.
Soto said he
and Constantine have been planning to introduce legislation that would deal
with the issue. He said he was surprised that Jones went public with the idea
at this point.
"The
Senator and I dispute the fact that the measures would not call for legislative
action as the FWC does not currently possess legislatively delegated authority
to enact bans," Soto wrote in an e-mail.
Beyond the
ownership issue, the child's death and the enormous growth of Burmese python
populations in and around the Everglades have prompted state and federal
officials to organize python hunts in South Florida.
Pythons can
grow to 26 feet and more than 200 pounds. Female Burmese can lay 50 to 100 eggs
at a time.
Although a ban
on the reptiles may be months away, the issue promises to remain key for state
wildlife officials. During a September wildlife commission meeting, Tim
Breault, director of FWC's Division of Habitat and Species Conservation, plans
to give an extended presentation on the Burmese python situation.
On Wednesday,
Breault said 110,000 Burmese pythons have been imported to the state since
1990, and tens of thousands may be loose on state and federal lands in South
Florida. Some suspect that pet owners who could no longer care for the animals
dumped the pythons in the wild. Others attribute the spread of the snakes to
the damage from Hurricane Andrew.
Pythons and
other reptiles of concern, he said, can threaten endangered native species,
such as the Key Largo wood rat and nesting water birds.
"The
unflighted young could be easy victims, and it's kind of a smorgasbord,
literally," Breault said. "It's just an open bar for these kind of
snakes. And they're big enough they could consume lots and lots of young
birds."
No humans have
been killed by the snakes in the wild, but Jones said aggressive eradication is
needed to prevent that from happening.
Crist agreed.
"We had a duty to take action to protect the people. We'll continue to do
whatever we need to protect them," he said.
This week,
wildlife commission Chairman Rodney Barreto wrote an editorial stating,
"It is unlawful to allow these exotic pets to escape or to release them
into the wild."
He noted that
the agency puts on "Non-native Pet Amnesty Days" during the year.
People who can no longer keep or care for non-native pets can bring them in
during those events to be adopted by people licensed to handle the snakes.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-python-ban-080609,0,5069219.story
RUTLAND HERALD (Vermont) 06 August 09 Letter:
No need to fear snake
On the front
page of last Thursday's Herald was a picture of a garter snake
restrained at the end of a stick with a two-sentence photo caption and no
further information. I feel that to portray a harmless yet frequently
persecuted and misunderstood species of snake in this manner without any
additional information was irresponsible and only helps to fuel the
misconceptions people already have about these beautiful animals.
It would have
been useful to explain that garter snakes, as well as most other species of
snake in Vermont, are more harmless than the common rose and that they do us
all a service by eating many of the common household and garden pests we all do
battle with on a regular basis. In truth, posting a photo of the snake being
handled at the end of a 10-foot pole implies that the animal is to be feared
and dealt with using extreme caution. This may, unfortunately, lead to the
unnecessary deaths of many snakes that otherwise might have been left alone at
the hands of people who can find a shovel faster than they can find a phone or
a neighborhood kid. It's great that this snake was returned to the wild and I
applaud the people who found it for not killing it on the spot. While the
intent of the photo may have been positive, the message it sent was not.
Kiley Briggs,
Shoreham
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20090806/OPINION02/908060301
WEST VIRGINIA METRONEWS (Charleston,
W Virginia) 06 August 09 The Snake Handling Talk-Show Host (Chris
Lawrence)
Morgantown:
General Norman Schwartzcoff once tweaked the media during a daily briefing
during the Gulf War by saying when the media starts covering itself, it's
running out of things to report on.
With all due respect to the general, I'm going to violate that policy
and turn in-house for what I believe is a pretty significant event. It could literally be called an on-air
transformation.
I have known
my friend and colleague Hoppy Kercheval, host of MetroNews Talkline, for nearly
20-years. He has a long-standing
absolute and overt fear of snakes.
Kercheval once told me the story of hiking with his then young son at
Coopers Rock State Forest and literally freezing up and breaking out in a cold
sweat when a timber rattler crawled across the path in front of them. Although the snake did no harm and was
likely just trying to put some distance between itself and the forest
intruders, it ruined Hoppy's afternoon with his boy. How unfortunate. The snake meant no harm and truly had only
done what snakes do, crawl in the wild.
However, this
past week on Talkline, Hoppy put aside his fears and agreed to hold a
snake.
Another good
friend of mine, Frank Jernejcic from the West Virginia DNR, obliged Hoppy by
bringing a black rat snake to the studio.
Frank is one of those guys who's on a mission to educate every human
being that snakes aren't a bad thing.
He's won many converts in his time.
Sadly, he has miles to go before his mission is complete. But, one by one, Frank preaches the
snake-friendly gospel and has been working on Hoppy for two years.
"He made
me mad a couple of years ago,” Frank told me after a previous edition of
Talkline when he brought a copperhead into the studio. "I was there for the local show
(Morgantown A-M on WAJR) and when he walked in he was furious and ordered me
out of there with the snake. I was
driving down the road and heard him say, 'The only good snake is a dead
snake!'"
Such words are
nails on a chalkboard to Jernejcic who's handled thousands of snakes from tiny
garter snakes all the way to a king cobra.
Through gentle
persuasion, Jernejcic wore down Hoppy's steeled resolve against the
serpent. Live and on the air, Frank
claimed a victory as Hoppy cradled the snake in his hands and calmly continued
the conversation. There were no
outbursts of profanity, no spastic muscular contortions trying to escape the
studio, and no cardiac arrest.
Kercheval calmly discussed snake biology, terminology, and the inherent
fear of snakes that are harbored by many.
"How am I
doing?" Kercheval quizzed Frank.
"I'm
impressed! You're doing
great!" Said the obviously elated
biologist.
Soon Kercheval
was inviting others into the studio and had become so comfortable he was asking
others, like show producer Kay Murray to join in. Murray also has an overt fear, but eventually
faced those fears and held on for a moment too.
"Hoppy
has become the teacher!" laughed Jernejcic.
"I'm a
snake handler," said Kercheval, "Time to break out in
verse."
You can hear
the entire segment by clicking the icon above.
I must admit,
I too once possessed a similar fear of snakes.
Growing up on the farm it wasn't uncommon to see them a lot. I can still see my grandmother at 80 wearing
one out with a hoe. My fear was a
learned behavior from her and others.
Over time, and
with some reinforcement from Frank, I learned snakes aren't the threat they are
often perceived to be. A little common
sense and rationalization of emotion goes a long way toward overcoming what is
truly the most extreme phobia of many.
Hats off to
Hoppy.
http://www.wvmetronews.com/outdoors.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=31588
GAZETTE PACKETT (Alexandria, Virginia) 06
August 09 Slithering into Court - Copperhead snake sends officials scrambling for
an alternative location. (Michael Lee Pope)
The Alexandria
Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court was unexpectedly moved to an alternative
location Friday after officials discovered a two-foot copperhead snake
slithering through the hall outside one of the courtrooms on the first floor.
Deputy Sheriff Freddie Tharp chased down the snake and trapped it in a box.
"They
call me the snake charmer," said the deputy, holding his security wand
afterward as if it were a musical instrument.
But the
copperhead did not like being trapped in the box, angrily poking his head out
the top and staring down the deputy. Tharp then dropped the box and the snake
slithered into a nearby pipe. Meanwhile, General District Court Chief Judge
Becky Moore offered the use of her courtroom on the second floor for the
displaced court proceedings.
"We
didn’t miss a beat," said Constance Frogale, chief judge of the Alexandria
Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. "When they told me about the snake,
I wondered if the ghost of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth had been revived."
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=331526&paper=59&cat=104
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
(Pennsylvania) 06 August 09 In Downingtown, generations fry up the frogs
(Daniel Rubin)
Do the math:
Ten women work four days to prepare a meal that 1,000 men eat in three hours.
What does that equal?
Tradition.
Tonight is the
75th annual Amphibious Order of Frogs dinner at St. Anthony's Lodge in
Downingtown's old Italian neighborhood. Tickets, which are long sold-out, cost
$35 for unlimited Miller Lite and reminiscing, a feast of veal spezzato,
roasted chicken, hot peppers, and salad, then the traditional fried legs of
ranocchio.
"Are frog
legs Italian?" I asked Laurie Mascherino Reutter, who is 90 and has been
preparing or serving this giant family-style meal once a year for a
half-century.
"No,"
she said, accenting her point with a jab of her paring knife, "frog legs
are poor. We were poor."
The dinner's
roots reach back to the Great Depression. In the early 1930s a group of local
teenagers with such nicknames as "Barrel House" Sciaretta,
"Skid" Di Berardinis, and "Kite" Di Sante used to catch
frogs in the nearby Brandywine Creek. They'd shoot their prey with a .22, then
cook them over a fire. "We'd even eat blackbirds if we could catch
them," said Reutter, a 4-foot-6 hot shot with snow-white hair.
According to
the Order's official history, the first feast took place in 1934 in the
backyard of Joe and Mary Courtlessa on Church Street. It is believed that
homemade jug wine flowed freely.
One year later,
the crowd gathered again. And again the next year, their numbers slowly
growing. Some things remained constant: The women cooked. The men ate.
By the late
'30s, the dinner was a big deal and had moved to St. Anthony's, where it's been
held the first Thursday in August ever since, with a pause only for World War
II.
Now the
event's so involved that 22 men serve on the organizing committee, most of them
descendents of the founders, such as Michael Mento, director of computer
operations for Crozer-Chester Medical Center, whose grandfather was Anthony
"Muskie" Mento. Membership is an honor.
"Unfortunately,
some of the younger generation don't want to be involved in any of it,"
Mento said. "Some of them want to, but they are not of good character.
Just because your name ends with a vowel and your grandfather was on the
committee doesn't mean you're automatically in."
Tuesday, the
morning of my visit, the ladies were busy cubing 960 pounds of veal. Reutter
sat between her sister, Frances Alesiani, and her granddaughter, Debbie Pierce.
Everyone at the table was related in one way or another, which led to lots of
conversational shorthand and knowing laughter.
A noose with
her name on it hung above Reutter's head. "She yells," explained her
friend Josie Girafalco, 83. When Reutter becomes too bossy, someone lowers the
noose. Sometimes Reutter gets the message.
Girafalco must
have her moments, too. A second noose hung over her head.
They'd been at
it since Monday morning at 7. Their work wasn't to stop until midnight tonight.
The last task is cooking the star attractions.
This year's
frogs came from China. The Brandywine has long stopped producing sufficient
numbers for the dinner. The ladies will prepare more than 6,400 of the
delicacies - salting them, dusting them in flour flecked with white pepper,
then dipping them in egg batter and finishing them with bread crumbs. Their
last dive is into the deep fryer.
It does no
good to ask why the women do all this work for the men. They've probably been
spoiling them all their lives, suggested a friend of mine, who knows.
"They're
good to us," Reutter explained. There are other benefits. The ladies love
the camaraderie of the four-day run-up, the hearty lunches, the impromptu
sing-alongs to "Sweet Caroline" and "Blue Suede Shoes" on
the portable stereo.
And they get
paid, though determining the amount was beyond my skill set.
"We would
do this for nothing," says Rose Ciarlone, sitting down to a little feast
of sausage and broccoli rabe.
Josie
Girafalco looked at the younger woman and shook her head. "Who would do
this for nothing?"
FOX 9 (Twin Cities, Minnesota) 06 August
09 Injured
Turtle Heals, Released into the Wild
Golden Valley,
Minn.: Everyone at the Golden Valley
Humane Society said their goodbyes to an injured turtle volunteers found in
April.
Last April,
the search for a perfect nesting spot got one turtle in trouble. Shelly McGinty
was hit by a car and has been in rehab ever since.
Now, she's
free, with a little help from her friends at the Animal Humane Society. The
20-year-old snapper came to the Animal Humane Society with a huge hole in her
shell and a lower jaw ripped into pieces.
A volunteer
actually found the turtle on McGinty Road in Plymouth after she was hit by a
car. Workers at the Golden Valley Shelter literally patched her up and wired
her jaw back together.
The turtle now
named Shell McGinity spent the last few months recovering. Those who took care
of Shell McGinty said she was antsy and ready to get back to the wild. The
Animal Humane Society’s Wildlife says they get about 30 turtles in every
spring.
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/pets/Injured_Turtle_Heals_Released_into_the_Wild_aug_06_2009
THIS IS KENT (Sussex, UK) 06 August 09 Tortoise
with wanderlust reunited with owner again
A tearaway
tortoise has been found safe and well after disappearing without a trace.
Joey, a
Hermann's tortoise, 'ran' away from his Ightham home on Monday last week
leaving his loving owner, Jane Austin, on the verge of despair.
She believed
the rapscallion reptile had made off down the garden, up the steps and through
the narrow fence to the outside world some time overnight.
"He's a
very naughty boy," said Ms Austin.
"I looked
out at the garden where he's normally basking in the sun the following day, but
he wasn't there.
"I had
that sick feeling in my stomach.
"We've
loved him for years. I had to call my mum and she was devastated."
Joey has been
part of Ms Austin's life ever since she was born.
He is believed
to be at least 50 years old and had been a wedding anniversary gift from her
father to her mother.
Ms Austin said
she had put up posters and alerted her neighbours to Joey's disappearance, but
had little hope she would ever see him again.
Then later
that day she received a call from a workman across the road who had
miraculously found him.
"He had
seen the poster and said to his friend 'they're never going to find that,' said
Ms Austin.
"He
looked down and there was Joey walking along the road.
"I can
only assume he bedded down for the night and when he work up headed off again.
"I was
very grateful he returned him."
This is not
the first time Joey has done a Houdini.
Several years
ago he managed to make it some 20 miles to Bromley.
Sceptics might
say a tortoise covering this distance under his own steam was almost
impossible, and they would probably be right, but for the "Joey
factor".
Demonstrating
he had mental agility to match his physic, the cunning tortoise flagged down a
passing motorist who gave him a lift.
"Last
time he was found walking outside the house," said Ms Austin.
"People
driving past picked him up and took him home."
He was later
reunited with Ms Austin after another poster campaign led to his whereabouts.
Joey could
live up to the age of 100 provided he keeps out of trouble.
Ms Austin
would not swap him for the world.
"You'd
think a tortoise would be boring, but he's great fun," she said.
"He
really likes company. I think he likes people.
"They're
more agile then people realise and they roam for miles.
"There
are probably tortoises walking around the whole of Kent having a great time,
you just never see them."
BARRY AND DISTRICT NEWS (UK) 06
August 09 Five-year animal ban for tortoise trader (Elinor Cross)
A well known
animal trader from the Vale was banned from keeping animals for five years by
Barry Magistrates this week after he admitted cruelty to more than 150
tortoises and two iguanas.
The court
heard that 48-year-old Ian Crosby had been running a business selling imported
reptiles on the internet from his home in Llantwit Major when the Vale Council
seized the animals after a tip off from vets and took them to a Sully rescue
centre.
Prosecuting
for the Vale council, Lee Reynolds said that those who rescued the animals
found 87 tortoises kept in one pen and 63 in another. They were kept with
insufficient bedding and light and the majority of them were diseased.
It emerged
that Crosby had imported a batch of tortoises from the Czech Republic that were
infected with the herpes virus. Due to the confined space the tortoises were
being kept in, the disease, which can be fatal to the animals, quickly spread.
Despite the
International Tortoise Association's best efforts to care for the creatures, 24
of the 151 tortoises died of herpes within 27 days of being taken from Crosby,
and six more have died since.
Defending
Crosby, Michael Morgan said: "Mr Crosby is most regretful and upset about
the events and loves animals he would never harm them.
"Mr
Crosby claims to have done everything in his power to confirm that the
tortoises were healthy. He did not know that the tortoises were suffering from
Herpes."
But it emerged
that of the 44 tortoises that Crosby had sold, one owner had complained that
the tortoise bought from Crosby had the herpes virus.
Vets were also
concerned that Crosby had not followed their advice and was not treating his animals'
injuries.
Crosby, who
had previous charges for keeping animals in inappropriate conditions and
selling endangered species, pleaded guilty to seven counts of animal cruelty
but had asked not to have a ban because he had long term plans to go to Borneo
to volunteer with orangutans.
But Barry
Magsitrate Ann Campbell ignored his pleas and excercised the new animal welfare
Act 2006 for the first time. Ms Campbell sentenced Crosbie to four months
imprisonment deferred for two years, 200 hours of community service as well as
the ban on keeping, trading or working with animals. She said: "These
offences are so serious that only custody is appropriate. You failed to treat
the animals and you caused unnecessary suffering to the animals."
Crosbie was
told he was not allowed to own, keep, control, deal or transport any animal and
ownership of the tortoises, valued at £15,000 was transferred to the
International Tortoise Association.
Following the
sentence Crosbie was heard saying that he would launch an appeal.
Volunteers at
the International Tortoise Association based in Sully were delighted with the
verdict.
Ann Ovenstone,
the chair of the Association said that the ban was appropriate and was thrilled
that ownership of the tortoises would be transferred to the centre, despite the
cost of caring for the animals.
Mrs Ovenstone
explained: "When they initially came here we were told they were about
three years old – they are more like 33! The difference has meant that we
needed a lot more space and a lot more food, it has cost us about £50 a day in
electricity because there are so many of them."
Volunteer
Celia Claypole added: "The way those tortoises were when they arrived,
they were full of fleas, they were starving hungry and had been kept in a cold
environment. It is nice to see them healthy."
Mrs Ovenstone
explained that the totoises that died of herpes suffered a horrible death.
"We felt
so sorry for them. Some of them had to be put down but others we had hopes
would recover but then died. Luckily many ofthem have made it through and can
look forward to being rehomed.
"A number
of people have come forward to say they would have some of the tortoises.
"I’d like
see them go in pairs. Anyone who would like a pair should have a garden and an
interest in tortoises, though we are here to offer advice. And if anyone would
like to make a donation we would gladly accept – it has cost us a fortune to
keep them!"
To get in
touch with the centre call 02920 531282.
DAWN (Karachi, Pakistan) 06 August 09 Probe
against conservator ordered By Bhagwandas
Karachi: The Sindh government has ordered an inquiry
against the conservator and other officials of the provincial wildlife
department regarding the recent theft of turtle shells, Dawn has learnt.
According to
sources, Sindh chief secretary Fazlur Rehman has nominated provincial Zakat and
Ushr Secretary Younus Dhaga to conduct the inquiry against the conservator and
others.
The summary
seeking an inquiry into the issue against the conservator and others had been
moved by Sindh Wildlife Secretary Mushtaq Memon.
The order,
issued by Safia Isran of the S&GACD to Mr Dhaga, on the subject of ‘theft
of cease shells of freshwater turtles kept as case property under the safe
custody of conservator wildlife Karachi’, says that the chief secretary has
‘appointed you an inquiry officer to conduct a preliminary inquiry against Mr
Hussain Bux Bhaagat, conservator wildlife (BPS-19), Sindh, Karachi and other
officials of the wildlife department in the above matter’.
It may be
recalled that some time ago, two wildlife staffers – Bashir Shaikh and driver
Ghulam Nabi – were caught by Game Warden Shahabuddin Burfat when they were
transporting over 120 kilos of freshwater turtle shells in three boxes and a
bag in the conservator’s vehicle near the Cantonment Station.
The turtle
shells were stolen from a consignment that had been caught by the customs
department earlier and which was being kept in the SWD head office for safe
custody.
Bashir Shaikh
and Ghulam Nabi were caught with the help of the Railway police, who registered
a case against them and produced them in court. They were sent to jail but were
subsequently enlarged on bail.
The sources
said that the Railway police’s FIR mentions the names of Bashir Shaikh, Ghulam
Nabi and a rickshaw driver, Imran, who had come to collect the turtle shells.
The SWD has meanwhile suspended Bashir Shaikh, Ghulam Nabi and the office
watchman, Zarkameen, who was on duty when the theft took place.
The cost of
the turtle shells stolen from the SWD office in the local black market would be
around half a million rupees, while it would have fetched over $125,000 in the
international black market.
The sources
said that it was interesting to note that while the inquiry order mentioned the
name of Conservator Hussain Bux Bhaagat, who was not in the country when the
theft took place, the people who were actually caught with the stolen property
had just been mentioned as ‘others’.
PRESS OF ATLANTIC CITY (Pleasantville,
New Jersey) 06 August 09 Terrapin-rescue project in Margate bumps up
survival odds (Martin DeAngelis)
Margate: Long odds are a way of life on Absecon
Island.
But the odds a
gambler faces in Atlantic City are nothing compared to the odds a diamondback
terrapin faces in Margate.
At the
casinos, the odds vary by the game, with some bets paying as low as even money.
Downbeach in Margate, experts say the odds against a freshly hatched
diamondback winning life's lottery - by surviving long enough to produce
another generation of terrapins - are more like 100-1.
Female diamondbacks
getting ready to deposit their eggs are routinely crushed by cars - and the
evidence winds up baking on the pavement of roads in and around many bayfront
towns. Or young turtles, deposited in holes their mothers dig in local lawns,
get run over or sliced and diced by lawnmowers.
But to Robin
Scott, who has spent much of her life around Margate's bays, the biggest danger
for tiny terrapins is getting turned into "turtle potato chips," as
she put it Thursday - easy snacks for hungry gulls and other predators.
So Scott, who
runs Ray Scott's Dock on Amherst Avenue, is at the center of a network of
people who do their best to cut those survival odds for diamondbacks. Her team
ranges from local kids to scientists who travel the world working to protect
endangered species.
The kids
generally rescue hatchling, or baby, diamondbacks - sometimes from roads,
sometimes from lawns or other possible danger zones - and bring them in to the
shop at Scott's marina. Robin's role is to be the "turtle mom," as
she puts it, raising and feeding the young terrapins until they're mature and
healthy enough to go back safely to their natural habitat, in the wetlands
between local beach towns and the mainland.
Scott gets
help in that job from three professors and scientists from Philadelphia's
Drexel University - Jim Spotila, Walt Bien and Harold Avery. The experts advise
her on terrapin-parenting techniques, answer questions and check in routinely
on her progress - and the turtles.'
And most of
the network came together Thursday morning at Scott's dock for the best part of
the turtle-rescue project - the day another batch of diamondbacks is healthy
and strong enough to be safely released back into the wild.
Spotila, who
likes to spend time in the summer at his Margate home - but was freshly back in
this country from a trip to China to deal with endangered pandas - explained
the terrapin-rescue project as simply as he could before two boats left Ray
Scott's Dock to take 34 more diamondbacks out to the marshes behind Margate.
"The idea,"
he said, "is to make them big enough that seagulls can't eat them."
Scott says the
network usually does about three releases a year of fresh batches of 3- to
5-inch diamondbacks. The group that got its freedom Thursday was mostly hatched
and brought in to her last fall, she added.
And the
scientists were impressed by what Scott's been doing, estimating that she
managed to squeeze a year's worth of normal growth into just eight or so months
of actual life.
"She's
using a lot of vitamins on them," joked Bien, who also has a summer place
in Margate - and who traces some of his roots to the other side of the Margate
Bridge, in Northfield.
He and Spotila
figure that Scott's safe environment and regular feeding cuts the turtles'
survival odds sharply.
"Normal
is one out of 100, but this bumps it up to one out of 10 - which is a pretty
big bump," Spotila said.
The actual
honors of releasing the rescued terrapins from buckets on the boat decks went
to several children who may have saved them in the first place. They included
13-year-old Taylor Hendri, of Ventnor, and her little sister, Gabi, 7, who find
a lot of turtles right around their home near the bay in Ventnor Heights
"Whenever
my husband mows the lawn," says the girls' mom, Kara, "we always do a
turtle check first."
Taylor has
also done a series of turtle presentations at her school, the Ventnor
Educational Community Complex, trying to convince other students to join the
rescue network. They can do that by bringing diamondbacks they find to her home
or directly to Scott's shop, where Taylor and Gabi take all the turtles they
save, which can be 40 or 50 in a big year.
Scott says she
gets lots of her young recruits when families come into her shop - and the kids
notice the 100 or so turtles she often has in various stages of growth. Some
kids want to come back every week and see how the little critters are growing
and developing.
But as of
Thursday, she had 34 fewer turtles in her shop - and 34 more out at the edge of
the marshes on the other side of the Margate Bridge, in a section of the bay
called Whirlypool.
And
Christopher Hartney, of Ventnor, a lifelong turtle fan and former
casino-surveillance worker, had fresh material for a sequel to his Youtube
video documentary about Robin Scott and her diamondback network.
"One
Terrapin At A Time," it's called.
NAPLES DAILY NEWS (Florida) 06 August 09 First
python hatchling found in Collier County raises concerns (Whitney Bryen)
Naples: The first python hatchling found in Collier
County could put pressure on county officials to join attempts to eradicate the
python population in South Florida.
The python
hatchling was found about a mile from the entrance to Collier-Seminole State
Park. Paul Andreadis, a herpetologist that lives in Ohio and spends his spare
time researching pythons in Collier County, discovered the dead snake on U.S.
41 just east of the park entrance on July 26.
The length,
weight and stomach contents of the snake have not yet been recorded. The
hatchling was a male estimated to be about two or three months old.
Everglades
National Park officials said the hatchling indicates a wild snake has
reproduced and there could be more pythons reproducing to the northwest of
Collier-Seminole State Park.
Despite the
recent finding Maulik Patel, environmental specialist at Collier-Seminole State
Park, said the potential for pythons in Collier County is no where near the
numbers reported in Everglades National Park.
The population
of Burmese pythons in the Everglades, where officials first found a python
hatchling in 1995, is estimated in the tens of thousands, according to the
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Web site.
“It’s
definitely a cause for concern but as a management group we need to come
together and come up with a plan to search and locate them,” Patel said.
Everglades
park officials said it is possible pythons from the Everglades could expand
their populations and presence to other areas of Collier County.
Patel expects
officials to take action but said it will take more than one hatchling to make
something happen quickly.
“The
higher-ups in Tallahassee will make the final decision,” Patel said, “but I
think something needs to be done and soon.”
So far,
officials are not taking any new precautions in response to the finding. Park
officials say more research should be done before a plan of action is put in
place.
With an
unusually dry summer, more hatchlings may survive the incubation period than
previous summers, which have seen more rain, Patel said. Python eggs cannot
survive exposure to a lot of water.
Everglades
National Park’s primary concern with the exotic species is the threat to the
native ecosystem as the snakes compete with other large predators for habitat
and food.
The Everglades
is the only known ecosystem where a large constrictor has escaped its natural
range and established a significant population in a foreign habitat, according
to the Everglades page on the National Park Service Web site.
Patel said a
hunting program, similar to the one implemented by the FWC, would not be an
option for Collier County because the population of pythons is too small. With
limited staff and resources, seeking out the pythons is nearly impossible in
the park, even with a location and description reported.
“It usually
takes us about 15 to 30 minutes to get the supplies we need and head out toward
the reported siting,” Patel said. “By that time they have usually moved on.”
FWC’s
initiative to reduce the number of pythons in the Everglades began July 17 and
gave seven reptile experts permits to search out and kill the snakes on
state-owned lands. The hunters have reported five pythons captured.
The program
will end on Oct. 31 and the FWC will determine if a more permanent program
should be implemented in January.
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/aug/06/first-python-hatchling-found-collier-county/
THE STAR (Petaling Jaya, Malaysia) 06 August
09 Take
steps to protect the Hawksbill
I refer to your
recent report on the preserving of endangered species in which the State
Fisheries Department director Rosmawati Ghazali stated that Malacca is seen not
only as one of the most important landing and nesting sites for Hawksbill
turtles in Malaysia but also in the region.
Now an
important nesting site of these critically endangered turtles is under threat
with the Malacca Government’s approval for a tourist project on Pulau Upeh
“Threat to Hawksbill turtles” (The Star, July 17).
Pulau Upeh’s
100m stretch of beach contributes 30% of the entire estimated nests in
peninsular Malaysia.
The Chief
Minister noted that the state had earlier proposed to the Fisheries Department
to convert the island into a turtle-nesting centre but the proposal fell
through due to lack of federal funds.
Maybe a new
approach to development from a conservation and eco-tourism perspective will
bring in more tourists.
The state
government should not go down the same path as Terengganu, infamous for the
decline of the Leatherback turtles. It should take every measure to ensure that
the Hawksbill turtles of Malacca are not pushed into extinction.
Cmarie, Kuala Lumpur.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/8/6/focus/4407545&sec=focus
DER WESTEN (Essen, Germany) 06 August 09 Ein
Meter lange Schlage sorgt für Aufregung (Dieter Decker)
Rentner fängt
Kornnatter: Wie das gemacht wird, das hab ich im Fernsehen gesehen Marl.
Schreck in der Mittagsstunde: Eine Anwohnerin stolperte nahezu im Garten eines
Mehrfamilienhauses an der Schwalbenstraße in Marl über eine einen Meter große
Schlange. Der herbeigeeilte Ehemann, Ulrich Groß, fackelte er nicht lange und
versucht das Tier einzufangen.
Bludau Aus dem
Fernsehen hatte er gesehen, wie so etwas gemacht wird. Nachdem sich die
Schlange nicht mit einem Leinenbeutel fangen ließ, schaffte es der rüstige
Rentner, sie gemeinsam mit einem Nachbarn mit einem Eimer einzufangen. Zwei
Feuerwehrmänner brachten Eimer samt Tier zur Wache. Da nicht klar war, ob die
über einen Meter lange Schlange giftig und somit gefährlich ist, wurde ein
Reptilien-Fachberater aus Bochum verständigt. Schlangenexperte Roland Byner
stellte dann schnell fest, dass das Tier nicht gefährlich ist und es sich um
eine Kornnatter handelt. „Diese Art von Schlangen kommt hier nicht in freier
Wildbahn vor und ist höchstwahrscheinlich irgendwo ausgebüxt. Sie gilt aus
Ausbrecherkönig unter den Schlangen”, so Byner weiter. Mit einer geschickten
Handbewegung hatte der Experte das Tier schnell aus dem Eimer geangelt und
zeigte es den interessierten Feuerwehrleuten aus der Nähe. Auch ein schneller
Biss der Natter, brachte den Experten nicht aus der Ruhe. Die Kornnatter kommt
zunächst nun in see Obhut, wo sie gut versorgt wird, bis sich der Besitzer
meldet.
http://www.derwesten.de/nachrichten/staedte/marl/2009/8/6/news-128411768/detail.html
SEMANARIO TIEMPOS DEL MUNDO (Miraflores, Peru) 06 August 09 El
disfraz de dos cabezas de las serpientes marinas
Con las marcas de la piel y su comportamiento, la serpiente marina
ahuyenta a los depredadores. Sus 'dos cabezas' proporcionarían dos cargas de
peligroso veneno
Las serpientes marinas de los océanos Índico y Pacífico engañan a sus
depredadores al hacerles creer que tienen dos cabezas, según un estudio de la
Escuela de Conservación de Copenhague (Dinamarca) y la Universidad de
Kristianstad en Suecia que se publica en la revista 'Marine Ecology'.
Según informa elmundo.es, el descubrimiento mostró que la cobra marina
con listas amarillas (Laticauda colubrina) utiliza las marcas de la piel y su
comportamiento para hacer creer a los depredadores que su cola es una segunda
cabeza en la que también hay veneno.
Los investigadores explican que existen alrededor de 65 especies de
serpientes marinas en las aguas tropicales del hemisferio sur, desde África al
Golfo de Panamá. La mayoría de ellas pasa su vida en el mar, en aguas
superficiales y como depredadores activos de pequeños peces que rondan los
arrecifes de coral. Todas las serpientes marinas tienen un veneno muy potente
que se encuentra entre los más venenosos de todas las especies de serpientes.
NEWS RECORD (Delhi, Ontario) 05 August 09 Reptiles
at risk: on the road (Kaitlin Doherty)
Delhi and area
kids were introduced to some scaly, slithering new friends on Friday at the
Delhi Public Library.
About 15
children got up close and personal with many different kinds of snakes and
turtles that are not only native to this area, but also need help surviving and
boosting their populations.
Alex Rourk, 7,
learned a lot about reptiles at the Reptiles At Risk presentation and was quite
comfortable holding them during the hands-on time.
“I learned
that most snakes are totally harmless,” he said, while a Fox Snake dangled from
his neck. “I also learned that they all need our help.”
It was clear
the Fox Snake was Rourk’s favourite as he let it slither through his hands.
“This one is
great because he likes to be handled and touched,” he said. “I just held him
and he crawled up on my neck himself.”
Reptiles At
Risk: On The Road is a government-funded program that spreads awareness about
reptile conservation.
“This is a
very special program that we’re running across Ontario this summer,” said educator
Eric Braul. “We are hitting more diverse and isolated areas of the province
where these reptiles are interacting with residents on a daily basis and we’re
trying to bring awareness to the communities.”
With three
different classifications of endangerment to reptiles in Canada – special
concern, threatened, and endangered – Braul says the program tries to alleviate
stress and fear among residents when they see a snake or snapping turtle.
“Fear is the
biggest reason these animals are dying. Secondly, it’s cars,” he said. “These
reptiles are vital parts of our environment to keep rodent levels low and water
clean. We want people to realize that there is only one snake in Ontario that
is remotely dangerous and that’s the Massasauga rattlesnake. Even that is a bit
of a wimp. There is no reason for these animals to die.”
Lucus Haywood,
7, was surprised at the large fox snake’s weight.
“It was kind
of light,” he said. “I thought he would be heavier. I have held a snake before,
but today I learned to leave them alone in the wild and if they’re on the road
to move them if I can so they don’t get hit by a car.”
For more
Reptiles At Risk: On The Road information, visit www.retilesontheroad.org.
http://www.delhinewsrecord.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1686493
HOUSTON CHRONICLE (Texas) 05 August 09 Stung:
Texas man busted for labeling rare tortoises as scorpions (Mary Flood)
A former
Border Patrol agent was sentenced Wednesday for trying to have 15 potentially
endangered Tanzanian leopard tortoises sent to him labeled as something more
acceptable under law — scorpions.
Rene Soliz of
Alice was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Corpus Christi to serve three
years of supervised probation, to do 250 hours of community service and to pay
a $1,500 fine, according to a Justice Department news release.
He pleaded
guilty to violating the Lacey Act, which prohibits trying to acquire wildlife
transported in violation of a U.S. law or treaty. Part of Soliz's plea
agreement is that he resign his job.
“Today's
sentence and Mr. Soliz's resignation as a Border Patrol agent underscore the
consequences of violating federal wildlife laws,” said John C. Cruden, acting
assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural
Resources Division. “Soliz attempted to trade in a threatened tortoise species
in violation of laws designed to protect wildlife from extinction. The Justice
Department responds aggressively to those who choose to undermine federal
wildlife laws and contribute to the endangerment of protected species.”
According to
statements made in court, Soliz contacted a Tanzanian leopard tortoise purveyor
in March 2006.
In April 2006,
a U.S. Customs inspector at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York
intercepted the tortoises in a package labeled as containing 50 live scorpions.
A U.S. Fish and Wildlife inspector found 14 live leopard tortoises and one dead
one in the package, authorities said.
Leopard
tortoises are listed as a species that may be threatened unless trade is
closely controlled. International trade in these tortoises requires an export
permit, and Soliz didn't have one, the Justice Department said.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/breaking/6561753.html
LOS ANGELES TIMES (California) 05 August 09 Army
seeks to move more than 1,100 desert tortoises (Julie Cart)
As it prepares
to expand training operations at Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert, the U.S. Army
is again proposing to move more than 1,100 threatened California desert
tortoises -- an unprecedented number of an endangered species that has not
fared well during previous relocations.
The Army is
seeking the approval of the federal Bureau of Land Management to move the
tortoises from nearly 100,000 acres in portions of the National Training Center
to lands managed by the BLM. The environmental assessment is under BLM review
and the proposed action is open for a 15-day public comment period.
Moving desert
tortoises is not always successful. The Army relocated more than 600 of the
animals last year but suspended the $8.7-million program after the first phase
when officials noted high mortality rates among the tortoises, chiefly because
of coyotes.
About 90
animals were found dead from suspected coyote predation. But Clarence Everly,
natural and cultural resources program manager at Ft. Irwin, said only one
animal died during the relocation.
The sheer
numbers of tortoises proposed to be moved in this latest operation, beginning
next spring through 2012, alarms conservationists.
"Nothing's
ever been done on this scale before," said Ileene Anderson, a biologist
with the Center for Biological Diversity, who says a total of 252 tortoises
have died in the translocation area. "Every time the animals recognize
that they don’t know where they are, they have some built-in mechanism that
tells them to head for home and they make a break for home."
In the last
move, some tortoises traveled up to five or six miles to get back to their home
range, Anderson said.
The relocation
of desert tortoises from Ft. Irwin, northeast of Barstow, to the drought-ravaged
western Mojave puts more pressure on the species, whose population is already
crashing, in part because of an upper respiratory disease that afflicts some
animals. Everly said the Army is blood testing every tortoise and will
quarantine any found to have the disease.
BUCKS COUNTY COURIER TIMES (Levittown, Pennsylvania)
05 August 09 Did snapping turtle kill dog in park? (George Mattar)
A park
employee said a dog fetching a ball in the lake never returned. The report
remains unconfirmed.
Everybody's
talking, but nobody's confirming it's true.
At the center
of attention is a snapping turtle, apparently a very large one that reportedly
snatched a small dog in the lake within the Falls Township Community Park about
three weeks ago.
It reportedly
ate the dog, and its female owner was so distraught an ambulance was sent to
the park to sedate the woman.
Park security
supervisor Ralph Connor said Tuesday that he's heard the story, but hasn't been
able to confirm that it happened.
"We have
nothing to substantiate it. We don't know for sure. It's been all word of mouth
and just hearsay from what I know. If it did happen, no one has come forward
and filled out a report," Connor said.
"There
are plenty of snapping turtles in that lake and some pretty big ones," he
said, holding his arms about a foot apart to indicate the size.
Since the
alleged incident hasn't been confirmed, no warning signs about snapping turtles
have been put up in the park, he said.
Falls police
Lt. Todd Pletnick said police wouldn't have handled the call since it occurred
in the park.
"There is
a story circulating, but we did not respond and no report was ever filed,"
said Pletnick. He also denied a report that a woman's toe was bitten off by a
snapper at the park.
Falls Animal
Control Officer Brian McShane declined to comment.
Falls Manager
Peter Gray also could not confirm the incident, but said he is looking into the
alleged attack.
"I am
trying to find out what happened. We have no report and the incident, if it
occurred, was not witnessed by any of our guards. We will be talking to staff
members to try and get to the bottom of it," he said.
But one
township employee, who didn't want to be identified, said a dog was killed by a
snapping turtle about three weeks ago.
The employee
said the dog was off its leash, against park policy, and a ball was thrown into
the lake so the dog could retrieve it. The dog supposedly never came back. The
employee said the owner was so distraught an ambulance was dispatched to treat
the woman. The Courier Times couldn't confirm that.
On July 19 at
about 3 p.m., some Levittown residents and a Courier Times journalist
were on the banks of the lake near the dog park when a park ranger in a Falls
park patrol car stopped and warned them to be careful and not to let the dogs
go too far out in the lake because of reports a woman had her toe bitten off by
a snapping turtle and another woman lost her dog to one.
On Tuesday, a
dog owner walking her two Pekingese, Mercedes and Jaguar, said she heard the
story that's taking on Loch Ness monster proportions.
"I've
been coming here since the park opened. I come here almost every day. I don't
let my dogs near the water. Yes, I heard about the snapping turtle attack so
there is no way my dogs are going near the water," said the woman, who
only identified herself as a Falls resident.
Large signs
clearly state swimming and wading are forbidden, but Connor said dogs are
permitted in the water as long as they're on a leash. "If they are outside
that black fence, they must be on a leash," said Connor pointing to fenced
dog park area.
Falls Park and
Recreation Director Bill Reese is out of the office this month and the Courier
Times was unsuccessful in reaching him for comment.
DAILY GREEN (New York, New York) 05 August
09 6
Turtle-Killing Fish - How buying these six fish is encouraging the death of
hundreds of loggerhead sea turtles, a threatened species.
Bought any
summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, Atlantic mackerel, squid or Atlantic
butterfish lately for a delicious dinner?
You won't see
this on any label at the fish counter, but the methods used to catch those six
fish slaughtered hundreds of loggerhead sea turtles, a threatened species,
according to the ocean conservation group Oceana, which is urging the
Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council to stop the unnecessary killing.
Loggerhead
turtles have been listed as a threatened species since 1978 because their
numbers are significantly in decline. In 2007, Oceana and the Center for
Biological Diversity petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, requesting
that a subset of the loggerhead population -- those in the western North
Atlantic -- be classified as endangered, affording their habitat additional
protection than the species is granted as a threatened species. On Florida
beaches, where most loggerhead nesting in the U.S. takes place, there has been
a 41% decline in nesting loggerhead turtles since 1998.
In its
recovery plan for the species, the Fish and Wildlife Service lists bottom
trawling as the first "highest priority threat" to the species, and
recommends the use of "turtle excluder devices" in trawling nets to
reduce turtle deaths.
Fishermen
targeting those six fish in the Atlantic -- summer flounder, scup, black sea
bass, Atlantic mackerel, squid or Atlantic butterfish -- from roughly
Massachusetts to Florida, with trawl nets are killing 10 times more loggerhead
turtles than allowed under the Endangered Species Act, according to Oceana.
Trawl
fisheries operate by towing funnel-shaped nets through the water or along the
seafloor. "While trawls generally target specific species or groups of
species, their unselective nature results in the catch of anything that is too
large to escape through the mesh of the nets, including sea turtles,"
according to Oceana. Turtle excluder devices can reduce turtles killed by 97%,
but are only required of summer flounder in certain seasons and certain waters;
otherwise, for these six fish species, there is no gear modification used to
protect turtles.
"Without
an avenue for escape, sea turtles likely drown when captured in trawl fishing
gear due to forced submergence," the group claims. "If they do
escape, they are often injured from the great stress of being netted and are
left more susceptible to further injuries and death."
Bycatch -- as
killing of unwanted species in fishing gear is called -- is one factor that
lands fish on "do not buy" lists like those published by the
Environmental Defense Fund and the Monteray Bay Aquarium. Proving just how
difficult buying seafood ethically is, though, of the six problematic fisheries
identified by Oceana, only Atlantic summer flounder makes it onto both groups'
"do not eat" lists. Both black bass and squid are listed as
"ok" choices -- not the best, not the worst. Monteray Bay Aquarium
lists mackerel as a best choice, and scup as an ok choice, while Environmental
Defense Fund doesn't make a recommendation either way.
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/loggerhead-turtles-trawler-bycatch-47080501
CAPE COD CHRONICLE (Chatham,
Massachusetts) 05 August 09 Unlocking The Mysteries Of Leatherback
Turtles (Alan Pollock)
Harwich: The Cape has no shortage of curious summer
visitors, but one is downright mysterious.
It’s the leatherback turtle, and it’s the subject of a research project
that bases some of its operations in Harwich Port.
Kara Dodge is
a doctoral candidate working in the Large Pelagics Research Center at the
University of New Hampshire. She and
other researchers regularly hop aboard the fishing boat Sea Holly, owned by
Mark Leach, to find, capture, examine and radio-tag the reclusive, endangered
sea turtles. In a presentation to a
small group of people at town hall last week, Dodge said many questions persist
about the species.
Though they
grow up to six feet in length, weighing up to 1,500 pounds, leatherbacks have a
seemingly meager diet, compared to the sea grass and crabs eaten by other
turtles. “They eat jellyfish, only
jellyfish,” Dodge said. And since
jellyfish are mostly water, leatherbacks need to eat them in huge amounts. Because they have the ability to raise their
internal body temperature, unlike most cold-blooded animals, leatherbacks
apparently never get cold-stunned like other sea turtles found in these waters.
Leatherbacks
spend most of their time feeding in waters relatively close to the surface, but
sometimes they dive---and they do it with gusto. One leatherback was recorded diving to 1,270
meters, deeper than every other air-breathing animal except sperm whales. “And nobody knows why they do it,” Dodge
said.
Research on
leatherbacks began in the 1960s. Before
that, when a leatherback was caught off the coast of Cape Cod, it was assumed
that the animal had simply strayed from the tropics. Dodge showed an old photo of people posing
next to a giant leatherback strung up between two trees as a curiosity. “It was sort of like a sideshow,” she
said. Research advanced in the 1980s,
when Mass. Audubon researcher Robert Prescott led several studies. Primitive tracking devices were developed,
and ultimately confirmed leatherbacks’ impressive annual migration. Females lay their eggs on the tropical
beaches of Florida, the Caribbean, and the northern shores of South America,
the same beaches where they hatched, and travel north in the summer to the
waters off New England and Canada to feed.
Because a
leatherback’s carapace isn’t a hard shell, it’s not easy to attach a radio
transmitter. At first, the devices were
strapped on like backpacks; today’s transmitters are much smaller and more
sophisticated, and are attached with a biodegradable tether tied to a hole in
one of the ridges of the carapace. After
a year of collecting data, the transmitter comes loose and is lost, allowing
the leatherback to swim unimpeded. But
attaching the radio tag requires first finding and catching the animal.
To do the job,
Dodge and her team recruited two fishermen with appropriate boats, equipped
with low transoms for hauling the leatherbacks aboard. The boats had to be outfitted with pulpits
and towers like a tuna boat, so they can sneak up on unsuspecting
leatherbacks. One boat is the Sea Holly,
and another is from Woods Hole.
Using cues
radioed in by airborne spotters, the crew travels to an area where leathernecks
are known to be feeding, and then tries to spot one. It’s no simple task, Dodge said.
“It’s even
hard to find whales out there,” she said.
Leatherbacks are much smaller, and they’re at the surface only briefly
to breathe. “That was our first hurdle,”
she said. Eventually they bring the boat
alongside a leatherback, and use a custom-designed purse net positioned with a
rig that looks like the frame of a giant butterfly net. The turtle is captured and positioned on a
special wooden plank which is then hauled aboard the boat. Once on deck, the leatherback gets a physical
workup by a New England Aquarium biologist, and then receives a microchip
similar to the kind used to identify cats and dogs. It’s not always easy, since the turtle has
its own plan.
“You can’t
actually stop them from walking around the boat,” Dodge said, so the crew uses
cushions and life jackets to keep the animal from harming itself. Then, the radio tag is installed. Each unit costs between $3,500 and $5,000,
and provides up to 12 locations each day, transmitting the data to
polar-orbiting satellites. The
transmitter also collects data on the water temperature and depth of
dives. So far, 20 leatherbacks have been
tagged, 18 of them off Cape Cod.
Researchers
like Dodge want to know why some nesting areas are more productive than others,
and ultimately, whether certain “high use areas” might require more careful
monitoring. One such area, Cape Cod Bay,
appears to pose a navigational challenge for leatherbacks, based on their
satellite tracking data.
“We can’t
prove this, but it almost looks like they don’t know how to get out of Cape Cod
Bay,” Dodge said. That’s a problem,
particularly if they get tangled in fishing lines. One leatherback was freed from fishing gear
in the bay, only to be found later tangled up again. Another animal died after getting hopelessly
tangled in a 10-pot string of lobster traps. With better research, it might be
possible to provide mariners with better real-time advisories on leatherback
positions, or to suggest fishing gear reductions in certain areas. For the time being, people are encouraged to
report sightings of sea turtles in Massachusetts waters by calling
1-888-SEA-TURT. Mariners finding an
entangled sea turtle should contact the Coast Guard on marine Channel 16.
Though new
data is emerging all the time, the research leaves a number of questions
unanswered. Because leatherbacks are
most easily observed were when they are laying eggs, there is a much broader
knowledge base about females than about males.
And very little is known about juvenile leatherbacks, which are very
rarely seen. “It’s really hard to
protect them when we don’t know where they are,” Dodge said.
Last month,
the researchers tagged their first turtle of the season in Nantucket
Sound. The crew named the turtle Ethan,
after the grandson of Ernie Eldredge of Chatham, another one of the project’s
fishermen collaborators. Ethan’s
position is posted daily at www.seaturtle.org/tracking/?project_id=423.
Funding for
the research comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Cape Cod Commercial Hook
Fishermen’s Association, the New England Aquarium and the Provincetown Center
for Coastal Studies. The work is
expensive, and members of the public are encouraged to adopt Ethan by making a
donation of between $25 and $100.
http://www.capecodchronicle.com/harnews/har080609_3.htm
DAILY EXPRESS (London, UK) 05 August 09 Watch
Out Turtles...The Ninjas Are Back (Nicola McCafferty)
Animal rights
groups fear a fresh craze for pet turtles is about to hit after plans for a new
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie were revealed.
Martial
artists are being called up to audition for the planned 2011 remake.
But following
the 1990 original, thousands of the reptiles were smuggled from the wild and
sold illegally to TMNJ fans.
Most ended up
dead or dumped down loos into the drain system while some found their way into
lakes and rivers, said conservation experts.
A special
Turtle Sanctuary was set up to offer the creatures refuge at the UK Sea life
Centre in Weymouth - which given the long lives of the reptiles - is still full
to bursting.
Residents at
the freshwater sanctuary include countless abandoned terrapins and more than a
hundred illegally imported baby Mississippi Map Turtles.
Alison Button,
an aquarist at the centre, told the Austrian Times: "Millions of people
went out and bought themselves turtles or terrapins at the height of the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze.
"Unfortunately
many didn’t realise how big their pets would grow, or just how much work is
involved in taking good care of them.
"Consequently
they are frequently abandoned in the wild, and it’s that sort of thing we want
to try and prevent."
The Weymouth
sanctuary is already close to full occupancy, with over a dozen different
species of turtles of many different sizes in its numerous display tanks.
"We like
to think it has already discouraged many a potential turtle purchaser from
making what so often proves a big mistake," Alison added.
National Sea
Life Centre curator Graham Burrows said he was very worried that the new film
would be a disaster for turtles.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/118440/Movie-remake-could-be-disastrous-for-turtles-
CYPRUS MAIL (Nicosia) 05 August 09 Turtles
make rare appearance on Limassol beach (Anna Hassapi)
Holidaymakers
and greens alike were stunned at the weekend when around 100 Caretta-Caretta
turtles hatched from their nest on a busy beach at Yermasoyia in Limassol.
The appearance
of the rare turtle species startled beachgoers, while the hatchlings’ safety
was threatened as they made their way to the busy street across the beach
distracted and misled by the town’s bright lights.
“Something
unexpected took place late on Sunday evening at a popular beach at Yermasoyia.
Dozens of baby turtles of the endangered species hatched from the nest
apparently chosen by their mother approximately seven weeks earlier,” said
Maria Costantinou, an officer for the Young Greens.
The hatching
took place around midnight before the eyes of surprised beachgoers, who alerted
the Young Greens as the baby turtles started wandering around in all
directions.
A rescue
mission was immediately launched by the organization in cooperation with police
officers from Yermasoyia station, who tried to track down the disoriented
hatchlings and direct them back into the sea.
“The small
unexpected visitors scattered along the beach were at risk from passersby and
cars. It appears that some baby turtles got confused by the artificial light
and moved to the wrong direction. With lenses and buckets we managed to collect
the disoriented hatchlings and lead them back to the sea to start their long
journey,” Costantinou explained.
“We hope that
after a few decades some of these baby turtles will survive and return to the
shores of our island,” she added.
The main
habitat for Caretta-Caretta in Cyprus is the quiet Lara beach in Akamas where
they are in an area protected from noise and lights, although turtle hatchlings
have made their appearance in Limassol in the past.
The last
recorded incident took place four years ago when turtle hatchlings again
appeared at a Yermasoyia tourist area beach.
In the
Mediterranean, the Caretta-Caretta mates from late March to early June. The
female nesting season is at its peak in June and July, but this depends on the
nesting beach.
After
approximately 60 days, the hatchlings emerge usually at night when protection
from predation is greater. Because they usually follow the brightest light to
the ocean's edge, artificial lights from human activity can lead them astray.
Once in the ocean they use ocean currents to travel to the Sargasso Sea until
they mature.
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.php?id=47190&cat_id=1
FLORIDA TIMES-UNION
(Jacksonville) 05 August 09 Sea turtles face their most deadly enemy -
humans (Courtney Hackney)
Sea turtles
have been able to withstand many changes during their existence, but man is
threatening to wipe them out.
Once again, it
is time to welcome the most ancient of animals to our shore. Sea turtles have
been lining up offshore along some of our favorite beaches, preparing to risk
their lives to come ashore and lay their eggs. Many are returning for the first
time since they left these shores as hatchlings 20 to 30 years ago. Lucky sea
turtles can live almost a century, although that appears to be a rare
occurrence today. Populations of all seven species of sea turtles are just a
fraction of what they were a century ago and all are at risk of disappearing
forever from the world's oceans.
Species of sea
turtles that swam with the dinosaurs look just like those we see today. When
sea turtles came ashore 100 million years ago to lay eggs, predatory dinosaurs
attacked and ate adult sea turtles and their eggs, much as mammals do today.
Nevertheless, sea turtles were so well adapted that they survived the demise of
the dinosaurs, the coming and going of many ice ages, the movement of
continents and the rise of mammals. Now, thanks to humans, sea turtles are on
the verge of extinction.
Sea turtles
descended from land animals and must return to land to lay eggs. While extinct
marine dinosaurs like Ichthyosaurus
and modern marine mammals like dolphins developed the ability to produce live
young in the ocean, sea turtles remained dependant on land for reproduction.
Humans have taken advantage of this dependency for thousands of years and
killed turtles as they came ashore. Turtle bones and shells in the refuse piles
of ancient peoples testify to their importance to early human populations. Sea
turtles were also a valuable resource for mariners during the sailing age
because they could be stored for months until butchered for food. Additionally,
their eggs were collected and pickled.
In more modern
times, sea turtles were valued for their meat and eggs. Florida had a thriving
turtle harvesting industry into the late 1950s. Turtles were harvested in nets
or captured as they came ashore and kept in "krawls" until butchered.
Canneries along Florida's coasts also produced turtle soup that was shipped all
over the U.S. For centuries sea turtles were harvested for food all over the
world but remained abundant.
Today, all sea
turtles are endangered, but not just because they are tasty. Most turtles today
are killed accidentally as we net fish and shrimp close to shore where sea
turtles must come to mate and lay eggs. Their life cycle is disrupted by
beaches, re-nourished by sand not compatible with the natural beach or by
houses that line the beach where their ancestors once nested. In a half
century, we have done what asteroids crashing into the Earth, ice ages and
ancient humans failed to do in all of the past 100 million years. We have
brought these ancient creatures to the edge of extinction.
Courtney
Hackney is the director of the Coastal Biology Program at the University of
North Florida.
NBC (Washington, DC) 05 August 09 Man
Hospitalized After Case of Mistaken Snake Identity - Python collector bought
snake from neighbor (Matthew Stabley and Chris Gordon)
Washington
(AP): A southeast Washington man who
owns several pythons was hospitalized after being bitten by his latest pet,
which turned out to be a copperhead.
Jason Dale
said he bought the snake for $100 from a neighbor under the belief that it was
a python. When he tried to pick it up, it bit him.
"I set
the snake down and the snake got caught up in a fence, so I go to pick it
up," Dale said. "Snake turned around and bit me on my hand."
Dale thought
nothing of the bite at first because he thought it was a python, not a venomous
snake.
"About 30
minutes went past and my whole hand was swollen, so that's when I said, 'I need
to go to the hospital,'" said Dale, 31.
Dale was
treated at Howard University Hospital, otherwise it could have been fatal.
"At this
hour, as we speak, it's not immediately life-threatening, but the whole purpose
of admitting him and starting the anti-venom is to prevent it from becoming
life-threatening, because after all, this was a poisonous bite," Howard
Emergency Medicine Department Chair Dr. Geoffrey Mountvarner said.
Dale's
relieved he didn't put the snake around his neck, the way he wears his pythons.
The snake was
taken to the D.C. Animal Care and Control Facility, which will try to place the
copperhead with a reptile rescue group.
ARIZONA REPUBLIC (Phoenix) 05 August 09 Ahwatukee
area sees an increase in snake population (Elisabeth Arriero)
The separation
between desert wildlife and suburbia is narrowing in some Ahwatukee
neighborhoods, where rattlesnakes are an increasingly common sight.
Landscapers
recently informed the Foothills Community Association that they are seeing
increasingly rattlers while working, and some of them were seen just a few feet
from sidewalks.
"We're
not going out of our way to find these snakes," said Chris Scheurell, a
manager at Landmark Land Management, who added that on a recent day, workers
spotted seven rattlesnakes.
The monsoons
and a few consecutive successful mating seasons have caused the snake
population growth, said Russ Johnson, president of the Phoenix Herpetological
Society.
"It's
cyclical," he said. "Good years mean a lot more interaction with
people."
Johnson said
the past few monsoon seasons in the Valley have brought decent rain, thus
causing more grass seed, which rodents eat. The increased food supply leads to
more rats, which is a staple in a snake's diet.
Johnson said
his group receives an average of 15 calls a day from residents who have spotted
a 6-foot-long snake in their yard. But Johnson said most rattlesnakes are less
than 5 feet long.
"I
usually take the decibels in their voice and divide it by the length that they
give me to determine how big the snake was," he joked.
Johnson said
residents will notice even more snakes this month as eggs hatch. He said
residents should be particularly careful around the baby snakes because they
have just as much venom but only one rattle, so their warning may not be
audible.
Chad Blostone,
vice president of the Foothills board of directors, is working with Phoenix
City Councilman Sal DiCiccio to inform residents of the snakes.
"They
just need to be cognizant that we have snakes living around us," he said.
If you do find
a snake in your yard, you can call the Phoenix Herpetological Society to remove
it to the desert for a $75 tax-deductible contribution.
It costs about
$100,000 to be treated for a rattlesnake bite, Johnson said. Only seven to 10
people nationally die each year from rattlesnake bites.
"But a
rattlesnake bite is still extremely painful and costly," he said.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2009/08/05/20090805snakes0805.html
DAILY HERALD (Illinois) 05 August 09 Just
how (and why) does one go about moving a colony of snakes? (Mick Zawislak)
When the
visitors first began spending winters in the little cottage, the road out front
was a country lane.
That changed
as decades passed and Lake County began to fill with new homes and traffic. Yet
cracks and crevices in the cinder block basement walls remained a perfect place
during cold months for a hearty colony of western fox snakes.
Every fall, as
many as 200 of the nonpoisonous rodent-eaters would emerge from marshes out
back, slither hundreds of yards up the hill and lodge inside.
Safe and
undisturbed with a southern exposure, the basement quarters were preferred by
the mild-mannered creatures over the traditional woodchuck hole or dead tree.
"To them,
this must have been Camelot," said Mike Corn, the retired dean of
biological health sciences at the College of Lake County.
'Was' is the
operative word for Corn and others involved in wildlife issues. The terrain has
been leveled and the house will be demolished, clearing the path for an
eventual commercial use.
With the
annual return of the reptiles expected soon, the work of Corn and his
colleagues has shifted from research to rescue and relocation. They plan to
intercept and move an entire population of fox snakes to a new home in a forest
preserve nearby.
"No one's
really attempted this so a lot of it is guesswork," said Gary Glowacki, a
wildlife biologist with the Lake County Forest Preserve District.
He's
overseeing installation of two large sections of concrete septic tank, secured
for free as factory seconds, about 10 feet below ground to serve as winter
quarters.
"Ultimately,
we want these snakes to find this place on their own and not have to capture
and move them."
Without
intervention, the snakes within a few weeks will clamor to get somewhere that
no longer exists. The fear is they would continue past the old home site and
into the path of busy traffic.
"Snakes
don't get old in Lake County - they get run over long before that," said
Corn, whose special interest in his 40-year career is reptile ecology.
To prevent
that, contractors working for the property owner, this spring installed a
corridor using a silt fence and wooden stakes. Funneled into the path as they
left for the marshes, about 50 snakes were captured and fitted with tiny
transmitters.
The reverse
will happen beginning next week, when volunteers begin collecting snakes from
traps placed along the corridor. They were fashioned by Corn using a gutter
downspout, plastic box and other common materials.
They will be
held at the Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm until late October or early
November before being introduced to their new home.
Those involved
in the project will say only the location is in the Lake Villa area.
"There
are a lot of snake hounds around that would show up in the middle of the night
and take the snakes out of the traps," said Steve Barg, executive director
of the Liberty Prairie Conservancy, an open space and restoration group also
involved in the effort.
Attempts to
buy the property were unsuccessful, but the owner has allowed Corn access since
he learned of it about 15 years ago.
Transmitters
allow researchers to track the snakes to determine seasonal movements and
preferred habitats. Fox snakes are not on any threatened or endangered lists
but are becoming rare here.
"Once
widely distributed, now only a few populations live in Lake County," said
Rob Carmichael, curator of the center, part of the Lake Forest parks and
recreation department. "Their numbers have really plummeted and they're
not doing as well as they could."
Scientific
papers will be written, and Corn even has plans for a "fox cam." If
it works, the process could be used as a model to save other species in the
county.
Why all the
effort? Corn said the general public doesn't always consider the big picture.
"Their
idea of preserving nature is, 'We want bluebirds and squirrels and a bike
path,'" he said. "To maintain an ecosystem, you need all the
pieces."
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=311700
TIMES-LEADER (Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania) 05
August 09 ‘King of the stream’
salamanders still vulnerable (Tom Venesky)
Slocum
TWP.: In the world of stream
salamanders, the Northern spring salamander is king.
Reaching up to
eight inches in length with a thick, powerful body, the spring salamander is
the largest of those that inhabit streams – bigger than the two-lined, the
dusky’s and the Northern red.
As if it knows
it’s at the top, the spring salamander has a voracious appetite and won’t
hesitate to prey on other salamanders.
Still, like
all the stream salamanders, the spring variety is vulnerable.
It requires
clean, cool water – similar to the type of stream where one would find native
brook trout, and pollution can wipe it out.
The spring
salamander that Rick Koval and I found was under a large rock in a small stream
that flowed down a mountain.
“Although
they’re big, they’re not easy to catch because they are very slippery,” said
Koval, a naturalist with the North Branch Land Trust, while trying to hold the
spring salamander. “But they are the king of the stream and that’s where they
stay except on rainy nights when you might find one crossing a road.”
The Northern
spring salamander has a short, keeled tail used to navigate stream currents and
is usually a rich purple or salmon color. Its stomach is a pale gray or pink.
Perhaps
because it is so large, spring salamander larvae take up to four years to reach
the adult stage. Larvae can grow up to four inches in length before they
finally become adults and the next generation of the “king of the stream.”
The 31 species
we are searching for:
Species:
Northern spring salamander
Located:
Slocum Township
Status: Common
but localized to high-quality streams
Size: Up to
eight inches
Eggs: A dozen
or more laid under rocks in the water
Food source:
Salamanders, insects
Habitat:
Streams with cool, clean water
Fact: Northern
spring salamander larvae have feathery gills and are often confused with
mudpuppies.
Frogs
Found
American toad
Green frog
Wood frog
Spring peeper
Gray tree frog
Northern
Cricket frog
Needed
Fowler’s toad
Pickerel frog
Northern
leopard frog
Bullfrog
Salamanders
Found
Red-spotted
newt
Spotted
salamander
Northern
two-lined salamander
Northern red
salamander
Red-backed
salamander
Northern slimy
salamander
Northern
spring salamander
Needed
Jefferson
salamander
Marbled
salamander
Northern dusky
salamander
Mountain dusky
salamander
Long-tailed
salamander
Four-toed
salamander
Turtles
Found
Spotted turtle
Wood turtle
Eastern box
turtle
Eastern
painted turtle
Common map
turtle
Needed
Snapping
turtle
Musk turtle
Lizards
Needed
Five-lined
skink
HOUSTON CHRONICLE (Texas) 05 August 09 Saving
city's namesake toads — before they croak (Allan Turner)
In the nightly
pondside chorus, the Houston toad sings soprano. Its clear, high cry, lasting
as long as 14 seconds, trills above the basso profundo grunts of the less
gifted. It's a remarkable performance. But to hear it, you'll need to travel as
far as Bastrop County.
Bufo houstonensis, the toad with the golden
voice, doesn't sing here anymore.
Pummeled by
habitat loss and drought, the musical toad vanished from the Houston area about
50 years ago. Threatened with extinction, added to the endangered species list
in 1970, it precariously clings to life in a shrunken remnant of its former
range — three tiers of counties west and northwest of the city.
Now, though,
the hometown toad finally has caught a break.
Since 2007,
roughly 5,000 baby toads — raised from eggs at a Houston Zoo nursery — have
been returned to the wild. An additional 1,000-plus toads are scheduled to be
released in Bastrop County with the next good rain. And while Bufo houstonensis
is a favorite snack for predators like snakes and raccoons, researchers are
heartened by early signs of survival and success.
“The good news
is that, in spite of the drought, we're doing better than we thought we would,”
said Texas State University biology professor Mike Forstner. “We have data. We
have a plan. We've got motion. With this momentum, in 10 years we'll no longer
be having these discussions about the toad.”
The university
in San Marcos is a major player in the raise-and-release program, which also
involves the zoo, Texas Parks and Wildlife, the Environmental Defense Fund and
private landowners. In late July, the effort was boosted by a $1.25 million
grant for toad work along Bastrop County's Alum Creek.
Even before it
was driven from the Houston area, the Houston toad rarely was seen by
residents. Reclusive, the heat-sensitive amphibian, whose color ranges from
light-brown to purplish-gray with green splotches, spends much of its time
buried in the cool sand.
“It never was
a garden toad,” said Paul Crump, the Houston Zoo's amphibian conservation
manager. “It always was relatively rare. It would spend 11½ months in the sand,
then come out en masse to breed and then disappear. … We don't know what they
do outside the breedings.”
Toads now
spotted in Houston yards most likely are Gulf Coast toads, Bufo valliceps,
which established their local dominance when Houston toads moved out.
In fact, about
the only place in Houston to find a Houston toad these days is the zoo's
nursery,
There, under
the watchful eye of senior keeper Chris Bednarski, thousands of the toads are
hatched in tanks of reconstituted pond water, then nursed through their tadpole
stage and infancy. The nursery temperature is kept at a steady 73 to 75
degrees, and the infants, who fill the rows of glass-sided tanks, are pampered
as tenderly as any kitten or pup.
The
youngsters' appetites are prodigious — a quarter-sized toad can eat 50 to 100
small crickets a day — and their meals are prepared with a dietician's skill.
Before the insects are served for lunch, they're “gut-loaded” with vitamins and
dusted in calcium powder, Bednarski said.
Before they
are released in the wild, many of the toads are implanted with microchips,
smaller versions of what might be used for a family pet, to permit later
tracking.
Although
researchers still have much to learn about the toad and how to successfully
rebuild its populations, Forstner is optimistic that the zoo-based effort is an
“insurance policy” for the animal.
In nature, he
said, the most robust toad population can be found in Bastrop County, whose
“lost pines” region provides deep sand needed by the amphibians. Toads also are
found in Austin, Milam, Leon and Robertson counties, he said. The amphibians
haven't been found in Harris and Fort Bend counties since the 1960s, and they
have been absent from Lee and Lavaca counties for more than a decade.
The drought of
1993 devastated the toad population, Forstner said.
“Things just
started to recover by 2005 — and then it stopped raining,” he said. “We never
have gotten back to those pre-drought levels. That's what's got us worried.”
As the summer
moves forward, Crump said, toad project workers are on constant alert for rain.
When a call comes from a volunteer weather watcher announcing the time's right
for releasing toads, crews can be in Bastrop within hours.
“We're
constantly in a state of readiness,” Crump said. “We can make it happen.”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/breaking/6562324.html
CHILLICOTHE GAZETTE (Ohio) 05
August 09 Ross Co. woman treated for snake bite (Loren Genson)
Stephanie
Runyon was getting ready for bed last week when she stepped out her back door
and was bitten by a northern copperhead snake. She is hoping her experience can
serve as a reminder to others to learn what to do if they happen to encounter
the venomous reptile.
Runyon had
stepped only a few feet away from the back of her Whiskey Run Road home to put
out food for her dogs when she was bitten.
"It hurt
like a really, really bad bee sting," Runyon said. "I think I stepped
on him. It was dark and I didn't see the snake, and all of a sudden it just bit
me."
Within 15
minutes, she had lost feeling in her foot and was unable to stand. She and her
husband hurried to Adena Regional Medical Center for treatment.
"I had a
bad taste in my mouth and chills - all the symptoms came on really fast,"
she said. "I found out the venom can cause muscle damage and damage to
your heart and kidneys."
While snakes
can be attracted to areas with tall brush or weeds, wood piles and junk piles,
it was the dog food that may have lured the venomous copperhead to her back
door.
"The dog
food attracts rodents, which in turn, attracts the snakes," she said she's
learned. "It's something that could really happen to anyone. A lot of people
put food out for their dogs."
Runyon said
she hopes her close call can serve as a warning to other families, especially
those living in rural areas of the county.
"It's
summertime, kids are playing in the yard and they're barefoot; it's just not
something you think about," she said, adding her family since has had a
discussion about what dangerous snakes look like and how to avoid them.
Dan Smith,
assistant wildlife management supervisor with the Ohio Division of Wildlife,
said northern copperheads often are spotted in the spring through fall months.
"You'll
see copperheads, especially in rocky outcrops on hillsides, but they can really
be anywhere," Smith said. "They're not overly aggressive. Typically,
if you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone."
Often, bites
from copperheads occur when people step on the snake, Smith said. He also said
it is a good idea to move dog food indoors at night because it can attract
other pests, including raccoons and skunks.
Preventing
snake bites also can include sealing up piping and basements.
"We get a
couple calls each year from copperheads in homes," Smith said. "You
want to make sure your home is well sealed, including the pipes under sinks
where the water lines come up."
Smith said
copperheads are the only poisonous snake in southeastern Ohio, other than very
rare appearances by rattlesnakes.
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/article/20090805/NEWS01/908050303/1002
GISBORNE HERALD (New Zealand) 05 August
09 Project
to save our rare lizards (Martin Gibson)
After
teetering on the brink of extinction, the region’s lizards are making a
comeback — thanks to a breeding programme managed by Ecoworks NZ with support
from DoC and the Biodiversity Condition Fund.
The project
aims to re-establish two species at several locations within the region — the
green tree gecko and the forest gecko, and they are calling on people to keep
their eyes peeled for the rare reptiles.
“I’m just
really keen to get my hands on more green geckos for the breeding programme,
says Steve Sawyer of Ecoworks NZ.
“Even 10 to 20
years ago people used to see them in the bush all the time, and there were 30
species. But they have been hammered by rats, mustelids, hedgehogs cats and
recently-arrived asian wasps — the geckos sun-bask on top of manuka and kanuka
and one sting would do them in.
“It’s a bit of
a bummer having to keep them in captivity but at least they will survive,” he
said.
The progeny of
this effort, including this green forest gecko (Naultinus elegans), which was
born last week at a secret hatchery, will be released back into sites where
predators are either controlled to a high level or have been eradicated.
New Zealand
geckos are unique and are found nowhere else in the world.
They are the
only reptiles in the world that give birth to live young — snakes, crocodiles
and other lizard species around the world lay eggs.
Some New
Zealand geckos live high on the scree slopes of the southern mountain ranges
and in central Otago.
Most manage to
survive the harsh winters by hiding deep within rock cracks. Several species
can freeze solid, thaw out again and continue, much like some of New Zealand’s
weta — both have an in-built anti-freeze.
Geckos play an
important role in New Zealand native forests by pollinating many flowering tree
species, particularly pohutukawa.
New Zealand
has lost over 75 percent of its indigenous forest during the past 800 years and
as habitat disappeared, so have many species.
Gisborne is a
prime example of this — most of the region’s coastal forests were cleared from
1890 onwards, and many of our endemic reptiles have quietly disappeared since.
http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/article/?id=13319
BRADENTON HERALD (Florida) 26 July 09 Wildlife expert battles 14-foot python
inside pipe
East
Manatee: His plan was to push the python
out of a concrete pipe with a long 2-by-2. But then he had to crawl 15 feet or
so into the two-foot-wide pipe to reach the snake. And then the snake turned
back on him in the close quarters and struck.
At that point,
wildlife expert Justin Matthews ordered his son out of the other end of the
pipe. Brandon Matthews had grabbed its tail. Not a good idea. Too dangerous.
The elder Matthews would handle it himself.
Now Matthews
the younger, four firefighters and a growing group of spectators stood by and
listened — more than an hour into the battle Saturday afternoon and within
sight of a Sweetbay Supermarket and a day care center.
When the
python’s hissing maw and spitting tongue reached four feet from Matthews, the
stick became a weapon.
“I tried to
get it to crawl out itself, but that wasn’t working,” Matthews said.
The owner of
Matthews’ Wildlife Rescue, an animal care and educational company, the
cowboy-hatted Matthews envisioned a specimen with which to teach people about
nature and not to keep pythons as pets.
“I think this
one had been there for years, living off Muscovy ducks in a nearby pond,”
Matthews said.
As a wildlife
expert and instructor, Matthews has permits to take pythons and other large
reptiles.
He’d been
hearing about this snake for months but had never seen it. A month ago, near
the drainage pipe along 33rd Street at 51st Avenue East, he found a belly
track. When he checked inside the pipe Saturday, there she was.
Yes she, he
said.
“The females
get a lot fatter and longer. I believe this will be the largest snake ever
caught in Bradenton,” he said.
After the
whack upside the head with the stick, the struggle went Matthews’ way. He and
his son dragged it out without being bitten. It took six men to hold it down
and measure it.
An unofficial
14 feet at the site, the snake went 14 feet, one and one half inches back home.
On Monday,
Matthews will take it to Bayshore Animal Clinic to scan its body for a
microchip.
“If it has
one, there will be consequences for the former owner. If not, she’s mine to use
in my classes,” he said.
Overnight
Saturday, the python was kept in a large wooden enclosure with heavy duty wire
and a door that locked.
“They’re
escape artists,” he said.
Asked if there
were more 14-foot Burmese pythons in Manatee County, Matthew said, “I hope not,
but I believe there are.”
http://www.bradenton.com/news/story/1599781.html