HERP NEWS 220/2009

THE STANDARD (Ste Catherines, Ontario) 08 August 09 Toronto man fined for sneaking snakes into Canada (Karena Walter)

Snakes alive!

For the second time this week, a driver was fined in St. Catharines court for sneaking venomous snakes into Canada.

This time, the six reptiles included rattlesnakes hidden in a compartment under a vehicle’s seat at the Peace Bridge.

Donald Pogue, 47, of Toronto was fined $1,000 for the attempted smuggling April 25 contrary to the customs act.

A Pennsylvania reptile show that day was so popular with Canadian snake enthusiasts, Environment Canada Wildlife Enforcement Division officers set up a joint effort at the border to thwart illegal entries.

Federal prosecutor Darren Anger said Pogue was crossing the bridge and was asked if he had any animals. He said no, but declared five cases of beer.

He was sent to a secondary inspection to verify the claim and officers noticed items for reptiles. Anger said Pogue was asked again if he had snakes and denied it, but volunteered the information when told his vehicle would be searched.

Customs officers found two banded rock rattlesnakes, two eastern coachwhip snakes, one mottled rock rattlesnake and one Florida cottonmouth snake.

Anger said Pogue paid $645 for the snakes and would have had to pay $39 in Canadian taxes. But he said Pogue didn’t want to stay in the U.S. for more days to get the paperwork required for exporting them from the U.S. to Canada.

He said the $1,000 fine reflects the seriousness of importing animals not admissible to Canada and the health and safety risk to officers searching the vehicle.

Court heard Pogue has already paid $300 in fines to the province and is remorseful about the incident, which duty counsel told the court caused Pogue distress and lack of sleep.

Judge David Harris said the attempted smuggling charge is usually laid against people who try to avoid paying duties.

“In this particular case, you lied primarily to avoid a process you’d have to go through to buy the snakes illegally.”

He’s not the first.

On Wednesday, a Thorold man coming from the Pennsylvania show was also fined $1,000 for attempting to smuggle four pit vipers and six tree frogs into Canada on the same day.

Customs officials at the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge found the snakes and frogs hidden in the lining of the man's coat.

Court heard he was also unwilling to wait for the required documentation to keep the animals.

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1690952

ORILLIA PACKETT (Ontario) 08 August 09 What To Watch For - Species In Decline (Bob Bowles)

Roads have greatly impacted on certain species of wildlife in recent years. We know that mammals are often killed on roads. We often observe deer, raccoons, skunks and squirrels dead on the road after a busy weekend.

But road mortality affects reptiles and amphibians most of all. We witness and receive several reports of snakes, turtles, frogs and toads being killed on our roads every summer.

You can expect these in our area where we build larger and wider roads each year to handle the movement of people and vehicles north into cottage country.

But what about isolated places like Pelee Island with a population of fewer than 200 people and limited vehicle use? Pelee Island now has only five species of snakes left on the island. There are two species of endangered snakes in Ontario; the Lake Erie water snake and the blue racer. Both are only found in Ontario on Pelee Island and some of the smaller adjacent uninhabited islands. The island also has the threatened eastern fox snake and the unusual melanistic garter snake.

Last week, while on the island, I decided to do searches for snakes and record all species killed on the few roads that form networks on the island. I drove the roads early in the morning and again late at night looking for snakes as well as checking them throughout the day while conducting workshops. I found several blue racers and fox snakes over a metre long but sadly I recorded many racers, fox snakes, water snakes and garter snakes (both forms) dead on the road.

Many of these snakes would stretch out in the evening along the sides of the roads to absorb the heat of the compacted road warmed by the sunlight during the day. To most drivers in the failing light, these objects looked like tree limbs along the sides of the road but to the trained eye you could soon rack up the numbers by knowing what to watch for along the roads. Sadly, many of these were run over right on the edge of the road meaning that the driver had to go out of their way off the driven area of the road to run over them.

I counted three blue racer, two fox snake, one water snake and 12 garter snake kills over the week.

When you consider the few cars that were on the island during the week, these numbers seem exceptionally high. The populations of many of these species are already low due to habitat loss. Add to this the road mortality every week and it will not be long before we lose these species from the island.

It is not much wonder that we have so many snake species that are species at risk. There were once thousands of timber rattlesnakes found on Pelee Island. Today, that species has been completely extirpated from Canada. I wonder if some day soon the two endangered snakes will also be extirpated from Pelee Island and Ontario.

http://www.orilliapacket.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1691523

NATIONAL POST (Toronto, Ontario) 08 August 09 Snakebite highlights serum deficit; Bitten On Road (Megan O'Toole)

A man was bitten by a rattlesnake in Parry Sound early yesterday, sending authorities racing to find a dose of anti-venom -- a treatment serum that has become precious cargo after falling to critically low levels in the province.

The hospital where the victim was taken quickly exhausted its supply, so Ontario Provincial Police arranged a careful operation to transport 15 more vials of anti-venom from the Indian River Reptile Zoo near Peterborough, about three hours south of Parry Sound.

"The officer put it in the seat, put the seatbelt around it, turned on his sirens and started flying down the highway," the zoo's curator, Bry Loyst, recalled. Police confirmed they used "emergency transport" measures to move the serum from the zoo to the hospital.

The victim had apparently been trying to move a Massasauga rattlesnake off the road shortly after midnight when he was bitten. His "moderate" wound required treatment with 12 vials of anti-venom, said Lorraine Vankoughnett, manager of infection control at the West Parry Sound Health Centre.

The man has since stabilized, but the emergency shipment from Indian River was critical in case his symptoms recurred and required additional treatment, which is always a risk, Ms. Vankoughnett said.

Until about a year ago, the Parry Sound hospital had acted as a provincial depot for the anti-venom, which runs at $20,000 to $80,000 per treatment. But the provincial government did not renew its funding, and the onus is now on individual hospitals to stock the expensive serum.

Indian River is the only reptile zoo in Canada that carries anti-venom, officials said, and amid the shortage, it is one of the only facilities in the province that currently has any stock. After sending 15 vials to the Parry Sound hospital, that supply fell to a mere five vials, Mr. Loyst said-- posing a potential problem should someone be bitten at the zoo.

"It is a concern," he said, but noted that has never happened "and hopefully never will."

An atypically high number of rattlesnake bites early in the season has intensified Ontario's shortage of the anti-venom, with some hospitals being forced to turn to zoos or hospitals in the United States to obtain the serum. Most bites traditionally occur toward the end of July and early August, which is the reptile's mating season.

Though rattlesnake bites are not usually fatal, they can cause severe pain and swelling, and in some cases amputation may be required.

Residents should never attempt tohandle rattlesnakes, Ms. Vankoughnett said, and in the event of a bite they should seek immediate medical treatment.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto/story.html?id=1871969

MIAMI HERALD (Florida) 08 August 09 Dalmatian attacked by alligator in park

Jacksonville, Fla.(AP): An 80-pound Dalmatian has died after being attacked by an alligator at Jacksonville's Hanna Park.

A 10-foot alligator was trapped and killed several hours after Saturday's 10:30 a.m. attack. Authorities say they don't know for sure that the one trapped was responsible since they spotted more than one large alligator in the same lake.

The dogs' owner, physician Charles Rust, was bitten on the hand by the wounded dog as he tried to wrestle it from the alligator. The alligator lunged and bit the dog's right leg off at the shoulder as it drank from the lake.

Rust acknowledged he had been warned to keep his dog on a leash. City officials say Rust will not face charges.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1179914.html

THE HINDU (Chennai, India) 08 August 09 Woman killed in crocodile attack

Kendrapara (PTI): A 50-year-old woman has been killed and several others injured in crocodile attacks in and around Bhitarkanika wildlife sanctuary, official sources said.

Two crocodiles were also killed in retaliatory attack by the locals recently.

A group of adult crocodiles pounced on 50-year-old Chanchala Digal near a creek in Trilochanpur village on Tuesday. The woman died on the spot.

Twelve persons from villages around the sanctuary have been injured recently by crocodiles that had strayed into village water bodies.

http://www.hindu.com/2009/08/07/stories/2009080752710300.htm

THE SUN (London, UK) 08 August 09 Pet cat eaten by giant snake

An owner told today how his pet cat was "crushed, asphyxiated and consumed whole" by a neighbour's 13ft python.

Wilbur, a four-year-old tabby, was devoured after straying into a nearby garden in Brislington, Bristol, where the Burmese python was lurking.

The cat's owners, Martin and Helen Wadey, heard "blood-chilling cries" and rushed to the neighbouring property to help. But after getting no reply from the house they were powerless to save Wilbur.

The snake's "huge bulge" was eventually scanned and RSPCA officers confirmed that micro-chipped remains were inside.

An RSPCA inspector later issued the snake's owner, Darren Bishop, with a verbal warning about appropriate housing and care requirements.

Now Mr and Mrs Wade are calling for a change in the law so that pythons are officially classed as dangerous animals, requiring a licence.

Mr Wade, 44, writing on his website "Justice for Wilbur", describes the cat as "beautiful, strong, soft, with a purr like a dynamo".

He said: "We don't know whether Wilbur stumbled across the snake and it was an opportunistic kill, or if the snake was actively hunting him, but either way, we heard the python's strike from the terrified scream that came from Wilbur and the subsequent blood-chilling cries as he fought for his life.

"Then in less than a minute, all was silent. He never stood a chance against a creature over 13 times his weight with such immense power. Wilbur was crushed, asphyxiated and consumed whole.

"Helen and I were both standing on our deck hearing everything, but unable to see what had happened, other than it involved Wilbur and it was something awful From an upstairs window, I was able to make out movement in the garden in question, but no detail."

Many owners underestimate pet snakes' "wild instincts", Mr Wadey said.

He added: "Because of that Wilbur's little life was brutally snuffed out and after death we have had nothing to say goodbye to, stroke for one last time, mourn over, or bury. Our lovely little Wilbur was slowly being digested by a serpent a short distance from us."

Pythons, which usually feed on birds and small mammals, wrap themselves around their victims. They can be bought as domestic pets for around £100.

Last month a two-year-old girl was reportedly crushed to death by an 8ft Burmese python.

Mr and Mrs Wadey, who have three other cats and no children, want to introduce a "Wilbur's amendment" to the Dangerous and Wild Animals Act and are petitioning No. 10 Downing Street.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2578242/Pet-cat-eaten-by-giant-snake.html

EVENING POST (Bristol, UK) 08 August 09 Comment: Incredible story of Bristol python

It does seem incredible that, in the eyes of the law, there is nothing wrong in having a 13ft-long Burmese python slithering free in a suburban Bristol back garden.

Here is a creature which has the capability to kill a human being and did just that in an incident in America last month, claiming the life of a two-year-old girl.

The snake strangled her to death.

Here in Bristol the life lost was not that of a human.

It was the a neighbour's much-loved pet cat.

The snake caught it, crushed it, then consumed it – whole.

To make matters worse, the cat's owners, Martin and Helen Wadey, heard their pet's final "blood- chilling cries" as it was asphyxiated.

The snake's owner has now been given a verbal warning by the RSPCA animal charity.

The Wadeys, understandably, want matters taken further. They have launched a petition on the Downing Street website asking for a change in the current legislation.

They propose that reptiles such as this, which can be bought by anyone from pet shops, should be reclassified and officially considered dangerous animals.

Few, surely, on reading their traumatic story, will argue with them.

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Comment-Incredible-story-Bristol-python/article-1235457-detail/article.html

EVENING POST (Bristol, UK) 08 August 09 Pet cat eaten alive by python in Bristol garden

A pet cat was eaten alive by a 13ft-long Burmese python in a Bristol garden.

The four-year-old tabby, called Wilbur, was attacked when he went into a garden where the snake was lying.

Wilbur's owners Martin and Helen Wadey heard his "blood-chilling cries" and rushed to a nearby house in Brislington. But they could not get a reply from the owner and could do nothing to save Wilbur.

Mr and Mrs Wadey contacted the RSPCA, the snake was scanned and they confirmed a micro-chipped animal was inside. An RSPCA inspector later issued the snake's owner, Darren Bishop, with a verbal warning.

But Mr and Mrs Wadey want a change in the law so snakes are officially considered dangerous animals and need to be licensed.

The couple, who live in Upper Sandhurst Road have set up a website called Justice For Wilbur and are petitioning 10 Downing Street to introduce "Wilbur's amendment".

At the moment, anyone can go into a pet shop and pay about £130 for a Burmese python, despite the fact it could potentially kill.

Mr Wadey, 44, said: "We don't know whether Wilbur stumbled across the snake and it was an opportunistic kill, or if the snake was actively hunting him.

"But either way, we heard the python's strike from the terrified scream that came from Wilbur and the subsequent blood chilling cries as he fought for his life.

"Then in less than a minute, all was silent.

"He never stood a chance against a creature more than 13 times his weight with such immense power, Wilbur was crushed, asphyxiated and consumed whole."

It took two days for the couple to get hold of the snakes owner, Mr Bishop, and when they did they say they saw the snake had a bulge in its stomach.

Mr Wadey said: "It was so traumatic for us. The sound of his cries and the fact we were so close by but couldn't help him has been very distressing.

"Wilbur was a cat that had to be treated with kid gloves. The fact he was trapped like this would have been his ultimate fear.

"He was inside a giant serpent being digested.

"We couldn't say goodbye to him or bury him or any of the other things you would do if he had been run over or died another way.

" I haven't been this upset for 23 years, since my mum died. We don't have any children, the cats are our family."

Mr and Mrs Wadey own three other cats and described Wilbur as a "miracle of fluffy nature".

Their online petition has attracted about 270 signatures so far and will require a formal response from Downing Street.

Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy has written to Home Secretary Alan Johnson on their behalf for clarification of the law.

Mrs Wadey, 41, said: "We do not want Wilbur's death to be in vain. We want those sorts of snakes to be licensed and for owners to be prosecuted if they leave them unattended as well as having to inform people living nearby that they own one."

Pythons are not covered by the Dangerous Wild Animals Act, 1976 even though they can kill humans. In July, a two-year-old girl was crushed to death in Florida by an 8ft Burmese python.

The RSPCA confirmed one of their inspectors attended after the Brislington incident on June 25 and issued a verbal warning to the owner of the snake about appropriate housing and care requirements.

RSPCA Spokesman Jude Clay said: "The RSPCA is not concerned about people keeping exotic animals as pets as long as the owners are fully informed about what they are taking on and seek professional advice from an expert on how to provide for their pet. "

"Unfortunately all too often, people who take on an exotic animal as a pet are not fully aware of its needs and requirements.

"Potential owners need to consider diet, appropriate environment and housing, how big it will grow, how long it will live and any relevant health issues."

The Bristol Evening Post made several attempts to contact Mr Bishop but he was unavailable for comment.

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Pet-cat-eaten-alive-python-Bristol-garden/article-1235361-detail/article.html

NEWS-PRESS (Fort Myers, Florida) 08 August 09 Baby tortoises hatch in park - And that brings smiles to many (Amy Sowder)

Two baby gopher tortoises were discovered July 31, waddling just outside of their broken eggshells at The Nature Place in Bonita Springs.

Ecologist Craig Schmittler spotted the little shelled creatures while clearing the land.

Schmittler volunteers at the property, weeding out exotics and nuisance plants to make it a more nurturing habitat for tortoises.

"The turtles were so tiny, they're as big as golf balls," he said. "It amazed me that they're so small and they're running around, eating grass.

"They crawled out of their eggs, ready to go."

When Schmittler notified officials, they were excited, said Arleen Sheehan, special events and park coordinator for the city of Bonita Springs.

"They're really cute," Sheehan said.

The city bought the 10-acre, single-family residential property at 27601 Kent Road across from the YMCA in 2007.

Starting with nine confirmed gopher tortoise nests when the City bought the property, it is now at 23, said City Councilwoman Janet Martin, who's known for her passion for conservationism.

"We're parents!" she said. "We've got baby tortoises. It's very, very cool."

When Martin heard about the baby tortoises, she hurried after the afternoon rain to see them.

"I think by then they had crawled back into their little hole. Little pieces of shell are still there," she said.

http://news-press.com/article/20090808/NEWS0102/908080323

MIAMI HERALD (Florida) 08 August 09 Python hunter: Miami man takes on Glades swamp serpents (Curtis Morgan)

Nobody has killed more Burmese pythons in the Everglades than Bob Hill.

Long before the state launched its new python patrol, Hill was quietly -- aside from judicious employment of a 12-gauge -- racking up a count of constrictor carcasses likely to stand for some time.

The patrol has bagged six in three weeks. Hill figures he's ``dispatched'' 35 this year alone, and he's been in the dispatching business for the South Florida Water Management District since 2004.

That was the first time a rattled boss rang him from the L-67, a flood-control levee deep in the Everglades. Hill, a soft-spoken Miamian with a half-century of swamp savvy, chuckled recalling it.

``He said, `Bobby, I've got a snake here. It's as big as my truck.' ''

Some 300 pythons later, the side job has turned into full-time work. And Hill's uncanny nose for the giant snakes -- sometimes, he can literally smell them -- has turned the modest maintenance worker into not only the state's top exterminator of the exotic menace, but a leading authority on their habits.

Skip Snow, an Everglades National Park biologist who has led research efforts aimed at controlling the snake, credits Hill's field work for a good chunk of what is known about pythons in South Florida.

``His service has been unparalleled in helping us address the threat,'' Snow said. ``I've really seen him take it on in a personal way to learn the next thing, to figure out this beast, if you will.''

Hill's skill at spotting the wily predators dazzles colleagues. During breeding season, he can pick up whiffs of python musk -- distinctive, but only if you're another python or know what you're smelling.

``The guy has a gift,'' said Hill's boss Dan Thayer, who directs invasives control for the district.

Hill is a stocky 58-year-old with the grizzled look of a man who spends a considerable part of life outdoors. With ruddy cheeks and snowy walrus-cut beard, he looks a bit like Santa if Claus used an airboat.

For Hill, there is no big thrill to the kill. He professes no desire for snakeskin boots or a shot at an Animal Planet series. He notes, dryly, some interest in the bounty being pondered by state wildlife managers. ``Can they make that retroactive?''

But he takes his study of the snake's ways, and its potential threat to the Everglades' ecological balance, seriously.

He hopes the information he gathers -- where they are, what they eat -- will help scientists develop more effective tools than a shotgun to stop the spread of an alien capable of preying on the Everglades' most powerful denizens.

``After they hit five feet, probably the only predators they have is the alligator, and sometimes the snake wins, sometimes the alligator wins. Pythons don't belong here in the Everglades,'' he said.

Hill grew up fishing and hunting with his father, a Miami banker. He lives in the Cutler Bay area but spends a lot of time at the family camp in the Big Cypress National Preserve with wife Anita, three daughters, one son and 14 grandchildren.

He's worked for the district for nearly 36 years, always in jobs that kept him in the field -- mowing rights-of-way, sand-blasting structures, spraying herbicides and most recently, gathering data by airboat and truck from hydrology gauges.

Over the years, he had pulled a few wayward indigenous snakes out of buildings. But that fateful call from the L-67 was his first encounter with an 18-foot serpent that he instantly knew was no local boy.

He took pictures, and his search to identify it led him to Snow, a scientist who was charting a disturbing surge of pythons in the park. They would soon be consulting each other with increasing frequency.

So many pythons were popping up along the district's extensive network of levees that water managers began worrying they might pose a threat to work crews. Hill even pulled one out of a pump-station bathroom -- an 11-footer that had somehow taken up residence in rafters 14 feet up.

The district decided to deputize Hill, though top managers were initially uneasy.

``You can imagine the reaction when I said I wanted to arm him with a shotgun,'' Thayer said. Hill still is the only district employee authorized to carry a firearm.

Often, he targets snakes other workers spot first. Those are the easiest. Python, which patiently wait to ambush prey, often don't move far in a day.

But a recent excursion down the L-67 extension, south of Tamiami Trail, showed how challenging, and tedious, python hunting can be.

As slow as it will go, Hill drives the levee in a Chevy Savannah van co-workers have dubbed ``Bob's Shed,'' owing to its assortment of work tools and snake gear.

Depending on the season, he'll scan different areas.

In winter, the cold-blooded reptiles make themselves most conspicuous, sometimes stretching across levees to soak up sun. In summer heat, they tend to hunker down and hide -- so six so far is actually a pretty good catch for the seven experts who have volunteered for the state's new python patrol.

At any time of year, even experts struggle to pick python out in the underbrush. But Hill has learned telltale signs.

Sometimes, he said, ``It's just a pattern or shine, like the water on the grass blades.'' He also looks for tamped-down cat-tails, where he discovered they bed. And he's learned where there is one, there are frequently others nearby.

Though Hill came into the game with no python expertise, Snow believes his lifetime of hunting equipped him well. ``You say that some people have good eyes for wildlife, snake eyes. He has them.''

Snow credits Hill for helping delineate breeding and nesting seasons. He also believes Hill was the first to document two behaviors in South Florida: a mating ball, where multiple males entwine a receptive female, and thermogenesis, when a female coils around eggs to warm them.

The carcasses Hill collects and sends to Snow have showed the snake's prodigious reproductive power -- a 16-footer pulled from the L-67 this year had 59 eggs -- and its awesome appetite.

``Really, the question is what are they not eating?'' said district scientist LeRoy Rodgers. ``As far as we can tell, it's salad.''

When Hill finds a snake, he records the spot on a GPS then sizes it up -- first, with his own safety in mind.

While playing down scare-mongering that pythons will begin swallowing tourists, he stresses they are not to be trifled with. Sharp, inward angled teeth can inflict wicked bites, and big snakes, if provoked, could certainly overpower a human.

``I don't want to put myself in a situation where I'm going to get in trouble,'' he said. ``If I catch it, I catch it. A large snake, I won't catch myself.''

Hill has two main tools. When seeking a live specimen, he wields long-handled, lightweight metal tongs to grip the snake. He ordered it from www.tongs.com, which bills itself as the ``world's leader in reptile handling equipment.''

Where he can safely use a gun, he will unsheath a Winchester 1400 and chamber a load of No. 4 steel shot, typically used in duck hunting.

``A head shot is considered a humane way to euthanize them,'' he said, and he can hit it with confidence anywhere inside 15 to 20 feet.

Between road kill recoveries and captures, Hill has handled more than 300 pythons in the wild -- ``no question'' more than anyone else, Snow said.

The tally will surely grow.

This year, he has pulled more snakes off the L-67 than the previous three combined. And with state wildlife managers and Washington politicians pressuring for a major eradication effort, Hill is getting more help.

The district has enlisted two dozen workers to spend a few hours each week scanning for snakes while driving regular routes along levees. Dispatching will be left to Hill and, north of Miami-Dade, state game officers or the python patrol.

With Snow's help, the district held a daylong snake-spotting training session last month, using many tips culled from Hill's field work.

``What you saw in that presentation is the culmination of the partnership I've had with Bobby,'' Snow said. ``Without that, I would not have half of what I was able to present.''

[Video report at URL below]

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/1178079.html?storylink=pd

SUN NEWS (Myrtle Beach, S Carolina) 08 August 09 Turtle's nest poached - OIB Turtle Patrol reports 83 eggs stolen from beach (Steve Jones)

Ocean Isle Beach, N.C.: Nancy Parker doesn't think she'll sleep well for at least the next few nights.

Parker is one of the guards for the sea turtle nests on Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., and with the poaching of a nest sometime Thursday morning plus eggs stolen from another nest this year, she and others on the island's Turtle Patrol say they will be extra vigilant.

A round-the-clock surveillance of the remaining 19 nests on the island is planned, said Turtle Patrol coordinator Gloria Hillenburg, while local, state and federal authorities try to find the poacher.

Hillenburg said the egg theft on the island is the first in about 20 years and she takes each incident very hard.

"Eighty-three babies were taken out of a nest, and they weren't put into the ocean," she said.

Likely, she said, some of the eggs in the nest had begun to hatch because the sand covering it had begun to depress inward, a sign that at least some of the babies were out of the eggs and beginning to work their way to the surface and the sea.

Another 38 eggs were poached from a separate nest on the island this year.

Hillenburg said she's not sure what poachers do with the eggs, but she thinks at least some are sold to make souvenirs. Whoever buys them from the poacher blows the liquid out of the egg and decorates them as mementos or trinkets, she said. The Web site of the Florida Wildlife Commission said some people eat the eggs, believing they contain aphrodisiacs.

The eggs sell for $35 per dozen, the Web site said.

The Internet has numerous stories of sea turtle egg poachings from around the world.

Hillenburg said the Ocean Isle 1980s poacher was caught, and while she wouldn't give his name, she said he wasn't a local resident.

While the potential rewards for poaching obviously tempt some people, the potential downside is even more eye-opening.

Hillenburg said that a female turtle covers the eggs with a secretion when she lays her clutch and just handling the eggs without gloves to take them out of a nest comes with a 50 percent chance of salmonella poisoning.

Then there's the federal penalty: $10,000 to $50,000 per egg poached plus time in jail, Hillenburg said.

The Ocean Isle nest was poached sometime after 7 a.m. Thursday, and Hillenburg is sure that someone must have seen it happen.

"I hope they're caught and prosecuted to the highest extent," Parker said.

To help - If you have information, contact: Ocean Isle Beach Police Department 910-579-4221

Gloria Hillenburg, Ocean Isle Beach Turtle Patrol coordinator 910-754-9513

http://www.thesunnews.com/news/local/story/1013998.html

NEWS.CH (Zürich, Switzerland) 08 August 09 Verschwundene Boa Constrictor wieder da

Zürich (Fest/Sda): In Zürich ist am Freitag eine rund zwei Meter lange, aber ungiftige Riesenschlange für mehrere Stunden entlaufen. Nach einem Tag in Freiheit wurde die Schlange vom Besitzer in der Nähe seines Hauses wieder gefunden.

Polizei, Besitzer und Spezialisten hatten gestern und heute im Zürcher Stadtkreis 6 stundenlang nach der Boa Constrictor gesucht, nachdem der Besitzer den Verlust der Schlange der Polizei gemeldet hatte. Das Reptil entwischte ihm beim Reinigen des Terrariums.

Die Zürcher Stadtpolizei ging davon aus, dass die zwölf Jahre alte Riesenschlange keine grossen Strecken zurücklegt. In der Tat wurde die Schlange dann am Samstagabend nur 15 Meter vom Haus des Besitzers entfernt in einer überdachten Pergola gefunden. Dort hatte sie Schutz vor Kälte und Regen gesucht..

http://www.news.ch/Verschwundene+Boa+Constrictor+wieder+da/399802/detail.htm

LE DAUPHINÉ (Savoie, France) 08 August 09 Récupération de tortues exotiques au lac du Bourget

La 8e journée de récupération des tortues exotiques est organisée ce dimanche dans le cadre du marché des plantes aromatiques et médicinales du Bourget-du-Lac.

En 2002, une première éclosion naturelle de tortue à tempes rouges, dite de "Floride" était observée en Savoie et le phénomène n'a depuis cessé de se poursuivre. Cet événement prouve l'acclimatation inquiétante de cette espèce dans nos milieux.

Issues d'importations massives et ayant pu être achetées en animaleries pendant des années jusqu'à leur interdiction, ces tortues américaines d'eau douce représentent aujourd'hui un danger pour notre écosystème et notamment pour la réussite de la réintroduction de la tortue cistude.

Par manque d'information, elles sont trop souvent rejetées dans nos lacs et étangs par leurs propriétaires, qui les trouvent encombrantes. De plus, on retrouve à présent dans le milieu naturel de nouvelles races de tortues exotiques proches de la tortue de Floride.

Afin d'enrayer cette prolifération, le Conservatoire reconduit pour la 8e année sa journée de récupération et d'information sur les tortues exotiques. Le public est attendu nombreux pour s'informer et éventuellement rapporter des tortues. Elles seront acheminées ensuite au parc de la Tête d'Or à Lyon.

Une entrée gratuite au marché des plantes aromatiques et médicinales sera offerte à toute personne ramenant une tortue (accueil dimanche dans les jardins du Prieuré de 9 heures à 17 heures).

http://www.ledauphine.com/index.jspz?chaine=26&article=173446&xtor=RSS-26

THE TELEGRAM (St. John's, Newfoundland) 07 August 09 Police round up fugitive python (James McLeod)

When Kathy Jackman called 911, the dispatcher didn't believe her.

"I said, 'Yes, honey, I know that there's no snakes in Newfoundland, but there's one in my backyard,'" the Southlands resident said.

"She questioned me a couple times on that, and wondered if I had been drinking."

About 15 minutes later, RNC officers showed up to apprehend the serpent.

"The officer said, 'No problem with mice,' and I said, 'Honey, I'd prefer the mice right now,'" Jackman said.

The family initially noticed the snake around midnight Wednesday, when Jackman's small maltese dog, Cuddles, was in the backyard, barking.

The snake slithered into another backyard before climbing up the fence, and wrapping itself around a post.

The four-year-old carpet python, which measured more than a metre in length, is now in the safekeeping of the SPCA, while officials try to figure out where it came from.

"They're real escape artists, apparently," said Debbie Powers, SPCA shelter director.

Since they're not set up to handle a snake, the SPCA has handed it over to Dean Goudie, whose hobby is keeping and breeding reptiles.

By mid-afternoon Thursday, the snake's owner had contacted the SPCA. "It's common in the pet trade, but I don't know of very many locally," Goudie said, adding it's not really dangerous. "The worst you'll get from them is a nasty bite, but they're not venomous or anything."

Const. Paul Davis said the RNC is "not accustomed to dealing with this kind of call."

When the officers arrived on the scene, they used police batons to cajole the snake into a box.

http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=275926&sc=79

SANTA PAULA TIMES (California) 07 August 09 Big Tige: Elderly turtle returns home from Porterville (Peggy Kelly)

Big Tige, the elderly turtle with raging hormones who went missing about a month ago, has been reunited with her Santa Paula family after an adventure to - and back from - far away Porterville. Big Tige made record time for a turtle, as she was a passenger in the vehicle of the family that found her and later saw the story of her disappearance in the Santa Paula Times.

The 80-plus-year-old desert tortoise walked out the gate at her owners’ West Main Street home on July 6, and shortly thereafter Judy and Walt Klement launched their search for the beloved family pet. Walt’s family had owned Big Tige all her long life and she had lived at the home since she was a tiny turtle, for the most part enjoying the company of her turtle friends except when romantic complications arose.

“Big Tige has returned from her big adventure!” exclaimed Judy when the turtle was returned to the family shortly after the Klements were notified Virginia Oviedo had picked the wandering turtle up at a gas station while visiting family in Santa Paula. “She called us on Friday, July 31,” a contact the Klements, who had already responded to several false alarms, at first took lightly.

“When Virginia called she said ‘I know this is your turtle!’ and when she described Big Tige down to “her gnarly” back foot, “we knew it was her.” Oviedo told the Klements a friend notified them that they had seen the article about the turtle’s disappearance in the Santa Paula Times; Virginia googled ‘lost turtle’ and, sure enough, the article popped up, including the offer of a $200 reward.

It turns out the Oviedos family - Virginia and her husband Alex and children Alexander, Nicholas, Natalie and Mikey - was visiting in Santa Paula and were stopped at a local gas station when they spied Big Tige. The owner said the turtle had just shown up and, learning the Oviedos had turtles, said they could have the stray, which they took home to Porterville.

Big Tige returned home a few days after Virginia called the Klements, and Judy said she sat outside anxiously awaiting their arrival. “When I saw her I cried out ‘Oh, it’s Big Tige!’, thanked them profusely” and gave Virginia the reward money.

“Right now all the turtles are out there eating communal corn and having a blast,” and although Judy’s not positive Big Tige recognizes her human family, “she’s very docile, happy to be here. When we put her in the yard the other turtles came out to see her, including her boyfriend, Beau,” 70 years younger than the object of his fickle affection.

But then again Beau lives up to his name, courting all the females, even enraging Big Tige in the past when he made advances towards Sparky. Big Tige took off after the younger female and gave her a piece of her mind and a swat across the side of her rival’s head.

Upon Big Tige’s return, Judy said Beau was “so excited” to see his lady love who, alas, due to her gnarly back foot, is unable to mate - not that Beau will ever give up trying. “Walt had to turn him over for awhile... I have to go,” Judy added before she hung up, “and upright Beau!”

http://www.santapaulatimes.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/19091/Big_Tige:_Elderly_turtle_returns_home_from_Porterville.html

WEST AUSTRALIAN (Perth, Australia) 07 August 09 Giant turtle swims home

An 80-year-old female green turtle has returned to her Shark Bay home after being nursed back to health by wildlife officers.

The metre-long marine turtle was found stranded a kilometre away from coastal waters about a month ago after she swam in on a high tide.

Ocean Park managing director and marine scientist Ed Fenny said the turtle was in poor condition and it was unlikely she would have been strong enough to reach the coast on her own.

“We transported the animal to our small tourist operation just south of Denham in Shark Bay and we were able to rehabilitate it there quite successfully,” he said.

“After several weeks of care it was fit and healthy and we were absolutely delighted to release it last week to its natural home.”

Department of Environment and Conservation marine park co-ordinator Dave Holley said green turtles were common in WA with thousands of females nesting on WA beaches between October and February.

“Monitoring and protection of these fascinating creatures is of vital importance and in this case we took some measurements and pictures before tagging the turtle for future identification,” Mr Holley said.

Lisa Calautti, Perth

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=160841

TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT (Florida) 07 August 09 Our Opinion: Python politics - Storms you can't ban; snakes you can

Florida could hardly send a worse message to the upper 47 states and beyond than that Florida is crawling with these snakes that have potential as both pets and killers.

It's already difficult enough to calm newcomers' fears about the potential for hurricanes, though a report Tuesday from scientists at Colorado State University, called the nation's premier hurricane forecasting team, said that the Atlantic will spawn fewer storms this season.

The scientists now expect 10 tropical storms, with just four predicted to become hurricanes and only two of those major hurricanes, according to a news story in USA Today.

The previous forecast was for 11 storms, five hurricanes and two of them major ones; a typical season sees six storms turn into hurricanes.

So far we've had none this hurricane season — a sweet happening for Gov. Charlie Crist, whose property insurance policies revolve in large part around GGF: Great Good Fortune that the state won't be struck by truly dangerous destructive hurricanes as it was four years ago.

Luck has less to do with the python problem, which was brought to national attention by Florida's U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.

It's no longer South Florida's scary little secret that many Floridians apparently have a short fascination span with these exotic reptiles that they buy for pets and then, illegally, release into the wild.

Mr. Nelson has called for a federal ban on importing the snakes, which can grow to 26 feet and 200 pounds and have been known to kill small children and animals not to mention protected species of birds.

They're now threatening Everglades restoration efforts, despite the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's best efforts to enforce rules and keep track of pet pythons now at large. These snakes have no natural predators and so are considered an invasive species, meaning they easily get out of control. More than 110,000 have been imported in to Florida since 1990. Scientists speculate that hundreds were released into the wild after 1992, when Hurricane Andrew shattered many pet shop terrariums.

Of those snakes now at large, six have been caught since the governor ordered a roundup of them last month. And now scientists fear this species is silently slithering northward and could ultimately invade the entire Southeast.

Maybe some pet owners love them, herpetologists respect them, and hunters get a charge out of trapping them. But for the run-of-the-mill Floridian, including us, a ban on bringing them into the country would be one of the smartest things Congress has done in a while.

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20090807/OPINION01/908070317/1006/OPINION/Our+Opinion++Python+politics

LOWELL SUN (Massachusetts) 07 August 09 Pepperell woman serves as a cross guard... for salamanders (Hiroko Sato)

Every spring for the past 10 years, Jeanne Nevard of Pepperell has stood on the side of roadways to help salamanders safely cross the street and into wetlands. Nevard calls the activity "salamandering," and organizes a group of volunteers. A member of Nashoba Conservation Trust, Nashoba Watershed Association, the Pepperell Garden Club and the Massachusetts Bluebird Association, Nevard, 53, also protects bluebirds by placing nest boxes around the community.

Q: Where do salamanders cross roads?

A: There are specific wetland areas with vernal pools where they go back year after year. Even though roads cut through the areas, they still have the internal instinct to go back to their birthplaces and lay eggs, and sometimes they have to cross a road. Babies will hatch about a month and half to two months later.

Q: How do you know when to stand guard for salamanders?

A: On a rainy spring night at certain temperatures, the rain signals them to start the mating process. From March to the end of April, thousands of individual salamanders cross roads.

Q: How do you help them?

A: Salamanders have to be moist all the time. So, if the rain stops, you sprinkle them with a bottle of water, gently lift them up and put them in the direction they are moving, 10 feet into the shoulder of the road.

Q: What's the biggest challenge in saving salamanders?

A: You have to have really good eyesight and quick wits. For example, Elm Street is a very heavily-traveled road and is difficult to cross. As you are saving a salamander in your lane, there may be another one a few feet ahead in the opposite lane, and an oncoming car could kill it. And salamanders are very slow. It's a good exercise.

Q: What does a salamander feel like?

A: Sort of rubbery, similar to frogs, slightly moist but not slimy. They are very light, a fairly tame animal. They are between 3 and 8 inches long and look like a stick with the head sticking up.

Q: How did you get into salamandering?

A: One of the Nashoba Conservation Trust members, Paula Terrasi, showed me where they cross, and we started crossing. Then, we expanded to a group of six to 10 volunteers. After my ovarian cancer diagnosis in 2000, I retired from a display-ad sales job for a Boston area arts magazine and re-dedicated my purpose in life to help protect the animals that cannot speak or defend themselves. I am nine years cancer free.

Q: How many salamanders have you saved?

A: Personally, I save about 15 to 25 salamanders on a busy night.

Q: You also protect bluebirds.

A: I put bluebird boxes in conservation land and private properties with open meadows to discourage non-native house sparrows from nesting. If you don't watch out for bluebirds and don't monitor the boxes, house sparrows often attack bluebirds. House sparrows came from England in the late 1800s. They poke a hole in (bluebirds') eggs and throw them out and often attack their parents.

Q: How do bluebirds know the boxes are for them?

A: Each bird has their own signature nest design. Bluebirds nest in tree cavities and make very neat nests with pine needles. I look after 25 boxes on my street.

Q: Why is it important for you to save these creatures?

A: It's for the future. Who are we to let them die? We should let them exist for future generations. If more people could be aware of these beautiful creatures, more could be saved for our children to enjoy.

http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_13014027?source=rss

THE GUARDIAN (London, UK) 07 August 09 Why we shouldn't eat frogs' legs (Jon Henley)

In the cavernous community hall of the Vosges spa town of Vittel, a large and lugubrious man, his small, surprisingly chirpy wife, and 450 other people are sitting down to their evening meal. It's rather noisy. "Dunno why we do it, really," shouts the man, whose name is Jacky. "Don't taste of anything, do they? White. Insipid. If it wasn't for the sauce it'd be like eating some soft sort of rubber. Just the kind of food an Englishman should like, in fact. Hah."

Outside, the streets are filled with revellers. A funfair is going full swing. The restaurants along the high street are full, and queues have formed before the stands run by the local football, tennis, basketball, rugby and youth clubs.

All offer the same thing: cuisses de grenouilles à la provencale (with garlic and parsley), cuisses de grenouille à la poulette (egg and cream). Seven euros, or thereabouts, for a paper plateful, with fries. Nine with a beer or a glass of not-very-chilled riesling. The more daring are offering cuisses de grenouilles à la vosgienne, à l'andalouse, à l'ailloli. There's pizza grenouille, quiche grenouille, tourte grenouille. Omelette de grenouilles aux fines herbes. Souffle, cassolette and gratin de grenouilles.

Everywhere you look, people are nibbling greasily on a grenouille, licking their fingers, spitting out little bones. "Isn't it just great?" yells Jacky's diminutive wife, Frederique. "Every year we do this. It's our tradition. Our tribute to the noble frog."

This is Vittel's 37th annual Foire aux Grenouilles. According to Roland Boeuf, the 70-year-old president of the Confrererie de Taste-Cuisses de Grenouilles de Vittel, or (roughly) the Vittel Brotherhood of Frog Thigh Tasters, which has organised the event since its inception, the fair regularly draws upwards of 20,000 gourmet frog aficionados to the town for two days of amphibian-inspired jollities. Between them, they consume anything up to seven tonnes of frogs' legs.

But there's a problem. When the fair began, its founder René Clément, resistance hero, restaurateur and last of the great Lorraine frog ranchers, could supply all the necessary amphibians from his lakes 20 miles or so away. Nowadays, none of the frogs are even French.

According to Boeuf, Clément, whose real name was Hofstetter, moved to the area in the early 1950s looking to raise langoustines in the Saone river; the water proved too brackish and he turned to frogs instead. A true Frenchman, his catchphrase, oft-quoted around these parts, was that frogs "are like women. The legs are the best bits".

Hofstetter/Clément would, says Gisèle Robinet, "provide 150kg, 200kg for every fair, all from his lakes and all caught by him". With her husband Patrick, Robinet runs the Au Pêché Mignon patisserie (tourte aux grenouilles for six, €18; chocolate frogs €13 the dozen) on the Place de Gaulle, across the square from the restaurant Clément used to run, Le Grand Cerf. Now known as Le Galoubet, there's a plaque commemorating the great frogman outside. "As a child I remember clearly him dismembering and preparing and cleaning his frogs in front of the restaurant," says Robinet, who sells frog tartlets to gourmet Vitellois throughout the year, but makes a special effort with quiches and croustillants at fair-time. "It's a big job, you know. Very fiddly. But we were all frog-catchers when I was a kid. Now, of course, that's not possible any more."

Boeuf recalls many a profitable frog-hunting expedition in the streams and ponds around Vittel. "One sort, la savatte, you could catch with your bare hands," he says. "Best time was in spring, when they lay their eggs. They'd gather in their thousands, great wriggling green balls of them. I've seen whole streams completely blocked by a mountain of frogs."

Others, rainettes, would be everywhere at harvest time. Or you could get a square of red fabric and lay it carefully on the water next to a lily pad that happened to have a frog on it, "and she'd just hop straight off and on to the cloth", Boeuf says. "They love red."

Pierette Gillet, the longest-standing member of the Brotherhood and, at 81, still a sprightly and committed frog-fancier, remembers heading out at night with a torch in search of so-called mute frogs, harder to catch because they have no larynx and hence emit no croak. "They'd be blinded by the light, and you could whack them over the head," she says.

But those days are long gone. As elsewhere in the world, the amphibians' habitat in France – where frogs' legs have been a recognised and much remarked-upon part of the national diet for the best part of 1,000 years – is increasingly at risk, from pollution, pesticides and other man-made ills. Ponds have been drained and replaced with crops and cattle-troughs. Diseases have taken their toll, and the insects that frogs feed on are disappearing too. Alarmed by a rapid and dramatic fall in frog numbers, the French ministry of agriculture and fisheries began taking measures to protect the country's species in 1976; by 1980, commercial frog harvesting was banned.

These days, a few regional authorities in France still allow the capture of limited numbers of frogs, strictly for personal consumption and provided they are broiled, fried or barbecued and consumed on the spot (a heresy not even Boeuf is prepared to contemplate). There are poachers who defy the ban; two years ago a court in Vesoul in the Haute-Saone convicted four men of harvesting vast numbers of frogs from the Mille-Etangs or Thousand Lakes area of the Vosges. The ringleader admitted to personally catching at least 10,000, which he sold to restaurants for 32 cents apiece.

By and large, though, France's tough protection laws, enforceable by fines of up to €10,000 (£8,500) and instant confiscation of vehicles and equipment, seem to be working. As a result, all seven tonnes (officially, at least) of frogs' legs consumed at this year's Vittel fair have been imported, pre-prepared, deep-frozen and packed in cardboard boxes, from Indonesia.

Needless to say, this does not much please patriotic Gallic frog-fanciers. "We'd far prefer our frogs to be French, of course we would," laments Gillet. "Especially here in the Vosges. This really is the heart of frog country."

A Vittel restaurateur, who for obvious reasons demands anonymity, suggests there are still "ways and means" of securing at least a semi-reliable supply of French frogs for those who demand a true produit du terroir, "but it's really not very easy, and no one here will tell you anything about it. We'd like to source locally, but the law is the law."

But the fact that the Foire aux Grenouilles – not to mention the rest of France, and other big frog-consuming nations such as Belgium and the United States – now imports almost all its frogs' legs has consequences that run deeper than a mere denting of national gastronomic pride. For scientists now believe that, just as with many fish species, we could be well on the way to eating the world's frogs to extinction. Based on an analysis of UN trade data, researchers think we may now be consuming as many as 1bn wild frogs every year. For already weakened frog populations, that is very bad news indeed.

Scientists have long been aware that while human activity is causing a steady loss of the world's biodeversity, amphibians seem to be suffering far more severely than any other animal group. It is thought their two-stage lifecycle, aquatic and terrestrial, makes them twice as vulnerable to environmental and climate change, and their permeable skins may be more susceptible to toxins than other animals. In recent years, a devastating fungal condition, chytridiomycosis, has caused catastrophic population declines in Australia and the Americas.

"Amphibians are the most threatened animal group; about one third of all amphibian species are now listed as threatened, against 23% of mammals and 12% of birds," says Corey Bradshaw, an associate professor at the Environment Institute of the University of Adelaide and a member of the team that carried out the research into human frog consumption that was published earlier this year in the journal Conservation Biology. "The principle drivers of extinction, we always assumed, were habitat loss and disease. Human harvesting, we thought, was minor. Then we started digging, and we realised there's this massive global trade that no one really knows much about. It's staggering. So as well as destroying where they live, we're now eating them to death."

France is the main culprit: according to government figures, while the French still consume 70 tonnes a year of domestically gathered legs each year, they have been shipping in as many as 4,000 tonnes annually since 1995. Besides popular, essentially local events such as the Foire aux Grenouilles, frogs' legs are mostly a delicacy reserved for restaurants with gastronomic pretensions; one three-star chef, Georges Blanc, has at one time or another developed 19 different recipes for them at his celebrated restaurant in the Ain village of Vonnas, baking and skewering and skilleting them in everything from cream to apples.

Belgium and Luxembourg are also noted connoisseurs, but perhaps surprisingly, the country that runs France closest in the frog import stakes is the US. Frogs' legs are particularly popular in the former French colony of Louisiana, where the city of Rayne likes to call itself Frog Capital of the World, but are also consumed with relish in Arkansas and Texas, where they are mostly served breaded and deep-fried. Bradshaw has a picture on his blog of President Barack Obama tucking with apparent gusto into a plate of frogs' legs.

The world's most avid frog eaters, though, are almost certainly in Asia, in countries such as Indonesia, China, Thailand and Vietnam. South America, too, is a big market. "People may think frogs' legs are some kind of epicurean delicacy consumed by a handful of French gourmets, but in many developing countries they are a staple," Bradshaw says.

Indonesia is today the world's largest exporter of frogs by far, shipping more than 5,000 tonnes each year. Some of these may be farmed, but not many. Commercial frog-farming has been tried in both the US and Europe, but with little success: for a raft of reasons, including the ease with which frogs can fall prey to disease, feeding issues and basic frog biology, it is a notoriously risky and uneconomic business. Frogs are farmed in Asia, but rarely on an industrial scale; most are small, artisan affairs with which rural families try to supplement their income.

The vast majority of frogs that end up on a plate are harvested from the wild. Bradshaw and his colleagues estimate that Indonesia, to take just one exporting country, is probably consuming between two and seven times as many frogs as it sends abroad. "We have the legally recorded, international trade figures, but none of the local business is recorded," Bradshaw says. "It's back-of-an-envelope work. That's what's so alarming."

The scientists' biggest concern, he says, is that because of the almost complete lack of data, no one knows in what proportion different frog species are being taken. If, as they suspect, some 15 or 20 frog species are at any given moment supplying most of world demand, the consequences could be catastrophic. For while overharvesting for human consumption may not in itself be quite enough to drive a frog species to extinction, combined with all the other threats frogs face it certainly could be.

"The thing is, it isn't a gradual process," Bradshaw warns. "There's a threshold, you cross it, and the whole thing crashes because you've just completely changed the composition of the whole community. There's a tipping point. It's exactly what happened with the overexploitation of cod in the North Atlantic. And with frogs, there's no data, no tracking, no stock management. We really should have learned our lesson with fish, but it seems we haven't. This is a wake-up call."

Back in Vittel, Boeuf says he had no idea frogs were in such trouble. "They're an endangered species here, I know," he says. "That's why we have to be careful, and we are. But if we can buy them in such quantities from Indonesia, surely it must be all right. They're being careful there too, aren't they?" Sadly, it would seem they are not. And all for a few greasy scraps of limp, bland flesh.

People say frogs taste like a cross between fish and chicken. In fact, they taste of frog: in other words, precious little bar the sauce they are served in.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/07/frogs-legs-extinction

THE GUARDIAN (London, UK) 07 August 09 A short history of frog eating - How did frogs' legs become one of France's national delicacies? (Jon Henley)

Records show that frogs' legs were a common foodstuff in southern China as early as the first century AD. The Aztecs, too, are known to have been partial to them. But they fail to get the least mention in the extensive gastronomic literature left by the Romans, and do not crop up at all in European accounts until the 12th century, when they appear, rather oddly, in the annals of the Catholic church in (obviously) France.

During one of those all too frequent periods when monks were deemed to be growing too fat, the church authorities apparently ordered them not to eat meat on a certain number of days a year. Cunningly, the monks got frogs qualified as fish, which didn't count as meat. Religiously observant but hungry French peasants duly followed their example, and a national delicacy was born.

By the 1600s, Alexandre Dumas records in his Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine (posthumously published in 1873), an Auvergnat named Simon was to be found making "a most considerable fortune with frogs, sent to him from his region, which he fattened and then sold to the very finest restaurants in Paris, where this foodstuff was very much in fashion".

Frogs' legs were even – albeit briefly – considered a delicacy in Britain around the turn of the last century, when the renowned French chef Auguste Escoffier served up a dish he called Cuisses de Nymphe a l'Aurore, or (roughly) Thighs of the Dawn Nymphs, at a grande soirée in honour of the Prince of Wales at London's Savoy hotel in 1908.

Nymphs' Thighs became the surprise culinary hit of the season, despite the fact that the limbs concerned – which Escoffier cooked in a court-bouillon with aromatic herbs, cooled, doused with a sauce chaud-froid coloured with paprika and then decorated with taragon leaves and covered with chicken jelly – belonged to imported bullfrogs.

We Brits have long since ceased eating frogs, however, and disguise our incomprehension of those who do by poking fun at them: we have been calling the French frog-eaters (now mostly shortened to Frogs) since at least the 16th century.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/07/frogs-legs-france-asia

WHIDBEY NEWS TIMES (Oak Harbor, Washington) 07 August 09 Man surprised by big snake in the grass (Jessie Stensland)

Whidbey Island residents are accustomed to finding snails and slugs big enough to choke a goose in their backyards. But one Oak Harbor resident recently found something a little different in his grass: a python.

Tuesday, a Swan Drive resident called 911 to report what he thought was a boa constrictor trapped in a box in his backyard. He said it wasn’t his and he wanted it removed.

Oak Harbor Animal Control Terry Sampson responded to the report and found a 4-foot-long ball python. The resident said the snake had been waiting underneath a swallow’s nest for a day and a half, perhaps hoping for a baby bird to fall out.

Obviously, ball pythons aren’t native to the Pacific Northwest.

“He was either someone’s pet that got out or someone abandoned him,” Sampson said, adding that the reptile was in good shape.

Sampson said he brought the python to an “undisclosed location” for safe keeping. The snake will be on a six-day hold to give the owner time to claim it.

http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/whidbey/wnt/news/52687852.html

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (New York, New York) 07 August 09 Some California Amphibians May Need a Lift to Survive Climate Change (Brendan Borrell)

As temperatures rise over the next century, three California amphibian species could be pushed to the cusp of extinction because the warming climate will effectively block their migration to more suitable habitats. Interventions by humans who physically relocate the animals may be the only way to help them survive.

Managed relocation, or assisted migration, for climate change is a controversial topic because of the challenges of moving an endangered species and the potential harm it may cause in a new ecosystem.

The Torreya Guardians, a self-organized group of naturalists, botanists, ecologists and others, are the most well-known proponents of assisted migration. Last July, the group planted endangered Torreya taxifolia seedlings in new habitat patches north of their customary domain in Florida, where it is becoming too hot for the conifers to survive. More recently, the British Columbia Ministry of Forests and Range launched an Assisted Migration Adaptation Trial, testing out nine tree populations from the U.S. in that Canadian province, to ensure that the latter nation's timber production stays strong as the climate warms.

One practical issue pertaining to managed relocation is deciding which species need to be moved and when to move them. To study the problem, Regan Early and Dov Sax at Brown University created a detailed simulation of how suitable habitat for 16 well-studied—and mostly common—frogs and salamanders will expand and contract over the next century in response to climate-induced changes in precipitation and temperature. Although some species' current and future ranges overlap, a decade-by-decade analysis shows that corridors to new habitats may appear too late or vanish at the wrong moment. Left to their own devices, the amphibians would then have nowhere to go and wink out.

"That was an unexpected result," Early said at the Ecological Society of America meeting in Albuquerque this week. "Species might have no apparent barriers between their current and future ranges, but climate variability and species traits interact to prevent a range shift."

Early used a moderate climate change scenario of 2 degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century. Then the team assumed that animals could expand their ranges by about 12 kilometers per decade, and also could persist in an unsuitable habitat for 10 years.

Early first described two well-known scenarios for how different California amphibians could be affected by climate change. The black-bellied slender salamander, for instance, would have no problem spreading from its home range around Santa Barbara to the more northern central coast region. But for other species, like the black salamander, a changing climate produces new pockets of habitat to the north, but they don't ever overlap the salamander's current or future range in the San Francisco Bay Area, leaving the animals stranded.

Early's step-by-step simulations revealed a third scenario that is not apparent, simply by comparing current and future habitats. In coastal California newts the current and future ranges appear to overlap, but by the time that future habitat becomes available late in the century, her simulation indicates that the current range will have contracted so much that the animals have no route to get there.

Overall, these findings mean that the three California amphibian species will become critically endangered—defined as inhabiting less than 100 square kilometers—by 2100. Other amphibian species also will become vulnerable or threatened, lacking a way to reach a more suitable habitat. The good news, Early explained, is that managers may only have to move species very short distances to give them access to suitable habitat.

"This is something we've definitely been concerned about," says ecologist Lee Hannah of Conservation International, who has studied climate paths in South Africa and Mexico and is part of the managed relocation working group. "Ten years ago it was good enough to do a century or a half-century snapshot...but now we see we have to look more closely."

"Inevitably," Hannah says, "we are going to have to rescue, captive breed, and move some species."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=california-amphibians-need-a-lift

COAST WEEK (Mombassa, Kenya) 07 August 09 Let Us Save The Lesser Webbed Toed Tsavo River Toad (Teti Kamugunda)

As we continue to explore the issue of convergence of driving rules, we will this week consider the important aspect of communication of the driving rules.

An important part of driving is being able to see and decipher road signs.

On the mandatory and cautionary road signs, there is quite a degree of convergence.

There is general agreement about what the round and triangular shapes mean.

However, the colour of the border of the sign varies from country to country.

Some have red borders, others have black and we also have blue borders.

Whilst there may be differences in colour, the general understanding is that the shape is the key determinant of the message the area where there is less convergence is in the area of informative signs.

In this area, countries are creative in putting out national informative signs.

It is also the area where individual sections of the community can be creative.

In the area of cautionary signs there are instances when one will find that countries can have differences.

The ones that tend to confuse is where warning signs are put up to inform people about animals.

Generally speaking, these signs will inform the driver that there is the likelihood of animals straying on to the road or even in some instances that the animals have the right of way.

If one is not familiar with the fauna and flora of the country then they are likely to ignore the sign and hope nothing happens.

In Kenya, it is very unlikely that conservationists will be able to create enough fuss for the government and road authorities to designate an area as a special reserve for a particular threatened species and then go all out to ensure that they rule in that particular habitat.

Imagine a situation where a toad is deemed to be a rare and endangered species ... for arguments sake let us call it the lesser web toed Tsavo toad.

The habitat of the toad straddles the Mombasa Nairobi road somewhere near the Tsavo River .

The range of the toads is some six kilometres along this river and they criss cross the roads for about a month a year when in the mating season.

At this time the road is almost wall to wall toad for a certain period of the day each day.

The conservationists want the road closed for the period when the toads are crossing the road so that they can go about their business of mating without interference.

The government and roads authority agree that this should happen and they put up the necessary road signs.

The reality is that Kenyans will ignore the road sign and drive straight over the toads.

As far as they are concerned, all toads are vermin and deserve to be eliminated, conservationists or not.

We are generally very impatient drivers and if we can get away with breaking the law we will do so.

That is the culture of this country.

We are not even moved by the mandatory and cautionary road signs.

Stop and give way signs are just bits of metal that some crazy guy has put at the side of the road so that the fringe of the road complies with what is expected.

Drivers are not supposed to take the least interest in what they mean. The Highway Code is information that one remembers when one is told that there are cops in the vicinity.

Speed limits are only observed when there is the likelihood of being arrested and charged.

The opposite is true in say Canada where one carefully observes information signs.

A driver coming across one that cautions about the likelihood of caribou crossing the road will cause the driver to slow down and look out for the animals.

Should the animals be within range of the road, drivers are likely to stop and admire the animals.

I agreed with Kachumbari that it is not the response to mandatory or cautionary signs that determines the compliance culture in a country.

The best barometer is the response to informative signs.

These are the ones that do not lead to any interest by the cops or law enforcement agencies.

Where there is little regard to informative signs, the driving culture is careless, impatient and very bullying.

Where drivers do pay attention to informative signs then the discipline in driving is a lot better.

As Kachumbari says, compliance doesn't come easy.

http://www.coastweek.com/3232-21.htm

WESTBOROUGH NEWS (Massachusetts) 07 August 09 Snapper sightings in Westborough (Annie Reid)

Westborough: With its many swamps, ponds and rivers, Westborough offers us the exciting possibility of meeting a native snapping turtle.

Why exciting? After all, turtles are slow and lumbering on land.

For that very reason, some excitement is likely if you or your pets encounter a common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) on land. The snapper is likely to feel cornered, simply because it’s on land.

It will probably turn to face you, and it may hiss, lunge and snap its jaws, threatening to bite. It puts on a show of being ready to defend itself. The thing to do, of course, is to realize that you’ve cornered a wild animal and back off.

Snappers have a fearsome reputation, in contrast to our peaceable image of most other turtles. Turtles are famous for protecting themselves by withdrawing – quite literally. For example, our eastern painted turtles (Chrysemys picta) defend their head and legs by pulling them inside their shell, where they’re safe. (Painted turtles are the ones we usually see sunning themselves on logs in ponds.)

Snapping turtles, on the other hand, can’t pull their head and limbs all the way in. Their small-sized lower shell isn’t big enough. They have no choice but to defend themselves on land by biting, just as many other animals do.

In water, snappers are not fearsome. In their element, they are swift and maneuverable. They simply swim away if you unsuspectingly approach or even step on them. Like most other wild animals, they prefer to retreat to avoid trouble. Contrary to what some people think, they don’t hunt the fingers and toes of swimmers.

The other reason for excitement when you find a snapper (or any turtle) on land – especially on a roadway – is concern for its safety in traffic. That dark rock in the road may be a turtle! A big rock could be a snapper. Most drivers have the good sense to avoid running over something that looks like a rock, since rocks aren’t good for vehicles, but unfortunately some turtles become road kill.

Sometimes, drivers may see a “Turtle Crossing” sign, such as on Arch Street near Mill Pond. But these signs are few and far between, and humans have created other dangerous barriers to turtle crossings, such as the local railroad tracks that posed a hazard for the young snapper in this week’s photo.

What are snappers (and other turtles) doing on land anyway? Why does a turtle that lives in water cross a road or trail? One big reason is to get from one wet area to another. For example, snapping turtles may visit woodland vernal pools in the spring to hunt frogs and salamanders that collect there to breed. Human development has created roads and railroads that slice up wetlands and open space into smaller sections, so many animals end up crossing roads in their normal travels. (We see “Deer Crossing” signs more often than “Turtle Crossing” signs.)

Another big reason for snappers (and other turtles) to move over land is to find a suitable nesting area for their eggs. Typically in June, females haul themselves out of the water to search for a sandy place to lay their eggs.

We don’t think of Westborough as sandy, but the retreating glaciers left scattered sand and gravel deposits here and all over the eastern third of Massachusetts some 14,000 years ago. Human sand and gravel operations benefit from them, and turtles find them and dig nest holes with their back legs.

Some holes are false nests, but the female turtle finally chooses one, deposits her eggs, and covers them. Snapper eggs are about the size of ping-pong balls. The female leaves them to be incubated by the warmth of the sun on the sand.

The sun’s warmth also determines the sex of the turtles developing inside the eggs. During a certain early stage, eggs at low and high temperatures (55 degrees F and 77 degrees F) produce females. Eggs in the middle range (say, 73 degrees F) become males. Temperature varies within a nest because some eggs lie deeper than others, so one nest may produce both males and females. What will this year’s cool, wet summer produce?

Turtle eggs may be hidden under the sand, but they’re far from safe. If you walk near a sandy area along a shore or bank, look for what’s left on the ground after a predator raid: slightly rolled, leathery shards of turtle eggs. Some turtle nesting areas can be so covered with the remains of eggs that it seems surprising that any survive.

Skunks are the usual raiders, but raccoons, foxes and coyotes also dig up and eat turtle eggs, usually soon after they’re laid. The false nests that turtles dig may serve to confuse predators.

August and September are the months for baby turtles. Snappers are the size of a quarter when they hatch, dig themselves out of the sand, and head for water. On land and in the shallows, many of them make a meal for snakes, birds, big fish and even other turtles.

Adult snapping turtles are large and well protected from predators by their shell, but it’s legal to hunt them in Massachusetts. Snappers were the traditional meat in turtle soup, a favorite among New England settlers and Native Americans.

How do snappers get through the winter? The fact that they are cold-blooded may be key to their winter survival. Sometime in November, when our ponds begin to ice over, snappers bury themselves in mud at the bottom of a pond. They move little or not at all, and their metabolism – the chemical reactions in their bodies – slows way down. Remarkably, they don’t even breathe, but their skin may absorb some oxygen from the cold water. In April’s warmth, they become active again.

Snapping turtles are survivors. So are turtles in general, dating back 200 million years in the history of life, to the age of the dinosaurs. Turtles survived the mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs (and 60 percent of the species on Earth) 65 million years ago.

Let’s respect and appreciate our local snappers!

http://www.wickedlocal.com/westborough/news/lifestyle/x1678043415/Snapper-sightings-in-Westborough

HATTIESBURG AMERICAN (Mississippi) 07 August 09 Picking up a snake not the smartest idea (Phil DiFatta)

After watching an entertaining and very informative presentation by herpetologist Terry Vandeventer at the Mississippi Wildlife Federation Extravaganza this past weekend, I went out and found me a snake to play with.

Actually, I didn't go anywhere to find the snake, except home. When I walked out my back door and down the porch, I saw this critter, between three and four feet long, coming up the walkway from my carport. You know, like he (or she; I really can't tell the difference) was coming to visit.

Well, right off the bat I recognized the critter as non-venomous, and since it didn't seem bothered by me, I picked it up.

"How cool I am," I thought as the wife drove up from work. She'd been with me in Jackson and enjoyed more of Terry's seminar than I got to see and hear.

The snake wrapped around my arm and rattled its rattle-less tail, but I gave it not a thought, for I was cool. I petted it as it wormed its way around my arm, and even Regina felt safe enough to pet it.

"OK, little fella, it's time I let you go," I said to the snake in a very cool manner.

Then, as I went to place him back in the woods, he bit me. I mean, he bit me like a grown man... And, like my buddy "Tiny Tim" Dunaway described himself as doing in a column not so many weeks ago, I screamed like a woman.

Actually, I really didn't; I just wrote that so Tiny might consider dropping the defamation suit against me.

Nonetheless, I don't advise anyone handle a snake like this unless you are certain it's not venomous. And don't jerk away if even a non-venomous one bites you. I know, because to this day I STILL have a tooth (or something spiny) in my left palm, swollen and festered, compliments of the "harmless" rat snake.

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20090807/SPORTS/908070342

G1 (Brazil) 07 August 09 Instituto faz concurso para escolher nome para cobra albina - Vital Brazil recebeu animal como doação do Rio Zoo.

Uma cobra albina é a nova atração do Instituto Vital Brazil (IVB), em Niterói, Região Metropolitana do Rio. A festa de boas-vindas da serpente, uma píton macho doada pelo Rio Zoo, está marcada para esta sexta-feira (7), quando começará um concurso para escolher o nome da cobra.

A entrada é gratuita e não é necessário fazer inscrição prévia para participar do concurso. O resultado será divulgado no dia 4 de setembro.

albinismo é uma condição de natureza genética em que há um defeito na produção pelo organismo de melanina. Este defeito é a causa de uma ausência parcial ou total da pigmentação dos olhos, pele e pelos do animal afetado. Segundo o Instituto, a píton é uma espécie que costuma ser escura com manchas pretas. O novo morador do Vital Brasil é branco com manchas.

“Um bicho como esse é raríssimo de se encontrar. Solto na natureza geralmente sobrevive por pouco tempo. Por não conseguir se camuflar, torna-se presa fácil”, explica o biólogo do IVB, Cláudio Machado.

Na próxima sexta, os visitantes poderão também manipular cobras não-venenosas enquanto assistem a uma aula sobre animais peçonhentos dos biólogos do instituto. Quem passar pelo Vital Brazil poderá conhecer também o Laquesário, espaço onde são criadas exemplares da maior serpente venenosa das Américas, a surucucu pico-de-jaca, espécie muito rara.

http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Rio/0,,MUL1257300-5606,00-INSTITUTO+FAZ+CONCURSO+PARA+ESCOLHER+NOME+PARA+COBRA+ALBINA.html

EXPRESSEN (Stockholm, Sweden) 23 July 09 Här äter ormen upp grodan (Elisabeth Vedin)

Photo: Den här synen möttes Finn Larsson och hans sällskap av när de promenerade omkring på Huvudskär i Stockholms skärgård. (Finn Larsson)

Det är inte bara fransmän som gillar grodlår. Även Stockholms skärgårds ormar gillar att mätta sina magar med delikatessen. Finn Larsson bevittnade hur en 50 centimeter lång orm åt upp en groda.

Finn Larsson och hans sällskap möttes av en märklig syn när de promenerade omkring på Huvudskär i Stockholms skärgård i förra veckan. Så märklig att de nästan trodde att de fått syn på en spännande djurmutation. Vid närmare granskning insåg de dock att vad de i själva verket bevittnade var en orm i full gång med att fylla på magsäcken.

Vi stod och tittade och undrade vad det var för något vi såg. Undrade om det var något nytt slags djur. Men sen såg vi vad det var, berättar Finn, för Expressen.se.

Grodan satt där den satt

Framför dem låg en cirka 50 centimeter lång orm med gapet fyllt av groda.

Grodan satt helt stilla. Det såg ut som att den sov. Vi stod och kollade i kanske fem minuter, men det hände ingenting. Då gick vi.

Blev ni själva sugna på grodlår efteråt?

Haha, ja vi tänkte att vi kanske skulle äta det till lunch.

http://www.expressen.se/1.1649314