Clearly hearing stories of the big-time from his pals in the Bronx toilet system, one Florida Corn Snake decided it was time for him to take his shot at fame in the big city. A Queens man found a 2½-foot-long Corn Snake hiding in his car’s engine yesterday morning. His car had just been shipped up from Florida, where the snakes are common (here they’re kept mainly as pets). But now that Old St. Patrick’s has even more papal power, the city can get in on all that snake-banning business.
MONTREAL – The 106 residents facing eviction to make way for the new Turcot Interchange aren’t the only ones losing their homes to the $3-billion project.
Quebec’s Transport Department must also find new homes for a shy species of snakes that lives in the former Turcot yards.
“Turcot is an ideal place for these snakes. There are a lot of rocks where they can hide and it has a good southern exposure,” said Patrick Galois, a biologist and consultant with Amphibia-Nature, a research group specializing in amphibians and reptiles.
Galois’s team of researchers found 43 Dekay’s brown snakes on the site during a 2007 inventory for the city.
Under environmental laws, the snakes must be moved to a safer location before the seven-year construction project planned for 2011-2018 can begin.
“We are just at the beginning of the process. If this is a condition, then this will have to be done before we start,” said Guillaume Lavoie, a public affairs consultant for Transport Quebec.
Lavoie did not know how much it will cost to move the snakes. However, wildlife specialists were skeptical of an article in Saturday’s La Presse claiming the job will cost millions.
The price will more likely be in the neighbourhood of $50,000 or possibly $100,000 at the outside, said Patrick Asch, director of Heritage Laurentien, an environmental group that has restored waterfront areas in southwestern Montreal.
The Montreal archipelago is the only part of Quebec where brown snakes are found, Galois said. The population on the Island of Montreal probably numbers in the hundreds, which are increasingly confined to isolated patches, he said.
The timid species, with brown spots and a tan stripe, grow to 23 to 33 centimetres (about a foot). They slither under rocks that absorb warmth from the sun and hibernate by burrowing under the frost line. They feed on snails, earthworms and slugs and are often found on vacant industrial land where they shelter under debris. Their main predators are raccoons, red foxes, cats and birds of prey.
Provincial conservation laws require that the snakes be protected as a species that could potentially become endangered or vulnerable.
As vacant land is developed, the number of sites where the snakes can survive is being drastically reduced, Galois said. “We are facing a major loss of habitat.”
Without protective measures, the species could disappear from the island by the end of the century, he predicted.
Galois said the best option is to capture the snakes and move them nearby to the St. Jacques escarpment, which will be preserved as parkland.
Brown snakes, found throughout much of eastern North America, are one of three surviving species of snakes on the Island of Montreal, Galois said.
Forest-dwelling ring-necked snakes are found on Mount Royal, while garter snakes are common across the province.
“It’s important to preserve biodiversity,” Galois said. “Unfortunately, these snakes often live in sectors that are prized by humans for development.”
In nature, some of the most incredible species come in the tinniest packages. While traveling in Madagascar recently, wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas happened upon this teensy-weensy Brookesia Chameleon walking along the forest floor. Believe it or not, the lizard he found is actually a full-grown adult, measuring about an inch in length — making it one of the smallest reptiles on the planet.
According to Will, who set out in search of the tiny chameleons with his brother in Madagascar’s Amber Mountain National Park, tracking down the diminutive reptiles is no easy task, at least for the untrained eye. Not only are Brookesia Chameleons unbelievably small, they are able to change color to blend in with dry leaves on ground. But after searching in vain for a while, the pair eventually enlisted the help of a local guide.
“We spent almost a week looking for these chameleons and were never able to spot them on our own,” writes Burrard-Lucas on the his Web site. “Fortunately, our guide, having worked in the park for around 20 years, was well practiced in the art of spotting them and seemed to be able to produce the tiny creatures on demand!”
To provide a sense of scale, Will posed the chameleon on his brother’s thumb — making for one amazing photograph. If the lizard seems a little out of it, that’s because he’s trying to appear as uninteresting as possible, says the photographer. “When they are disturbed they play dead and resemble a dried leaf.”
Brookesia Chameleons are just one of the myriad of fascinating and unique species found in the forests of Madagascar. So far, biologists have identified 26 types of these lizards, but because they’re so hard to spot, researchers suspect that their list is almost certainly incomplete. Nevertheless, the chameleons are currently listed as a threatened species.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Will offers some sage advice for anyone hoping to spot the tiny chameleons themselves:
We were there as part of a four week trip, to photograph as much of Madagascar’s unique wildlife as possible, so we were thrilled to see this little creature. But I’d advise anyone wanting to spot them to take their glasses — otherwise they might not see them at all.
For most of her life, Joan Lewis was terrified of snakes.
But that was a few weeks ago, before staring at photos of snakes while lying in an MRI machine during a psychotherapy session that ended with her holding a snake, and taking a drug (or a placebo; she doesn’t know which) traditionally used to treat tuberculosis. Now the 63-year-old Newington resident can take her hobby of metal-detecting into the woods for the first time.
It was all part of an ongoing study at Hartford Hospital designed to get a better sense of how fears develop in the brain, and how the brain banishes those fears. The research team also hopes to get a better sense of how the drug d-cycloserine works on the brain.
D-cycloserine has been used to treat tuberculosis for decades but only for the past 10 years or so have researchers known of its effectiveness in conquering phobias.
It affects the part of the brain called the amygdala, which develops new fears and banishes old ones. Specifically, it makes the amygdala more receptive to neurotransmitters so that lessons from psychotherapy are absorbed faster and more deeply.
Exactly how it works, though, is still a mystery. That’s what researchers Andrea Nave, David Tolin, and Michael Stevens hope to find out.
“How does the brain banish the fear? We don’t really know that,” says Stevens, director of the Institute of Living‘s clinical neuroscience and development laboratory. “It’s the first time anyone has ever approached it with this level of thoughtfulness — what’s working, and why is it working?”
That’s where Lewis comes in. She’s one of six people who have signed up for the study. Besides Lewis, two have completed it and the others are partway through. The study began about two months ago. Altogether, 20 subjects are needed for the study, which is expected to be completed by next spring. Half will take the medication and the other half will take placebos. They receive $50 stipends, but Lewis said the real incentive was the chance to conquer her lifelong fear of snakes.
Besides the initial meeting to determine the subject’s eligibility, the study is done in three parts. First, subjects lie in an MRI for about 40 minutes while they look at snakes. That gives researchers a sense of how their brain reacts to snakes. The second meeting is a psychotherapy session in which subjects sit in a room with a real snake. Ideally, it ends with the subject holding the snake.
For Lewis, it took 90 minutes to get to that point. Much of that session was terrifying, Lewis said. She started at first as far away from the snake as possible, slowly being coaxed closer to it. Eventually, she held Princess, a 3-year-old corn snake kept in an aquarium at the Institute of Living.
“I wouldn’t say I love all snakes now,” she said, “but I actually felt motherly when I held it.”
The last part of the study is another session in the MRI, identical to the first. That way, the researchers can compare the snake-fearing brain to the snake-friendly brain.
So why snakes? Nave, a clinical research assistant who led the study, said it’s one of the easiest of all the phobias to expose subjects to in an MRI. Tolin, director of the anxiety disorders center, added that he hates spiders.
Because it’s so early in the study, the researchers don’t know how much of a role d-cycloserine played in Lewis’ new phobia-free status. They expect to finish the study, and use the results to apply to the National Institutes of Health for a grant to conduct a large-scale study on the drug’s effects on phobias.
A NEW South Wales man has been fined $2000 and ordered to pay $9735 in court costs after being convicted of illegally possessing 29 native reptiles.
Neil Andrew Simpson (46) was apprehended at Perth Airport in April last year after officers from the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) intercepted the illegal consignment of reptiles which had been flown to Perth from Newman and were scheduled to be put on a flight to Sydney.
The consignment included a death adder, geckos of various species, dragon lizards, a blue-tongue lizard and pythons.
All the reptiles had been concealed in plastic containers.
There was also a second conviction in the Perth Magistrates Court, when a Nollamara man (33) was fined a total of $600 and ordered to pay $110 in court costs for illegally keeping a 2m south-west carpet python at his home.
Rikki James Piromalli pleaded guilty to possessing and keeping the carpet python in captivity without authority.
The snake is a specially protected species in WA.
Anyone who has information about the illegal removal of reptiles or notices any suspicious activity suggesting that reptiles are being illegally moved, should call DEC’s Wildcare hotline 9474 9055.
Rise in incidences of man-animal conflict and trespass of crocodiles into human habitations has prompted Bhitarkanika National Park authorities in Orissa to expand territorial limits of these reptiles’ annual head-count exercise to begin in January. “The ambit of annual census covering water bodies
is being extended to fresh areas outside the prohibited Bhitarkanika national park water bodies,” said Manoj Kumar Mahapatra, Divisional Forest Officer, Rajnagar Mangrove (Wildlife) forest division.
Earlier the headcount enumeration was confined to the Bhitrkanika river system, water inlets, creeks and nullas. But the annual census to begin in early January would cover fresh areas where there are reports of sighting of crocodiles.
“The covering of newer areas has become essential in view of instances of crocodiles being spotted in areas outside the animals’ usual habitation corridors. The water bodies where crocs were sighted is close to human habitations and this is often triggering man-animal conflict,” Mahapatra said.
The upstream of Brahmani, Baitarani and Kharasrota river system has been identified as possible habitation corridor of estuarine crocodiles. Enumerators would try to locate the reptiles in their headcount operation next month.
Several villages in Chandballi block in Bhadrakh district, besides in Aul, Rajkanika, Rajnagar and Pattamundai blocks in Kendrapara district are located along the upstream of these swirling rivers. Majority of croc-man conflict cases registered this year had come in from these places.
This led park authorities to take initiatives to sensitize residents in vulnerable villages like poster and leaflets campaign. Besides, sensitization camps seeking active help of panchayati raj institutions were held for most part the year, official sources said.
As it had been found that crocodiles attack humans at bathing ghats, locals were asked to stay way from river and water bodies and advised to use tube wells and wells instead. Besides, barriers of bamboo fencing were put up at bathing ghats in infested water bodies to stop intrusion by the reptiles.
Service groups of skilled fishermen and forest staff boarded on boats were pressed into service to chase away the intruding animals, Mahapatra told.
Posted in Amphibians, Conservation, Foreign News, Laws, Lizards, Reptiles, Retards, Snakes, Turtles, U.S. News
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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — They arrive from Amazon rainforests, central African savannahs and south Asian jungles, crated passengers in the cargo holds of airliners.
Spitting cobras, common death adders, Zanzibar dwarf geckos, green iguanas, chinchillas, emperor scorpions and hundreds of other non-native species enter the United States each year to serve the demand for unusual pets.
A lot of time has gone into an unsuccessful campaign to clear the Everglades of Burmese pythons, just one of the non-native species to find a congenial home in Florida. But the federal government continues to allow wide-open imports of a vast range of wildlife, conducting few screenings for disease and permitting most shipments to enter without inspection. A report on wildlife imports by the Government Accountability Office last month found “gaps that could allow the introduction of diseases into the United States.”
A Sun Sentinel review of live wildlife import records from 2004 through April of 2010 found that the United States imported these animals:
• More than 739,000 rodents, despite warnings from the federal Centers for Disease Control and prevention that rodents can transmit to humans diseases such as hantavirus, bartonella and typhus.
• Nearly 20,000 venomous snakes, including 632 puff adders, 113 black mambas and 357 king cobras.
• More than 1.2 million green iguanas, as well as 39,673 Nile monitor lizards and 20,806 Burmese pythons.
A bill in Congress would have restricted imports to those species that had been approved as harmless, but an outcry from wildlife owners and the pet industry defeated it. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is completing the process to declare the Burmese python and eight other big snakes injurious species, which would end imports except for zoos and a few other purposes.
“If the federal government had listed the Burmese python as injurious 20 years ago, we wouldn’t have had this problem,” said Beth Preiss, exotic pets director for the Humane Society of the United States. “It may be too late to stop the invasion of the Everglades, but it’s not too late to stop it in the rest of the U.S.”
But the pet industry and hobbyist groups have fought back. They note that a cold snap last year killed a lot of the Everglades pythons. They say import limits represent an extreme response to problems caused by a few species. And they say tough restrictions would cost jobs and undermine a beneficial pastime that fosters in children an appreciation of science and nature.
“A lot of children spend hours in front of the TV and the computer and have very little contact with nature,” said Jamie Reaser, vice president of environmental policy for the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, a trade group. “So I think it’s very important children have the opportunity to learn about animals and the environment.”
Inspecting animals
The wooden crates rest on the concrete floor of a warehouse at Miami International Airport, second only to Los Angeles in live wildlife shipments into the United States. Last year, Miami International Airport received 4,786 shipments of live wildlife.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inspector Carlos Pages dons gloves and pries open a long crate from Suriname, a nation with rain forests that extend into the Amazon basin.
The box contains a row of bright yellow sacks. When he picks one up, it starts moving. Inserting a plastic tube the size of a Pringles container that lets him look inside safely, he sees the glistening skin of an emerald tree boa. Although the snake isn’t venomous, he is careful. “These snakes have a nasty disposition,” he says. “They will bite.”
D.J. Schubert, wildlife biologist for the Animal Welfare Institute, said the import business is riddled with opportunities for animals to suffer.
“They can be held for a long time without water or food,” he said. “Frequently they’re held in boxes or burlap sacks. The entire industry facilitates cruelty, not because people are trying to be mean, but because they don’t know any better.”
A raid last year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found horrific conditions at U.S. Global Exotics in Arlington, with more than 26,000 snakes, hamsters, wallabies, sloths and other animals crowded into filthy cages without food or water, many dead or dying.
Reaser, of the pet trade group, said that case was an exception in the industry that works hard to keep its valuable cargo safe. “I think it’s important to keep in mind that a lot of people in the pet industry got into it because they really love animals,” she said. “There’s an economic investment, and it doesn’t make good business sense not to care for the animals.”
Also, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it’s not practical to screen millions of animals for diseases. The service has 124 inspectors at 38 entry points to watch for smuggling, improperly packed animals and banned species.
Adding disease to the list would be “tough,” said Edward Grace, Fish and Wildlife Service deputy chief of law enforcement. “Our inspectors don’t have the veterinary skills to determine if an animal is ill or may be a disease vector.”
Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a group that researches wildlife diseases, said agricultural livestock imports get tougher scrutiny. “If you’re importing cattle, we’re going to test them for hoof-and-mouth disease,” he said. “But if you bring in a shipment of rodents from Indonesia, we don’t test them for anything.”
Dr. Nina Marano, chief of the Geographic Medicine and Health Promotion Branch of the Centers CDC, said rodents are effective at transmitting diseases such as the viral disease hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a chronic bacterial illness called bartonella and various forms of typhus.
Monkeypox, a viral disease from Africa, appeared in people in the United States in 2003, arriving in a shipment of rodents from Ghana to Texas. The CDC banned rodent imports from Africa, but the pet industry found other sources.
“Rodents carry many viral diseases,” Marano said. She is especially concerned about children, who are often the caretakers for these animals and “who aren’t known for regularly washing their hands.”
Fans of unusual pets
Last month in Fort Lauderdale, the Florida Reptile and Alternative Pet Super Show drew dealers and hobbyists to a long conference room to buy and sell pythons, tarantulas and geckos.
“I don’t do normal animals,” said Tyler Cowan, 14, of Lake Worth, Fla., who purchased a sunglow leopard gecko and a bearded gecko. “I don’t like anything furry. I have two leopard geckos, a bearded dragon, a black and white Argentine tegu — such a sweetie. Think of it as a scaly puppy dog.”
Anna Harvey wanted a snake for her 6-year-old son. “He is obsessed with reptiles,” she said. She asked dealer Jay Eaton whether a $40 king snake would make a nice friend for her son’s ball python.
Friend? Probably not, Eaton said. “King snakes eat other snakes.”
Pompano Beach dealer Adam Chesla said buyers range from hobbyists to collectors to investors. Having studied environmental science in graduate school, he takes seriously the problem of the Everglades pythons.
But Chesla said environmental and animal rights groups have seized on the issue to attack a rewarding hobby that helps children learn about science and nature. “It puts kids on the right track,” he said.