by Lori
Cuthbert, 10/3/18, National Geographic
Go
to
for
video.
Maybe
it’s a butterfly
you don’t see in your garden anymore, or a bird whose song
you don’t hear in the summer. Many of us know of one or more animals we grew up
with that just aren’t around anymore, or seen rarely. They may not be endangered
but they could be headed that way.
That’s
the case with the Texas horned lizard, the state’s
official reptile and one of 1,300 species of concern in Texas
alone, says Tom Harvey at the Texas Parks and Wildlife
Department (TPWD).
Numbers
of the so-called horny
toad have dropped so sharply that the reptile has been
declared threatened in parts of Texas, and steps are being taken to save
it.
The Forth Worth Zoo has
started a horned lizard captive breeding program; the hatchlings, around two
weeks old in this video, are being released into the wild in the hopes that
flooding the landscape with baby
lizards will ensure their survival.
“The plan
now is to produce large numbers of offspring that will hopefully enable them to
get ahead of the predators,” says Diane Barber, ectotherm curator at the zoo.
“Last year we reintroduced 63 hatchlings; this year we released 93.”
Past
experience shows that most won’t survive. “With amphibian reintroduction
programs, as well as sea turtle programs, it is accepted that less than one
percent of offspring from a female will survive to adulthood to breed,” she
says.
Horned
lizards used to be widespread in Texas but have been in gradual decline for the
last few decades. Several factors have contributed, such as urban development,
which has fragmented the landscape, robbing the reptiles of space and
pressuring populations of the harvester ants they feed on. And that’s not all.
“The introduced red
imported fire ants will kill hatchlings,” says Barber, as
well as harvester ants. “As green spaces shrink, some predators become more
abundant or consolidated.”
Female
horny toads can lay a lot of eggs—20 to 30 a year—but those factors reduce
hatchling survival rates.
For over
a decade Texas conservation experts have relocated
adult and baby lizards from parts of the state where they
were plentiful to parts lacking in lizards. But that grew expensive, and many
were lost to predation, despite their impressive arsenal of defense weapons.
When
faced with predators, they can
shoot foul-tasting blood out of their eyes, though they will
only do that to members of the dog and cat families. Another effective
technique is to sit very still in an effort to blend in with the rocks they're
perched on.
A
bipartisan bill wending its way through Congress, called Recovering America’s
Wildlife Act, aims to get out ahead of animals like the horny toad that are in
decline—to prevent them from ever becoming threatened or endangered. It would
redistribute $1.3 billion among states for the effort from funds that already
exist in other federal programs.
The act,
which has 93 co-sponsors to date, has widespread support in conservation
circles.
“Congress
has a lot to do, but we’re cautiously optimistic that lawmakers can tackle this
and other conservation issues before the end of the year,” says Mike Saccone of
the National Wildlife Federation.
Others
say the legislation has loopholes. For example, Defenders of Wildlife, on
its website, notes that the bill contains provisions that
don’t guarantee funds will actually be spent on species conservation.
But
there’s a history of success with states—mostly using funds from hunting
licenses and taxes—restoring species that were decimated
in the early 1900s but are plentiful now, like white-tailed
deer, striped bass, and turkey. That raises hopes that this plan could work for
other species.
“Conservationists
have been trying to get protections for non-game animals for years,” says
Harvey of the TPWD. “The horned lizard is kind of a poster child for hundreds
of other wildlife species that were once common but are now rare.”
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