HerpDigest Volume # 12 Issue # 8 2/13/10

HerpDigest.org: The Only Free Weekly Electronic Newsletter That Reports on The Latest News on Herpetological Conservation, Husbandry and Science
Volume # 12 Issue # 8 2/13/10
Publisher/Editor- Allen Salzberg
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AMPHIBIAN ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION: A HANDBOOK OF TECHNIQUES (TECHNIQUES IN ECOLOGY & CONSERVATION) (Paperback) by C. Kenneth Dodd Jr. (Editor) 556 pages, USA, Oxford Univ. Press. Available. $59.95 plus $7.50 S&H LIMITED NUMBER AUTOGRAPHED COPIES, By editor Kenneth Dodd
Table of Contents Available, Chapter one available, free at http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.com/pdf/13/9780199541188_chapter1.pdf
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Table of Contents:

Updates

1) In The Last Issue I Printed The Abstract To The Paper Entitiled
"'Toadness' A Key Feature For Global Spread Of These Amphibians"
2) Petco Is Asked To Stop Adoption Of Exotic Pets Seized In Arlington (U.S. Global Exotics Case)
3) More Articles On Where The Animals Are Going:
A) Exotic Animals Rescued, Brought To Larimer Humane Society
Snakes, Lizards, Turtles, Red-Spotted Toads, Hamsters To Be Put Up For Adoption
B) Detroit Zoo Housing 1,100 Animals Seized In Raid
C) Lot of lizards lands in Longmont, CO (Blue Tongue Skinks and Uromastyx)
4) Bear Market in Boas: Proposed Laws Strangle Sales of Mutant Snakes
Premium Python, Once Worth $40,000, Now Sells for Half; 'It's Just Like Stocks'

(Next Issue "Turtles In Space" seriously.)
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"BIOLOGY OF THE BOAS AND PYTHONS"
Edited by R.W. Henderson and R. Powell
2007,Eagle Mountain Publishing,
448 pages, 30 chapters by 79 authors, over 200 color photographs, maps, figures, and drawings, Table of Contents available, $100.00 PLUS $7.50 For S&H.
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Updates -

This Tuesday Feb. 16 2009, PBS will be airing a special hour long mini-doc on the pythons of the Everglades. (Check your local listing.) EST it's 8 P.M.

S373 The "Python bill" is supposedly scheduled for a vote on the U.S. Senate floor soon. Go to USArk and HSUS websites for exactly different points of view.
One correction in some of the USARK literature I've seen the HSUS doesn't want to ban all pets, that's PETA. HSUS wants to ban all exotic animals as pets, which, of course includes all herps. So your cats and dogs are safe.

And as USARK rightfully states HSUS is a totally separate organization from your local Humane Society. For that matter so is the ASPCA not connected in any way to your local SPCA.

See Article #4 for a related article on how the progress of bill has affected prices of large morph snakes. (From the Wall Street Journal no less.)

The SPCA of TX who confiscated the over 27,000 animals U.S. Global Exotics are now looking for homes for them. They have very strict rules about whom should get these animals. For example no institution that sells animals. Well the 20,000 animals still alive when they started to try find home are now winding up in some weird places. Article # 2 is an example of one place should never have been considered. The 3 articles under number 3 are more appropriate examples.

Also MATTS (Mid-Atlantic Turtle and Tortoise Society) and Turtle Rescue of Long Island have Facebook pages so join them if you are on Facebook. (And of course don't forget Herpdigest's Facebook page. Get herp news everyday, with photos, instead of waiting once or twice a week. And 90% of the time different stories than the newsletter.)

And finally the family of David M. Caroll, The MacArthur Genius Award Winner, naturalist, artist and author has opened their new on-line gallery at http://carrollartgallery.com/. There you can order not only David's prints, but prints from his the collections of the entire artistic family, Laurette his wife, Rianna and Sean two of his three Children (the third is an award winning children's author.). T-shirts, magnets and books are also for sale.
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1) In The Last Issue I Printed The Abstract To The Paper Entitiled
"'Toadness' A Key Feature For Global Spread Of These Amphibians"
Elizabeth Pennisi /Science 2/5/10/Vol. 327. no. 5966, p. 633

And asked what is "Toadness", and if anyone has a copy of the paper they could send me. Well thank you for the many pdfs, which I can now supply the rest of the readers of HD if interested. And telling me about the following article in Scientific American on the article, with slide show, defining "Toadness"

How Toads Conquered the World
By David Biello . 2/5/09 Scientific American on-line
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-toads-conquered-the-world&sc=WR_20100209 for slide show.
.
Cane toads are seemingly innocuous enough. First imported to Australia to control a beetle pest of sugarcane fields, they are now frog-marching their way across the island continent, wreaking havoc on in situ flora and fauna. The key to their domination has been protection from would-be predators and an ability to breed fast. But how were cane toads gifted with those traits in the first place?

A new study published February 5 in Science aims to answer that question. Biologist Ines Van Bocxlaer of Vrije University Brussels and her colleagues analyzed the kinds of traits that allow various toad species to thrive under many conditions and thereby expand their ranges: independence from constant access to water and humidity; glands that produce poison as protection from predators (which double as water storage); and an ability to lay large amounts of fast-hatching eggs in temporary waters, among others. Perhaps most surprisingly, at least in the case of toads, bigger body size is better. Unsurprisingly, the cane toad-and many of its 500 Bufonidae family brethren-shares most of these traits, including a propensity for quick adaptation and blitzkrieg-like range expansion.

The toad family originated in the tropics of South America before colonizing the rest of the globe. That initial colonization was set off, according to this new analysis, by the development of this set of traits, which has subsequently allowed most conquests of new territories, such as the expansion of toads from tropical niches in India to more diverse, drier habitats. In fact, this may explain why toads that are only distantly related genetically often share so many of the same traits: Conditions cause the various species to converge back on the traits of the same ancestral range-extending type of toad.

Those toads that do not share these traits, such as the harlequin, are not doing as well. Climate change is making life more difficult for specialized amphibians of all kinds, and amphibian chytrid fungus, an infection that is helping to wipe out populations around the globe, afflicts as much as 50 percent of extant amphibians.

That said, the cane toad may just be living up to its genetic legacy. "The origin of this range-expansion ability," Bocxlaer wrote, "appears to be rooted deep in the evolutionary tree of toads and may be a remnant of when toads colonized the world."
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2) Petco Is Asked To Stop Adoption Of Exotic Pets Seized In Arlington (U.S. Global Exotics Case)
Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010, by Susan Schrock, Fort-Worth Star Telegram

ARLINGTON -- The SPCA of Texas asked Petco stores to cease adoptions Wednesday of 2,000 animals seized from U.S. Global Exotics because the effort violated its agreement with a wildlife welfare agency.

The SPCA had given the hamsters, fancy mice, lizards and snakes to Wild Rescue Inc. of Texas, an agency partnered with the Petco Foundation, a nonprofit linked to the pet store chain.

The Star-Telegram reported Wednesday that Wild Rescue was making the animals available for adoption at 22 Petco stores in Dallas-Fort Worth and that the Petco Foundation, which provides supplies and support to animal welfare groups, was set to collect a nominal adoption fee.

The SPCA was aware of Wild Rescue's plans, but the agency stopped the effort Wednesday after learning that Petco required that the actual ownership of the animals be surrendered to the stores, which violated the agreement between SPCA and Wild Rescue, said Maura Davies, SPCA spokeswoman. "That gave the perception that the animals were going back into the pet trade industry," Davies said.

A Petco spokesman said the company was not seeking financial gain from the pet rescue. Wild Rescue, which works closely with Petco, is a separate nonprofit agency.

"They were concerned that ... Petco and/or the foundation are somehow gaining benefit by the partnership," said Kevin Whalen, a Petco spokesman, adding that the adoption fee would have helped the foundation cover the cost of housing the animals. "That's not true. That's not our intent. We're extremely disappointed."

The 2,000 animals were among the 27,000-plus that Arlington seized Dec. 15 because of inhumane conditions found at U.S. Global Exotics, an international pet wholesaler. This month, the city turned custody of the animals over to the SPCA, which has placed many of them with zoos, animal sanctuaries and welfare groups.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals also opposed the Petco adoption plans.

"These animals were destined for Petco shelves to start with," said Daphna Nachminovitch, vice president of PETA's cruelty investigations department. "If they weren't in the business of selling animals, there wouldn't be a U.S. Global to start with."

Arlington's animal cruelty case before a municipal judge relied heavily on testimony, photos and videos taken by undercover PETA investigator Howard Goldman, who worked at U.S. Global Exotics for seven months last year.

U.S. Global Exotics sold animals primarily to zoos, pet stores and other distributors, such as those that supply major pet chains like Petco and PetSmart.

Nachminovitch said turning over the animals to Petco would have been like giving the store free inventory.

The animals at Petco will be returned this week to the SPCA, which will continue working with Wild Rescue and other nonprofit animal welfare groups for permanent placement, Davies said.

"These animals will find loving homes," she said.
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3) More Articles On Where The Animals Are Going:

A) Exotic Animals Rescued, Brought To Larimer Humane Society
Snakes, Lizards, Turtles, Red-Spotted Toads, Hamsters To Be Put Up For Adoption
By Boggy Magill, The Coloradoan./ February 11, 2010

Hamsters, dragon agamas and red-spotted toads, oh my!

Those are just a few of the exotic animals - and yes, that includes exotic hamster species - delivered to the Larimer Humane Society on Wednesday as part of a massive rescue operation from a massive exotic animal dealer in Texas.

Arlington Animals Services raided U.S. Global Exotics in Arlington, Texas, in December, rescuing 27,000 exotic animals housed in a 5,000-square-foot building.

Hundreds of animals were found dead and dying in the building, most suffering from cruel confinement, overcrowding and a lack of food, water and veterinary care. The Larimer Humane Society offered to help rescue some of those animals, and soon, they'll be up for adoption to Northern Colorado residents, said society spokeswoman Cary Rentola.

The animals include 16 snakes, 26 lizards, five turtles, 10 red-spotted toads and 69 hamsters of four different species.

No adoption rates have been set yet, but the Humane Society is considering a $5 adoption fee for the hamsters, Rentola said.

"The first step is to unload and settle them," Rentola said. "The staff needs to observe them."

She said the Humane Society will start gathering names of prospective adopters. Society staff will call those interested in adopting the animals when they're ready.

The animals represent the largest delivery of rescued exotic animals in the society's history, she said.

"We felt it was a way to do our part in a national crisis," she said.

B) Detroit Zoo Housing 1,100 Animals Seized In Raid

Detroit, MI, AP-2/7/10- The Detroit Zoo is serving as a sanctuary to more than 1,000 mammals, reptiles and spiders seized from a Texas exotic animal dealer.

The Macomb Daily reports that the 1,100 animals now at the Detroit Zoo home were among nearly 27,000 animals seized Dec. 15 in the nation's largest exotic animal rescue effort.

After a judge ruled the animals will not be returned to U.S. Global Exotics, Detroit Zoo employees spent seven weeks helping care for the animals at a temporary site in Dallas.

On Thursday, 1,100 of the homeless animal were moved to the Detroit Zoo, including five wallabies, four sloths and hundreds of reptiles, spiders and amphibians.

Zoo official Scott Carter says zoo workers are now working to help place hundreds more of the seized animals with other accredited zoos and sanctuaries.

C) Lot of lizards lands in Longmont, CO (Blue Tongue Skinks and Uromastyx)

By Scott Rochat, 2/10/09, Longmont Times-Call
LONGMONT - The lizards have landed.

Sixty-three lizards seized from a Texas exotic animals dealer in December are now available for adoption from the Longmont-based Colorado Reptile Humane Society.

The animals were among 27,000 found in dirty, crowded conditions during a raid on U.S. Global Exotics of Arlington.

Several of the animals arrived in Denver on Tuesday, to be distributed to area humane societies. The influx has the CRHS looking for some foster help - its normal capacity is 150, and it already had 143 when the latest reptiles arrived.

"You're not going to have 50 empty spots with this economy in Colorado right now," said Ann-Elizabeth Nash, director of the reptile society.

The animals she claimed for the society are blue-tongued skinks and a type of spiny-tailed lizard called a uromastyx, both of which can live 15 to 30 years in captivity. The skinks are in good shape, she said, but the others will need a little more care before they can be adopted.

"We chose them because they're desert lizards that should do well in Colorado ... instead of something large and tree-climbing that likes the tropics," Nash said.

Those interested in adopting a lizard or helping provide a foster home can contact the agency at www.corhs.org.
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4) Bear Market in Boas: Proposed Laws Strangle Sales of Mutant Snakes
Premium Python, Once Worth $40,000, Now Sells for Half; 'It's Just Like Stocks'
By Justin Scheck

Chico, CA-2/12/09 Wall Street Journal - The stock market is back on track, and bond markets are open for business. But now, another inflated financial market is facing collapse: mutant pythons and boa constrictors.

Premium pythons that could fetch $40,000 in 2007 now go for half that sum, breeders report. The price for a hypomelanistic boa constrictor, one with a mutation that lightens its skin tone, was $99 on Feb. 1, down from $5,000 in 2007, on Kingsnake.com, a classified-ad site that acts as a market-maker for snakes.

Ron Greenberg, a retired fiberglass-plant manager who keeps 1,000 snakes here in Chico, says demand has disappeared altogether for some boas he breeds. He can't find buyers anymore for "sunglow" boa constrictors, which sport an unnatural reddish-orange-and-off-white coloration, and fetched $3,000 two years ago.

The turning point: Senate Bill 373, which Florida Democrat Bill Nelson proposed in February 2009 to prevent situations like one in the Everglades, where escaped Burmese pythons have devoured native animals. The bill would ban importation and interstate transport of boa constrictors, anacondas and large pythons. A similar antisnake bill followed in the House.

Neither bill has passed yet, but "no one is willing to give me $10,000 for a snake when they think they may be added to an injurious-species list," says Mike Wilbanks, 41 years old, an Oklahoma python breeder.

The boa bear market comes after years of growing demand for constrictors with genetic mutations that result in abnormal colors. A normal ball python today typically sells for under $100; a "piebald" python-white with rare blotches of brown and green-can fetch $3,000.

The rarer the mutation, the more expensive the snake, and investors paid huge sums for snakes that could produce babies that brought big returns. Adam Wysocki, a Maryland computer programmer, sold his house in 2006 and spent $40,000 on a rare "lesser platinum" ball python. He had money to invest, he says, but he "wanted to do something with it that was more than investing in Microsoft or something." In 2007, he says, three of the prized snake's young sold for $18,000 each.

Last year, Mr. Wysocki's most expensive snake sold for just $7,000. While the relatively small ball python isn't on the Senate bill's trade-ban list, the market for it has been depressed, he says, because investors are afraid the snake will be added to the list.

The origins of the snake bubble harken back to the early 1980s, by many breeders' accounts, after Florida reptile breeder Tom Crutchfield recognized a photo of an albino Burmese python in National Geographic magazine.

Mr. Crutchfield, looking to breed the snake, convinced a New York reptile trader to import the albino python and two of its siblings. To pay the $21,000 for the snakes, Mr. Crutchfield took a second mortgage on his house. He rented out one python for a $10,000-a-year stud fee and says he later sold about 40 of the three snakes' young for $5,000 each.

The mutant-constrictor economy began to resemble the Dutch tulip mania of the 17th century, as snake speculators entered bidding wars for rare specimens, which they began calling "investment grade." Buyers would then breed their own young mutants, selling them at high prices to other speculators who hoped to breed and sell to still others. "It's always been a pyramid thing," says Mr. Crutchfield who, after pleading guilty to charges related to illegal reptile smuggling, is back in business at age 60. "The people at the top make the most money."

As rare-colored snakes reproduced and the mutation grew more common, sell-offs caused prices to drop. But there were always new mutations that sold for outlandish prices while scarce.

Tom Burke, a 55-year-old former tugboat driver in Long Island, expected his snake investments to be a fallback during the recession. Mr. Burke says his snake sales went up in late 2008, even as the rest of the economy crumbled.

Mr. Burke explains mutant-boa business economics thus: In 2008, an albino male boa and a motley female with an albino gene cost $1,000 for a pair. Within 30 months, the pair would likely produce at least five motley albino young, which sold for $1,500 each, at 2008 prices. Minus $1,000 or so in equipment and rats and mice to feed the snakes, profits would still be greater than 100%. "People who want to diversify their income or get a better income or a higher income, they do this," Mr. Burke says. "It's just like stocks."

Like stocks, the snake market proved susceptible to sentiment. After Sen. Nelson introduced the snake bill, Mr. Burke says, demand dried up. Mike Panichi, a Brooklyn homicide detective who in 2005 borrowed from his retirement fund to invest in boas, says he got frequent inquiries from prospective snake buyers until early 2009. But now, he says, there's "zero interest." The snake market took another hit last month, when Interior Secretary Ken Salazar separately proposed adding several constrictor species to the "injurious wildlife" list that cannot be imported or carried across state lines.

Ron Greenberg, who keeps 1,000 snakes in Chico, Calif., says demand has disappeared for some snakes, like this albino Burmese python.

Bryan Gulley, a spokesman for Sen. Nelson, says he feels for the breeders, but says big snakes can be dangerous. He points to a 12-foot anaconda that was found last month in a Florida pond with a goose in its gullet, and a pet Burmese python that allegedly strangled a Florida toddler to death in July.

Snake breeders counter that most pet constrictors are less dangerous than a large dog. Andrew Wyatt, president of the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers, testifying on Capitol Hill against antisnake legislation, said that captive boas and pythons "are not the dangerous killers portrayed by activists in the media."

Mr. Wysocki, the Maryland breeder, has been selling his collection to fund a lobbying organization he calls the National Pet Association. The NPA is trying to rally people outside the snake community to oppose the Senate snake bill on the grounds that it could be a slippery slope toward restricting dogs and cats.

"What they don't realize is the economic impact this is going to have," says Mr. Crutchfield, the albino-python pioneer, who notes that the constrictor crunch will squeeze suppliers of snake food, too. "What about the guy who sells rats? Who's going to buy jumbo rats?"

Good question, says Bill Parker, owner of Feeder Mice Unlimited in Oroville, Calif. Mr. Parker, 76, raises about 40,000 mice and rats on a former catfish farm. His company brought in almost $300,000 in 2008, he says, mainly from reptile enthusiasts. But last year business was down about 30%, and he had to lay off three employees. If the Senate bill passes, he says, "that will kill us."
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Still available:

THE COMPLETE NORTH AMERICAN BOX TURTLE
Carl J. Franklin, and David C. Killpack with foreword by C. Kenneth Dodd (who wrote the now classic "Natural History of North American Box Turtles"
Just published. 260 Pages Over 300 full color photos and illustrations.
Hardcover, Eco/Serpent's Tales
Only $49.95 plus $7.50 S&H, lowest price on net
Not even Amazon who are offering it for $59.95.

"TURTLES: THE ANIMAL ANSWER GUIDE." By Whit Gibbons and Judy Greene
of the Savannah River Ecology Lab. © 2009 176 pages, 35 color photos, 64 halftones, Paperback., 7" x 11"-$24.95 PLUS $6.00 S&H

THE TURTLES OF U.S. & CANADA by Carl Ernst and Jeffrey Lovich, 2009, 840 pp. 240 color photos, 11 line drawings, 52 maps, 8 ½" X 11
List price $95.00, Only 2 Autographed copies left for sale at $85.00
($11.00 for S&H sent media mail, delivery confirmation, It's an 8 plus pound book)

THE ECOLOGY, EXPLOITATION AND CONSERVATION OF RIVER TURTLES
by Don Moll and Edward O. Moll. Considered by turtle scientists, and conservationists as one of the best books on turtle conservation. 420 pages; 90 halftones & 3 line illus.; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; List price $80, now $30.00 plus $7.50 S&H.

On how to order see below

(IF YOU ARE OVERSEAS -WHICH INCLUDES CANADA AND MEXICO-EMAIL US FIRST FOR SHIPPING COSTS.).
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