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IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 1  •  MARCH 2007 57NATURAL HISTORY RESEARCH REPORTS

tion that narrowly distributed
Mediterranean snakes are more special-
ized than their widely distributed coun-
terparts does not apply to the dietary
ecology of these snakes.

Jump Dispersal in Introduced
Mediterranean Geckos

From 1962–1997, Mediterranean
Geckos (Hemidactylus turcicus) were
intentionally introduced multiple times
into a science building at the University

of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. In
2005, LOCEY AND STONE (2006. Journal
of Herpetology 40:526–530) recorded 365
captures of 305 individuals and estimated
the population size to be 1005 geckos
with at density of 478 lizards/ha. The
population had dispersed a maximum of
200 m from the point of introduction, a
diffusion dispersal rate of 20 m/yr. The
wide distribution of this species across the
southern United States since their intro-
duction in Key West, Florida was
recorded in 1910 suggests that expansion
of the species’ range occurred as a conse-
quence of multiple jump dispersal events
instead of slow diffusion dispersal.

Population Structure and Density 
of Leopard Tortoises

Leopard Tortoises (Geochelone pardalis)
are the largest tortoises in southern
Africa, where they are widely distributed
in a variety of habitats. MCMASTER AND

DOWNS (2006. Journal of Herpetology 40:
495–502) studied Leopard Tortoises in
semi-arid farmland in Nama-Karoo, cen-
tral South Africa. The sex ratio of 92 tor-

toises did not differ significantly from
1:1. Adult females were larger than adult
males, and adults were larger than con-
specifics studied in more mesic habitats.
A population estimate of 57.6 ± 4.0 tor-
toises translated to a very low density of
0.017 tortoises/ha, much lower than in
more mesic situations.

Slow rates of diffusion dispersal in introduced
Mediterranean Geckos (Hemidactylus turcicus)
suggest that the wide distribution of this species
across the southern United States is a conse-
quence of multiple jump dispersal events.

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The population density of Leopard Tortoises
(Geochelone pardalis) was lower in dry South
African habitat than in more mesic situa-
tions, but adults were larger.

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Butler’s Garter Snake Will Remain 
on Protected List

A legislative committee in Wisconsin
that this summer had threatened to
remove Butler’s Garter Snake
(Thamnophis butleri) from a protected
list that stops developers from killing it,
reversed course and decided to allow the
snake to remain on a list of threatened
species. The decision was praised by state
Department of Natural Resources execu-
tive assistant Mary Schlaefer, who said
protecting the endangered snake was vital
to the overall health of the environment.
Critical steps need to be taken when
there is a species like this snake that is in
danger of disappearing, she said.

With their habitat shrinking, the
reptiles were placed on the threatened list
in 1997 by the DNR, meaning that in
most cases the snakes cannot be killed.
The protected area encompasses about
405,000 acres in southeastern Wisconsin.
Known for its colorful yellow stripes, the
1- to 2-foot-long snake is generally found

in marshes, prairies and fields, as well as
in roadside grassy areas and in vacant lots.
In addition to southeastern Wisconsin, it
can be found in Ohio, Indiana,
Michigan, and in southern Canada.

The Republican-controlled Joint
Committee for Review of Administrative
Rules decided in July to remove the
snake from the DNR’s threatened list if
the agency didn’t soften its regulations.

The agency on Tuesday outlined a num-
ber of changes it had made and was in
the process of implementing, including
reducing the time of review of proposed
projects from 27 to seven days and com-
ing up with more funding to reduce costs
for homeowners to get needed surveys.
Those surveys can cost up to $10,000,
said Andy Galvin, a consultation special-
ist in the DNR’s bureau of endangered
resources. The agency also reduced the
number of acres in the protected area by
500. It is working to identify as many as
65 protected sites for the snake. Once
those are established and stabilized, regu-
lations on private landowners can be
ended more quickly, Schlaefer said. “Our
goal is to manage based on science, but
in a way that minimizes impact on
homeowners,” she said.

The committee voted 7-2 not to
take the snake off the protected list. One
of the two no votes, state Rep. Debi
Towns, R-Janesville, said she was con-
cerned that the DNR was not setting a

N E W S B R I E F S

A legislative committee in Wisconsin that
this summer had threatened to remove
Butler’s Garter Snake (Thamnophis butleri)
from a protected list that stops developers
from killing it, reversed course and decided
to allow the snake to remain on a list of
threatened species.

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goal of how many snakes needed to be in
the area before the protection is removed.
“I just think the whole thing is so nebu-
lous. ... There’s no end game,” Towns
said. Also voting no was state Rep. Dan
LeMahieu, R-Oostburg.

Developers had complained that the
snake’s presence was delaying, and some-
times halting, construction projects. The
snake has been found in Fond du Lac,
Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Sheboygan,
Washington, and Waukesha counties.

Scott Bauer
Associated Press

Database Details Pesticide Effects 
on Reptiles and Amphibians

The citizens group Californians for
Alternatives to Toxics (CATs) has created
a user-friendly database of the most
recent international research about the
effects of pesticide use on amphibians
and reptiles. “By bringing together cur-
rent research on beleaguered amphibians
and reptiles, we have made this global
information readily accessible to academ-
ics, neighborhood activists, and stu-
dents,” said Patty Clary, CATs programs
director. The Reptile, Amphibian, and
Pesticides database (RAP) builds on an
earlier version that covered the literature
to 1998 and was assembled by the
Canadian Wildlife Service.

“The value of this database is that
biologists and other users can easily access
information about the effects of pesticides
on amphibians and reptiles drawn from a
variety of sources,” said Marlon Gil, a
biologist who compiled the database for
CATs. Gil, whose frog research has taken
him as far afield as West Africa, said,
“Hopefully this will enhance efforts to
prevent losses of these species worldwide.”
The updated research is searchable by
species and genus, location of research,
pesticide studied, and toxicological effect.
It includes a list of 327 scientific papers
published since 1999 on the effects of
pesticides on amphibians and 128
research papers on the impact of pesti-
cides on reptiles. Clary said that CATs
will update the database as new informa-
tion becomes available.

The database specializes in field
studies from California that are meshed
with findings from the unique pesticide-
use database of the state’s Department of
Pesticide Regulation. California is one of

the “hot spots” in the global decline of
amphibian populations, and native
aquatic frog and toad species have been
disappearing for two decades. For exam-
ple, research by the U.S. Geological
Survey since 1997 has revealed danger-
ous levels of pesticides in both the bodies
of frogs and in their aquatic habitats in
pristine areas of the Sierra Nevada. Entire
populations of native frogs have van-
ished, and research has pinpointed pesti-
cide sprays that have drifted hundreds of
miles from the Central Valley to settle in
wilderness areas.

Founded in 1982, CATs was a
major player in a suit that won increased
protection from pesticides for the Red-
legged Frog (Rana aurora draytonii),
made famous by Mark Twain in his story
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of
Calaveras County.” The new database is
available at the CATs website at:
http://www.alternatives2toxics.org.

Environment News Service
22 December 2006

Python Patrol Plies the ’Glades:
Crews Aim to Stem Voracious 
Non-native Species Imperiling 

the Fragile Ecosystem
“SNAKE!” Hearing this shout, Skip
Snow slammed on the brakes. When the
off-roader plowed to a halt, he and his
partner, Lori Oberhofer, leapt out and
took off toward two snakes — 10-foot
Burmese Pythons (Python molurus bivit-
tatus) lying on a levee, sunning them-
selves. After slipping, sliding and tum-
bling down a rocky embankment, Snow,
a wildlife biologist, grabbed one of the
creatures by the tail. The python,
Oberhofer says, did not care much for
that. “It made a sound like Darth Vader
breathing,” she said, “and then its head
swung around and I saw this white
mouth flying through the air.” Snow saw
the mouth too — jaws open 180 degrees,
needle-sharp teeth bared in an almost
devilish grin. He let out a shriek, then
blinked. When his eyes opened, the
python’s head was hanging in midair, a
foot from his own. Oberhofer, with a
ninja-like thrust, had snared the python
in midstrike. In the end, the humans were
victorious: Both snakes were bagged,
trucked off to the Everglades Research
and Education Center, euthanized and
necropsied for the benefit of science.

So goes python control in the
Everglades, a painstaking, around-the-
clock slog against a voracious, foreign
snake species that has established a
stronghold in this wilderness and put
native wildlife at risk. Scientists also
worry that these slithery giants may soon
start to feast on native species whose sur-
vival is in doubt. “The Everglades does-
n’t work by itself anymore,” says Leon
Howell, who has been associated with
the park for 21 years and now is a park
ranger. “This whole landscape has to be
managed today: water, fire, exotics —
you name it.” Which explains the evolu-
tion of Snow and Oberhofer into a
human firewall against non-native
species. Without them, Howell figures,
“there’d be pythons all over the place.”

The pythons began turning up here
in the late 1990s. Pet owners were releas-
ing their unwanted snakes in and around
the park. Convincing the public that the
pythons are a danger to the Everglades is
a tough sell. As vast as these wetlands
may appear, they have been so drained
and abused by humans in the last cen-
tury that a population of pythons, if left
unchallenged, could take down this frag-
ile web of life within a generation. “It’s a
now-or-never thing,” Oberhofer said.
“We still have a chance, with the python’s
numbers being so limited, to do some-
thing. But if we let this go, we don’t
know how far the pythons will migrate,
how much they will reproduce.”

Native to southeastern Asia, the
Burmese Python has come to the

58 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 1  •  MARCH 2007 NEWSBRIEFS

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Burmese Pythons (Python molurus bivittatus)
have become established in the Everglades
and efforts to control them and other inva-
sive species may be a last-ditch effort to pro-
tect native wildlife.

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IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 1  •  MARCH 2007 59NEWSBRIEFS

Everglades by way of the burgeoning
global trade in exotic pets, creatures
shipped to America legally and distrib-
uted via pet shops and flea markets. Since
2000, about 1 million pythons have been
imported to the U.S. for commercial sale.

Todd Lewan
Associated Press

20 December 2006

Tighter Rules Urged as Exotic Pets
Adapt to Florida’s Wild

With giant snakes battling alligators in
the Everglades, the state wildlife commis-
sion has proposed sharp restrictions on
the owners of Burmese Pythons (Python
molurus bivittatus) and four other non-
native reptiles, including a requirement
to implant their slithery pets with com-
puter identification chips.

Florida’s climate has made the state a
congenial home for species from Africa,
Asia, and South America let loose by their
owners after they become too big or too
high maintenance. A breeding population
of Burmese Pythons has been discovered
in Everglades National Park, where the
constrictors have been killing native birds,
mammals, and, in one notorious inci-
dent, an alligator. Elsewhere in the state,
trappers routinely catch pythons and
other large non-native snakes.

The new rules would limit sales of
constricting snakes that grow to at least
12 feet, specifically Burmese Pythons,

Reticulated Pythons (P. reticulatus),
African Rock Pythons (P. sebae and P.
natalensis), Amethystine or Scrub
Pythons (Morelia amethystina), and
Green Anacondas (Eunectes murinus).
The rules also would restrict sales of Nile
Monitors (Varanus niloticus), carnivorous
lizards that can grow as long as 6 feet and
already have established a breeding pop-
ulation in the Cape Coral area on
Florida’s Gulf Coast.

At the moment, anyone can walk
into a pet shop and walk out with a
python. Under the new rules, buyers
would have to be 18 years old, complete
a questionnaire, apply for a state permit,
submit a plan for keeping the animal
secure in case of a hurricane or other dis-
aster, and have the reptile implanted with
a computer chip. The rules would go into
effect 1 January 2008. They would be
retroactive, although owners would have
until 1 July 2008 to comply with the chip
requirement. Assuming — and hoping
— that many owners of the big snakes
would find these rules too onerous, the
state plans to set up amnesty programs
that would allow people to drop off
unwanted reptiles at sites yet to be deter-
mined — no questions asked. “We don’t
know how many are out there,” West
said. “We have a suspicion it’s a high
number. We’re hoping a lot of people will
say they don’t want to do this and turn
them in.” The restrictions would have to
be approved by the wildlife commission,
a seven-member board appointed by the
governor. The commission initially will
consider the proposals in February. 

David Fleshler
South Florida Sun Sentinel

1 January 2007

Court Grants Protection for 
Recently Discovered Salamander

In response to a suit brought by the
Environmental Protection Information
Center, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands
Center, and Center for Biological
Diversity, Superior Court Judge Peter
Busch ruled today that the Department
of Fish and Game (DFG) cannot law-
fully strip protection for the Scott Bar
Salamander (Plethodon asupak) under the
California Endangered Species Act.

Formerly considered a subpopula-
tion of the Siskiyou Mountains

Salamander (P. stormi), which is listed as
a threatened species under the California
Endangered Species Act, the Scott Bar
Salamander was described as a new
species in May 2005. Rather than herald
the discovery of new species, DFG
immediately informed forestry officials
and timber companies that the salaman-
der had lost protection, which allowed
several logging projects to destroy sala-
mander habitat. At least one private log-
ging plan is currently proposed in Scott
Bar Salamander habitat and likely will be
affected by today’s decision.

“DFG’s move to allow logging in
the Scott Bar Salamander’s habitat runs
counter to their mission to protect the
state’s fish and wildlife,” said Joseph
Vaile, campaign director of the Klamath-
Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild).
“The court today made it clear that DFG
lacks the authority to remove protections
from rare species just because they were
described as a new species.”

The court’s decision was important
because it clarifies that only the Fish and
Game Commission, and not DFG, can
remove protection for species under the
California Endangered Species Act.
Because advances in genetic analyses
allow detection of previously unde-
tectable species, it is quite likely that
other new species will be separated from
already protected species. Today’s deci-
sion ensures that these species will con-
tinue to receive protection until the Fish
and Game Commission has a chance to
review their status in light of the thor-
ough scientific review and public com-
ment required under the law.

16 January 2007

A court ruling clearly stated that the
California Department of Fish and Game
cannot remove protection from rare species,
such as the Scott Bar Salamander (Plethodon
asupak), just because they were described as
new species.

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As Burmese Pythons (Python molurus bivitta-
tus) become more common in the
Everglades, so do encounters with native
wildlife, such as this American Alligator
(Alligator mississippiensis). Although large
’gators eat pythons, large snakes eat small alli-
gators. Long-term effects on either species are
unknown.

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