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IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2007 265NATURAL HISTORY RESEARCH REPORTS

contained an independent time trend for
survival of each age, morph, and lab-
treatment group. For snakes of the first
two age groups (ages 1 yr and 2–4 yr),
survival tended to decline over the years
for both morphs, whereas for adult
snakes (> 5 yr), survival was constant or
even increased slightly. These data on
survival and recapture are among the
first rigorous estimates of these parame-
ters in a rattlesnake and among the few
available for any viperid snake. These
data are useful for analyses of the life-
history strategy, population dynamics,
and conservation of this long-lived
snake.

Ringneck Snakes are Toxic to Prey
Ringneck Snakes (Diadophis punctatus)
are suspected of being venomous
because their Duvernoy’s gland secre-
tions have high levels of phospholipase
activity, which is characteristic of many
viperid and elapid venoms, and because
anecdotal reports of feeding behavior are
consistent with the use of a venom.
O’Donnell et al. (2007. Toxicon 50:
810–815) tested the toxicity of

Northwestern Ringneck Snake (D. p.
occidentalis) oral secretions to a natural
prey species, Northwestern Garter
Snakes (Thamnophis ordinoides), by
injecting 2–35 µl of oral secretions
intraperitoneally. All doses were 100%
lethal within 180 min. The dose signifi-
cantly affected the time to loss of a right-

ing response. Neither injection of saline
nor denatured oral secretions resulted in
loss of a righting response or any visible
detrimental effects. The authors sug-
gested that Northwestern Ringneck
Snakes may have evolved venom to sub-
due larger prey items than the snake
would otherwise be capable of taking.

Virginia Herpetological Society
Publications On-line

The Virginia Herpetological Society has
digitized all of its publications from 1958
to 2005, providing easy access to almost
50 years worth of field notes, articles, 
and the history of the society. Interested
herpetologists are encouraged to access
this resource at fwie.fw.vt.edu/
VHS/ (or publications specifically at
fwie.fw.vt.edu/VHS/vhs_history.htm).

Fourth Annual Sonoran Desert
Herpetological Symposium

The Tucson Herpetological Society and
its cosponsors are pleased to announce
the fourth symposium on “Current
Research on Herpetofauna of the
Sonoran Desert” from 11–13 April
2008. The goals of this meeting are: (1)
Presenting research on the herpetofauna
of the Sonoran Desert (in the states of
Arizona, Sonora, and on the Baja
California Peninsula and gulf islands),

and (2) Bringing the interested commu-
nity together to get better acquainted.
Invited speakers are Harry Greene, Ed
Moll, and Cecil Schwalbe.

The first three Sonoran Desert

Herpetofaunal symposia were an
epiphany for many. These symposia
revealed the wide variety of research being
conducted in the area. For more informa-
tion, see: http://tucsonherpsociety.org/.

N E W S B R I E F S

Northwestern Ringneck Snake (Diadophis punctatus occidentalis) oral secretions are toxic to a
natural prey species, Northwestern Garter Snakes (Thamnophis ordinoides). 

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The Tucson Herpetological Society and cosponsors announce the fourth symposium on
“Current Research on Herpetofauna of the Sonoran Desert.” 

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266 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2007 NEWSBRIEFS

Officials Warn 
‘Beware the Snakes’

Three experts and an eye witness
launched kayaks into the Hanalei River
on Kaua‘i to try to track down a snake
spotted on 25 June — the fourth
reported sighting there since March.

“A snake flew out of the tree and
splashed into the water,” said 16-year-old
Paulina Michel, of Princeville. “Then we
started paddling really hard to get away.”
Demonstrating with her hands out-
stretched about 3-feet apart, 8-year-old
Pearl Cuevas described her version of
what she saw. “It was about this big,” she
gestured.

Although Hawaiian officials scour
aircraft for the invasive species and take
other, serious precautions to keep the
state snake-free, the threat of the exis-
tence of the Brown Tree Snake (Boiga
irregularis) on Kaua‘i is a real one. The
Brown Tree Snake is a nocturnal and
arboreal snake that, after World War II,
was introduced to Guam, probably via
military cargo returning from use in the
war in New Guinea. The species’ rapid
spread throughout the island resulted in
the extinction of nine of the island’s 12
forest birds and half of its lizards. With
that in mind, Department of Agriculture
officials are taking action to prevent what
could be a drastic change to the fragile
balance of Kaua‘i’s ecosystem.

Michel and Cuevas said they were
about a mile from Hanalei Bay on their
return to the Kayak Kaua‘i port when
they saw the snakelike creature slither
away under the water. The pair — along
with Michel’s 8-year-old sister Jolene,
who was trailing in a kayak with her
father — reported the sighting to author-
ities immediately upon their return. State
officials from the Hawai‘i Department of
Land and Natural Resources and
Agriculture, Ed Pickop and Al Silva, with
Invasive Species Committee member

Eric Twedt, arrived later at the Kayak
Kaua‘i office. They brought with them a
“snake sighting interview kit.” The
experts asked the witnesses questions
using different sizes of polyvinyl chloride
pipe, rope, and pictures in an attempt to
identify the snake.

Rain hampered efforts to kayak to
the spot where the girls saw the snake,
but Paulina said she was eventually able
to show the experts the approximate
location. “They got out and looked for
tracks but didn’t find anything,” she said.
The officials plan to return soon to fur-
ther investigate. “We’re not messing
around. We take this very seriously,”
Pickop said.

After an alleged snake was spotted
two weeks previously, DLNR officials
posted signs on the Kayak Kaua‘i office in
Hanalei asking all sightings be reported.
“It was a very interesting, action-packed
day,” Paulina said. “Beware the snakes.”

In an ongoing effort to keep the
snakes from hitchhiking to Hawai‘i in mil-
itary planes, ships, and cargo, Sen. Daniel
Inouye has been working to include a
Guam-based snake inspection process in
the annual defense spending bill.

Nathan Eagle
The Garden Island

26 June 2007

A Major Victory for 
Gopher Tortoises

INCIDENTAL TAKE IS ALL BUT
HISTORY! Thousands of citizens have
been emailing, writing, attending meet-
ings, and demonstrating a wish to con-
serve Gopher Tortoises (Gopherus
polyphemus) and all the species that live
with them. Private landowners, develop-
ers, and others are working together to
take the next important step, namely to
make sure that the Florida Wildlife
Commission (FWC) Gopher Tortoise
Management Plan is based on the man-
agement and monitoring practices that
insure sustaining the species and its habi-
tats in perpetuity.

Danger signs are rising all over the
place that indicate that what is now a
good foundation may not meet the crite-
ria that will insure tortoise conservation
for generations to come. More than
twenty years ago, FWC staff assured
those of us with concerns about the

details of how relocation and incidental
take were going to be handled that those
details would be changed. More than 10
years later, FWC responded to the sci-
ence that expressed concern about upper
respiratory tract disease (URTD) and
proposed requirements that some kind of
testing for URTD be incorporated in
relocation efforts, but then did not
respond to new information acquired
during those 10 years that showed
URTD was not the problem originally
believed. Had, however, the original
URTD concerns been correct, far more
tortoises would have died than ever were
taken by incidental take due to the 10-
year response time.

The Gopher Tortoise Council
(GTC) is preparing a review of the plan.
One important issue still being ignored 
is the “Single-Family-Home” or 
“Five-Tortoises-or-Fewer” permits. A
University of Florida study recently indi-
cated that 187,000 single-family homes
were built in 2006 alone. Plots ranged
from less than one to several hundred
acres in size. Meanwhile, in the history of
the current permitting system, around
7,000 permits have been issued for this
category. If only one tortoise per unit
(not acre) is affected, the number far
exceeds the losses reported by FWC.

Without the general public’s con-
cern and constant reminders to the FWC
and County Commissions around the
state, this and other key issues will be
overlooked or ignored in the final plan.
Establishing an economically sustainable
program that will support relocation
monitoring and management can be
done in such a way that developers, agri-
cultural interests, and large landowners
will support the effort.

An introduction of Brown Tree Snakes (Boiga
irregularis) on Kaua‘i is a real threat.

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Private landowners, developers, and others
are working to insure that the Florida
Wildlife Commission Gopher Tortoise
Management Plan is based on management
and monitoring practices that sustain the
species and its habitats in perpetuity.

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IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2007 267NEWSBRIEFS

GTC appreciates the work done by
the FWC, hoping that it inaugurates a
new era in which the staff uses science
and public interest to develop real work-
able policies — but a few more months
are necessary in order to get it done right.
After twenty years of waiting, these
changes will seal the fate of this keystone
species, and if it takes another ten or
twenty years to correct mistakes, no tor-
toises or commensals may be left to save.

The Gopher Tortoise Council

Litigation Looms
On 30 August 2007, The Center for
Biological Diversity, headquartered in
Tucson, Arizona, filed a formal notice of
intent to sue the Department of the
Interior for political interference with 55
endangered species recommendations in
28 states. The notice initiates the largest
substantive legal action in the 34-year
history of the Endangered Species Act.
The full list of species is available at
www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/
interference-08-28-2007.html.

North American Reptiles Faring
Better Than Expected

A newly completed assessment of the
conservation status of North American
reptiles (Class Reptilia) shows that most
of the group is faring better than
expected, with relatively few species at
severe risk of extinction. The comprehen-
sive international assessment was carried
out by zoologists from NatureServe,
working in partnership with reptile
experts from universities, the World
Conservation Union (IUCN), and

Conservation International. The study
covered 721 species of lizards and snakes
found in Mexico, the United States, and
Canada. About one in eight lizards and
snakes (84 species) was found to be
“Threatened” with extinction, with
another 23 species labeled “Near
Threatened.” For 121 lizards and snakes,
the data are insufficient to allow a confi-
dent estimate of their extinction risk,
while 493 species (about two-thirds of
the total) are at present relatively secure.

When viewed in comparison with
the perils facing other animals, this is rea-
sonably good news for North America’s
squamate reptiles. A comparable recent
global assessment of amphibians, for
example, found nearly one-third of the
planet’s amphibians to be at risk of
extinction.

The results of the two-year assessment
were announced today as a key compo-
nent of the 2007 IUCN Red List of
Threatened Species. Widely recognized as
the most definitive tally of the planet’s
threatened wildlife, the Red List is a joint
effort led by IUCN and its Species Survival
Commission, working with official Red
List partners BirdLife International,
Conservation International, NatureServe,
and the Zoological Society of London.
Publication of the conservation status
assessments for North American reptiles is

a major step toward completion of the
first-ever Global Reptile Assessment, an
ongoing effort by the Red List Consortium
to assess the status of all reptiles worldwide.
The North American effort was funded
primarily by the Regina Bauer
Frankenberg Foundation for Animal
Welfare, a New York-based foundation
dedicated to the care and conservation of
the world’s animals.

Grand Cayman Blue Iguanas 
Hatch at the San Diego Zoo

The San Diego Zoo’s Conservation and
Research for Endangered Species (CRES)
is pleased to announce the hatching of
three Grand Cayman Blue Iguanas
(Cyclura lewisi). The hatchlings emerged
from their eggs over a three-day period
from 17–19 September 2007. The
mother, who weighed only 550 g, nested
four eggs in the soil of a potted Hibiscus
plant at CRES. The nesting and hatch-
ing dates are similar to those for iguanas
in Grand Cayman. Average weight and
size of the eggs was 56.5 g and 66 x 45
mm. The eggs were placed on a mixture
of vermiculite and water at a ratio of 1:1
by weight, and incubated at a tempera-
ture of 30 °C. The first animal pipped
after 83 days of incubation. Average
weight and snout-vent length of the
hatchlings was 44.2 g and 97 mm.

The Grand Cayman Blue Iguana is
considered by many to be the most
endangered lizard in the world. Threats
include severe habitat loss and fragmen-
tation, road traffic, and intense predation
from non-native feral and domesticated
animals. The Blue Iguana Recovery
Program was developed with several
international collaborators to reverse the
iguana’s path to extinction by headstart-
ing, breeding, and releasing iguanas
within protected reserves on Grand
Cayman. To date, over 250 iguanas have
been released and the prospect for species
survival is slowly improving. One of the
many program goals is to develop a self-
sustaining ex-situ captive population that
mirrors the genetic diversity of the
remaining wild population and provides
a hedge against catastrophic loss in
Grand Cayman.

The dam hatched in 2001 at the
headstart and breeding facility in Grand
Cayman. She and the sire (hatched
2002) were brought to CRES in 2005

The Alameda Striped Racer (Masticophis lat-
eralis euryxanthus) is one of two reptiles
included in the list of species for which the
Department of the Interior is accused of
exerting political interference with endan-
gered species recommendations. The
Mexican Garter Snake (Thamnophis eques
megalops) is the other. 

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The Two-legged Worm Lizard (Bipes biporus)
of Baja California is listed as “Least Concern”
on the IUCN Red List in view of its wide
distribution, tolerance of a degree of habitat
modification, presumed large population,
and because it is unlikely to be declining fast
enough to qualify for listing in a more threat-
ened category.

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with eight other juveniles representing
five founder pedigrees new to the United
States captive population. This is the first
breeding of this species at San Diego;
only two other zoos (Gladys Porter and
Indianapolis) have bred Blue Iguanas in
the United States in the last decade.
CRES has been an integral part of the
AZA’s Cyclura SSP since its inception,
and is a collaborator in the Blue Iguana
Recovery Program.

Jeff Lemm
Research Animal Coordinator

Applied Animal Ecology Division
CRES, Zoological Society of San Diego

Bootmaker for 
World Leaders Arrested

A bootmaker to world leaders, including
President Bush and Vicente Fox, is in a
Colorado jail, charged with money laun-
dering and conspiring to illegally smug-
gle the skins of protected animals into
the United States to provide exotic
footwear for high-end clients.

The arrest of Martin Villegas — and
Mexico’s raid of a warehouse filled with
hundreds of cowboy boots and belts
made from endangered species — has
raised questions about how much Fox
knew of the scheme and whether the for-
mer Mexican president purchased illegal
boots himself. Before Fox left office in
December, Villegas created a special

brand of cowboy boot named after him,
which was manufactured in Mexico’s
shoemaking capital, Leon, in Fox’s home
state of Guanajuato. The Mexican boot-
maker also produced footwear for Fox’s
bodyguards, Cabinet members, relatives
and friends — including Bush, a fellow
lover of ranchwear, who accepted a pair
of ostrich-skin cowboy boots as a gift
during a visit to Fox’s ranch in 2001.

Villegas was arrested 6 September
along with two other Mexican nationals
and two U.S. residents following a three-
year undercover operation by U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service agents. The five
allegedly made 25 illegal shipments of
banned skins into the U.S. since 2005,
the department said. Days later, Mexican
federal agents raided the Canada Grande
factory and warehouse in Leon, which is
owned by one of the other Mexican sus-
pects, Esteban Lopez Estrada. They
found about 400 pairs of cowboy boots
and 150 belts made of the skins of
endangered sea turtles, as well as prod-
ucts made illegally from the hides of
crocodiles, lizards, and cobras.

The seized boots, belts, shoes, and
skins are being stored in an environmen-
tal protection agency office in
Guanajuato, where a chain-link cage is
filled with more than 200 cardboard
boxes with drawings of ostriches and ser-
pents. “Exotic Boots ... export quality,” is
written in red lettering on the boxes. A
pair of turtle-skin cowboy boots sells on
the black market in Mexico for about
$70. Across the border, they can fetch as
much as $500. Turtle skins, which sell for
about $9 in Mexico, go for about $80 in
the U.S. Any commercial trade in sea tur-
tles is prohibited under the Convention
of International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Smuggling Endangered Iguanas 
in a Prosthetic Leg

A California resident was indicted on
federal smuggling charges for bringing
into the United States several extremely
rare iguanas after stealing them from a
nature preserve in the Republic of the Fiji
Islands and concealing them in his pros-
thetic leg. The smuggling charge, which
carries a penalty of up to five years in fed-
eral prison, alleges that Jereme James
stole three hatchling Fiji Island Banded
Iguanas (Brachylophus fasciatus) and
brought them to the United States in
violation of federal and international law.

The Fiji Island Banded Iguana is
threatened with extinction and is pro-
tected under an international treaty
known as the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. While
on a trip to Fiji in September 2002,
James apparently abducted three young
iguanas from an ecological preserve. He
then allegedly brought them into the
United States by concealing them in a
special compartment he had constructed
in a prosthetic leg that he uses.

After receiving a tip that James pos-
sessed several specimens of the endan-

268 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2007 NEWSBRIEFS

A prominent bootmaker is in a Colorado jail,
charged with money laundering and conspir-
ing to illegally smuggle the skins of protected
animals into the United States to provide
exotic footwear for high-end clients.

A California resident was indicted on federal
smuggling charges for bringing into the
United States several extremely rare Fiji
Island Banded Iguanas (Brachylophus fascia-
tus) after stealing them from a nature preserve
and concealing them in his prosthetic leg.

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Hatchling Grand Cayman Blue Iguanas
(Cyclura lewisi) at the Center for the
Reproduction of Endangered Species
(CRES) at the San Diego Zoo.

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IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2007 269NEWSBRIEFS

gered species, the United States Fish &
Wildlife Service opened an undercover
investigation. During the investigation,
James told an undercover operative that
he sold a trio of Fiji Island Banded
Iguanas four years ago for $32,000. After
a series of meetings with the defendant,
Fish & Wildlife Service agents executed
a search warrant at James’s house in July
and recovered four of the endangered
iguanas.

Andros Iguana Outreach
In October, an outreach project utilizing
workshops and outreach materials was
initiated on Andros Island, Bahamas.
The objective of this project is to advance
efforts to protect the endangered Andros
Iguana (Cyclura cychlura cychlura). The
San Diego Zoo’s Education Department
and Conservation and Research for
Endangered Species (CRES) collaborated
with the Bahamas Ministry of Education
and the Bahamas National Trust (BNT)
to hold two two-day workshops for
Andros Island educators. Thirty-four
educators (teachers, administrators, and
resource specialists) representing all 19
public schools on Andros participated in
the events. The workshops were sup-
ported by a United States Fish and
Wildlife Service “Wildlife Without
Borders” grant.

The workshops were designed to
improve the educators’ understanding of
Andros Iguanas, their habitat, and their
conservation. Participants gained valu-

able knowledge and experience through
a variety of activities, discussions, and a
fieldtrip. The groups received training on
the use of a portable education kit with
three complementary lessons and associ-
ated materials. Two of these kits will
travel throughout the Andros school sys-
tem during the year. Educators also
received resource materials including an
iguana conservation poster, wildlife iden-
tification posters, and a pine forest
resource book produced by the BNT.
Participants also received custom t-shirts
to help promote pride in Andros Iguanas
and their conservation.

The project also supports diffusion
of iguana related information through
youth sports and civic clubs. A series of
trading cards was created as a fun way to
inform youths and their families about
Andros Iguana natural history, threats,
and conservation. The Central Andros
Iguanas Football Club, the Governor
General Youth Awards Program, and the
Bahamas National Trust will distribute
the cards as prizes to members and par-
ticipants in community events. The 70-
member football club also received sports
backpacks and water bottles printed with
the club’s logo and a conservation mes-
sage.

The success of the workshops has
already led to plans for further collabora-
tion and activities. A subsequent evalua-
tion of the effects of the activities and
materials will help improve future con-
servation outreach activities on Andros
and other islands.

Start Them Young
The countdown to choosing the nation’s
top young scientist began several months
ago by Discovery Communications and
one of the 40 finalists is herpetologist-in-
training, Rick Schaeffer, a junior chelon-
ian scientist with a science fair project on
the Asian Giant Tortoise, Manouria emys.

Over 7,000 students won a nomi-
nation at their local, regional, or state sci-
ence fairs, of which approximately 2,000
were considered for the award and 400
were chosen as semifinalists. In spring
2007, while an 8th-grade student in
Jacksonville, Florida, Rick Schaffer
placed first in zoology at the Florida State
Science Fair, receiving the Discovery
Channel Young Scientist Award at both
the regional and state competitions. 

Rick presented his findings from a
previous Science Fair project at the
University of Florida Herpetology
Conference in spring 2006. This sum-
mer, he presented his first place award-
winning current project at the 2007
Annual Symposium on the Biology and
Conservation of Tortoises and Fresh
Water Turtles in Atlanta, Georgia. He has
also presented his research at the Gopher
Tortoise Council Annual Meeting. He
was the youngest speaker ever at both the
University of Florida Herpetology
Conference and the Annual Symposium
on the Biology and Conservation of
Tortoises and Fresh Water Turtles.

Protection a Shell Can’t Provide
Their short tails beat back and forth
faster as their noses concentrated on a
pile of rotting wood, wet leaves, and

Rick Schaeffer presenting his award-wining
talk: “A Comparison of the Activity Levels of
Different Age Cohorts of the Asian Giant
Tortoise, Manouria emys, by Photoperiod.” 

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Thirty-four educators representing all 19 public schools on Andros Island (Bahamas) participated
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thorny brush in the dense Montgomery
County forest. “Look, look,” said John
Rucker, a turtle activist from Tennessee,
pointing at his three Boykin spaniels.
“Think they found one.” Sure enough,
Sparky brought his snout out of the
brush with a yellow-spotted Eastern Box
Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) care-
fully clutched in his teeth.

The half-dozen turtle hunters were
combing the woods yesterday along the
planned route for Maryland’s intercounty
connector, which could replace the tur-
tle-friendly habitat with a six-lane toll
highway. The aim is to catalogue and fit
the turtles with transmitters so they can
be rounded up and evacuated from the
area when, or if, construction begins.

State Highway Administration offi-
cials are heeding the advice of their Box
Turtle advisory committee with an “envi-
ronmental stewardship” campaign to save
the turtles from being crushed under
bulldozers or trapped under the asphalt,
said Robert Shreeve, the connector’s envi-
ronmental manager. The campaign,
which began about a month ago, is esti-
mated to cost up to $20,000. Unlike
deer, birds, and other woodland and wet-
land creatures in the area, turtles “are
slow-moving and have a very difficult
time getting out of the way,” Shreeve said
during a news conference in the woods
yesterday morning.

Major construction on the long-
delayed highway was set to begin
October 16th but has been put on hold
as a federal judge considers two lawsuits
alleging that Maryland officials did not
properly evaluate the highway’s environ-
mental impact. The 18-mile highway
would run north of the Capital Beltway
connecting Interstate 270 in
Gaithersburg and Interstate 95 in Laurel.
U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams,
Jr. began hearing arguments Monday
and is expected to rule this month. While
the lawsuits are pending, highway offi-
cials and activists are continuing with
turtle relocation plans. They have found
90 turtles and hope to bring that number
to 150. Some of the creatures were
tagged with donated transmitters and
released in the spots where they were
found, but most are being held in a pen
until the transmitters the highway
administration ordered arrive.

If the judge rules in the state’s favor
and major construction begins, officials

will locate the turtles, which will proba-
bly be hibernating under four to six
inches of dirt and leaves. The best way to
move “pretty much comatose” turtles is
to work on a cold day and keep the tur-
tles at a constant low temperature, said
Christopher W. Swarth, a committee
member and director of Jug Bay
Wetlands Sanctuary in Anne Arundel
County.

They will then place the turtles in a
new hibernation hole on the other side of
the highway construction fence, which
will be reinforced with thin mesh so the
turtles can’t crawl back. Shreeve said con-
struction workers also will be trained on
what to do if they spot a turtle: Pick it up
and alert the environmentalists. The
activists involved said none of them has
ever moved this many turtles before —
and they aren’t sure whether it will work.
“Just because we’ll pick up buckets of
turtles doesn’t mean they’ll still be around
in a few years,” Swarth said.

Eastern Box Turtles can be found in
many spots in the region, the activists
said, but their population is slowly dwin-
dling for a number of reasons: low egg
counts, collisions with fast-moving cars,
dwindling habitats, pesticides and, yes,
children with sticks. Moving a whole
population of turtles, even a few miles,
could be enough for that species to dis-
appear from the area.

Turtles hardly ever venture more
than a few miles from their home, said
Susan Hagood of the Humane Society of
the United States. Turtles that are trans-

planted usually don’t settle down, she
said, and instead keep wandering in
search of home. Plus, the little guys
might not be happy being pulled out of
hibernation. “We’re trying something
that history has said doesn’t work,” she
said. “But with a declining species, we
can’t do nothing.”

Although the activists said they were
glad the highway administration has
publicly supported saving the turtles,
they worry that the support came too
late. Committee member Sandy Barnett,
a longtime herpetologist, said that the
panel formed nearly a year ago and that
highway officials should have started the
process in June so they could mark the
turtles before they started their fall hiber-
nation routine. She is also upset that the
transmitters have not arrived and will be
too large for some of the baby turtles.
“It’s a $2.4 billion [highway] project,” she
said. “They have all of these funds to
allocate, and they can’t take care of these
turtles?”

Jenna Johnson
Washington Post

Biodiversity: Exotic Pet Collectors
Drive Extinction

In an ironic twist, officially listing a
species as endangered drives up its value
to collectors and consumers, putting it
on an even faster track to extinction,
researchers in Paris reported Tuesday. A
perverse human penchant for possessing
the last remaining member of a species
increases its value so that collectors will
spend thousands of dollars and go to any
length, legal or illegal, to obtain them.
This triggers a positive feedback loop
between exploitation and rarity that
drives a species into an extinction vortex,
Franck Courchamp and colleagues write
in the scientific journal PloS Biology.

“It can be dangerous for a species to
announce that it has become rare if it
cannot be protected from exploitation,”
Courchamp said. “Even inconspicuous
species can suddenly become valuable
just because they are rare.” Hobby collec-
tors, the exotic pet trade, trophy hunters,
traditional medicine, and luxury goods
made from rare species are among the
forces pushing rare species into extinc-
tion — and the scientific literature is
often used to identify the next hot

Maryland State Highway Administration
officials are heeding the advice of their Box
Turtle advisory committee with an “environ-
mental stewardship” campaign to save
Eastern Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina car-
olina) from being killed during construction
of a six-lane toll highway. 

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IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2007 271NEWSBRIEFS

species. Immediately after an article rec-
ognized the small Indonesian turtle
(Chelodina mccordi) and Chinese gecko
(Goniurosaurus luii) as rarities, their
prices soared on the exotic pet market.
The turtle is now nearly extinct and the
gecko can no longer be found.

Exotic pet traders covet a wide range
of creatures, including orangutans, mon-
keys, reptiles, birds, and wild cats, as well
as arachnids, insects, and fish. The
Internet is a major factor in driving
species into extinction faster than ever,
says Ernie Cooper, director of wildlife
trade at the World Wildlife Fund-
Canada. “The Internet makes it very easy
for sellers to connect with buyers,”
Cooper said. A seller can easily and
quickly sell 200 exotic salamanders on
the net, which would have been very dif-
ficult to do a decade ago. “It’s just scary
how fast a species can be depleted,”
Cooper noted.

Two years ago, he found out that 50
Kaiser’s Spotted Newts (Neurergus
kaiseri), a threatened species endemic to
Iran, were for sale in Canada. He traced
the Canadian dealer to a Ukrainian
dealer who was offering up to 200
Kaiser’s Spotted Newts for sale. “There
are less than 1,000 Kaisers left in only a
few small streams in Iran,” Cooper said.
Although protected in Iran and collected
illegally, it is not illegal to sell the Kaisers
on the many amphibian collector web-
sites. “If I hadn’t stumbled on to the trade
in Kaisers, it would have gone extinct
before anyone knew.”

The IUCN World Conservation
Union’s “red list” of threatened species
now considers Kaisers to be a “critically
endangered” species — just one of nearly
16,000 plants and animals known to face
a high risk of extinction. Not surpris-
ingly, the collector’s price for Kaisers has
jumped from $200 to $400 dollars, and
some are still for sale today.

The pre-eminent scientific authority
on species at risk, the IUCN red list
offers no legal protection for species, says
Peter Galvin of the Centre for Biological
Diversity, an environmental group in
California. Instead, each country should
establish laws to protect species and to
list a species under the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES) to make it illegal to
trade endangered species. “If there are no
legal protections, then it might be a good

idea to keep secret the fact that a species
has become rare,” he said.

However, in many cases a widely
publicized announcement that a species
is threatened with extinction is the only
way to motivate governments to pass
laws and take other measures to protect
them. China adopted stringent measures
to protect the Giant Panda only after
worldwide public outcry following pub-
lished scientific reports showing that the
species was in trouble. “Most countries
are embarrassed to let one of their species
go extinct,” Galvin pointed out.

In the United States, species have
only been protected after lawsuits forced
the government to put them on the U.S.
E n d a n g e r e d
Species List — or
at least that is the
way it has been
under the George
W. Bush adminis-
tration, he says.
“No species has
been put on the
list without a
court order,”
Galvin said. That
process can take
years, leaving a
species known to
be rare without
any legal protec-
tion — but keep-
ing quiet doesn’t
work either, since
species are going
extinct at record
rates. “Publicly
listing a species as
threatened cuts
both ways,”
Cooper agreed.
However, he

believes there are cases when it would be
better to keep a species’ status secret.

It is probably already too late for the
Kaisers. Even if Iran wanted to make it
illegal to trade the newts internationally,
the CITES process can take two or more
years — and the looming extinction of
Kaisers is not a top priority for Iran,
Cooper said.

Educating collectors on the conse-
quences of their hobby — driving species
into extinction — doesn’t work for some
because they tend to be obsessive person-
alities. “They are often experts who know
a species has been collected into extinc-
tion but they must have it in their collec-
tion,” he explained. Courchamp has con-
ducted experiments on this human
compulsion for rarity. “People are always
interested in the rare,” he said. “Even if
two objects are identical, if you tell them
one is rare, that one becomes their focus.
It is a very strong tendency.”

Stephen Leahy
IPS-Inter Press Service

Immediately after the Chinese Leopard
Gecko (Goniurosaurus luii) was formally
described as “rare,” its prices on the exotic pet
market soared. The gecko can no longer be
found in its natural habitat.

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