SaveTheReptiles.com

Tortoise territory battle in Collier

Candace M Hansen — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:11:17 +0000

Private builders are looking to bring in business, but say a threatened tortoise species is in their way. Now, the county is trying to make a new gopher tortoise preserve, but there’s a fight over who gets to use it.

During the building boom a few years ago, developers could kill any gopher tortoise in their way. That may be part of the reason they’re a threatened species now, and it costs big bucks to build where these guys borrow.

Read full story HERE.

Wayward iguana shows up at Alpha home

Candace M Hansen — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:10:06 +0000

A 2-foot-long iguana paid a call to the home of Alpha residents Bill and Maryann Mason this afternoon.

The rambling reptile showed up near the couple’s garage about 3:30 p.m. Both admitted the green creature with the long tail gave them a start.

“It scared her a little bit at first,” Bill Mason said of his wife. “All of a sudden this thing is there.”

The 66-year-old retired New Jersey Department of Transportation worker said things calmed down quickly and the iguana wandered off to a man-made fish pond stocked with coy and goldfish.

Read full story HERE.

Human, alligators clash as populations grow

Candace M Hansen — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:06:13 +0000

Doris Witte grew up in her Lasalle Road home near Inez, but in her 75 years she had never seen the likes of the huge reptile that came to visit her neighborhood.

In March, a woman hit and killed the visitor. Its remains were left to rot on the side of the road for almost a week, according to nearby residents.

“It was just something unusual,” she said, recalling that the lightly treaded road received an uncommon amount of traffic from sightseers that week. “We don’t have that out here.”

Someone even took it upon him or herself to decapitate the lifeless reptile.

Read full story HERE.

Python captured in Ferguson Township

Candace M Hansen — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:05:09 +0000

A pet python that was reported missing Monday from a Ferguson Township home has been caught.

Witnesses say the caramel and brown 10-foot-long snake was captured Wednesday tonight outside a home on Harris Street in the township. That’s about a block from the Linn Street home where it escaped from a wooden cage in its owner’s driveway.

Read full story HERE.

Tallahassee man jumps out of Wakulla Springs tour boat ‘to swim with gators’

Candace M Hansen — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:03:34 +0000

A 37-year-old Tallahassee man was charged with disorderly conduct at Wakulla Springs State Park after jumping out of a tour boat to “swim with the alligators” on Saturday, June 19 at 5:06 p.m., according to Wakulla County Sheriff David Harvey.

Eric Ross told Deputy Nick Boutwell that he intentionally jumped off the tour boat because he observed an alligator in the water and wanted to fulfill a lifelong fear/fantasy of swimming with a gator. He compared the thrill to “sky diving” as he was being questioned by the deputy.

Park Ranger James Hines responded to the scene with another boat and discovered that Ross had swum to the river bank and was walking toward the public swimming area. The park ranger found Ross holding a stick in a wooded area before taking him to meet with law enforcement officials.

Read full story HERE.

Snakes are dangerous but useful

Candace M Hansen — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:02:41 +0000

Snake bites is a major problem in Sri Lanka, with nearly 60,000 people becoming victims annually. Only close to 40,000 receive treatment from the hospitals, but others resort to traditional methods often resulting in deaths.

Experts believe gaining a clear understanding of the venomous and non venomous snakes is of great importance to avoid bites and killing of the snakes.

Snakes play a vital role in the eco system, killing snakes would result in many other species especially rodents dominating the system and causing many diseases and immense damage to the economy, especially in an agricultural country like ours.

Read full story HERE.

Herpetologists: Hot weather is making snakes more likely to bite

Candace M Hansen — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:01:22 +0000

A young child is on the road to recovery after being bitten by a snake happened in Garland on Sunday.

The four-year-old was bitten by a Copperhead and hospitalized.

Snake bite calls have doubled this year in Tarrant County. Four were reported between May 1 and June 14 last year. Two hospitals in Fort Worth are already reporting 20 cases this season.

Dallas County numbers are not yet available.

Dan Crayton came face-to-face with a Copperhead under his house in Loving on Monday night.

Read full story HERE.

Dead foreign snake sighting a concern

Candace M Hansen — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:00:26 +0000

The discovery of a dead, four-foot long constrictor snake on Rainbow Road is unusual but does not present danger to the public, says wildlife enforcement officer Wolfgang Brunnwieser.

Gail Neumann, her son and a friend found the dead snake while taking a walk on Sunday, where it was lying in a ditch near a driveway to Murakami Gardens. They brought the carcass to Richard Murakami’s car repair shop where he disposed of it.

“I was going to walk right by it . . . I thought it was a piece of rope,” Neumann said, until her son pointed out its true nature.

Read full story HERE.

Don’t coax crocs, Thai tourists told

Candace M Hansen — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:58:20 +0000

Authorities at Khao Yai National Park have given a stern warning to tourists, ordering them to stop taunting the park’s pair of two-meter-long crocodiles.

The warning came after officials spotted visitors tempting the beasts with their feet.

The reptiles first hit the headlines last year when they were seen swimming around a waterhole in the park, which is not a natural habitat for crocs.

The pair have since become a tourist attraction in themselves. Park authorities initially planned to catch the animals and take them to another park better suited to their way of life, but as they seemed to be thriving in Khao Yai and not damaging the natural environment, they were allowed to stay.

Now park authorities worry that a tourist could lose a leg or even their lives to the crocodiles.

Khao Yai National Park chief Manot Kanphanakngan described the behavior of some tourists as “very worrying.”

Read full story HERE.

Serpents face slippery existence

Candace M Hansen — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:57:16 +0000

Last week staff at an MoT test centre in Bedfont, west London, opened the bonnet of a van to discover a 4ft-long North American black rat snake curled around the engine.

Encounters such as this are unusual – particularly for mechanics – but given the number of sibilant house guests kept domestically, they are on the increase.

Richard Gibson, curator of lower vertebrates and invertebrates at Chester Zoo, says tens of thousands of snakes are kept as pets in Britain, from constrictors and pythons to venomous black mambas and king cobras. He attributes most appearances in the wild to escape artistry.

“If snakes are held anywhere other than a tank or enclosure designed for the purpose, or if there are any gaps or damage, they can disappear with ease, often through holes that seem much too small to accommodate them,” he says.

Read full story HERE.