Book Review: The Last Tortoise: A Tale of Extinction in Our Lifetime

Reptiles as a whole might not have the best public relations with many people, but there's one group that is almost universally loved - turtles.  Maybe it's because they are slow and seemingly harmless that we let our guards down around them.  Among the most popular reptiles in zoos and aquariums are the giant tortoises, especially the Galapagos tortoise.

Since Charles Darwin rode (very slowly) across the islands on the backs on these behemoths, they've been staples of zoos around the world, one of the few Galapagos animals to be seen outside of the islands.  The story of these shelled giants is a complicated, often tragic one - long before anyone was exporting to zoos, tortoises had a much more... utilitarian function in the eyes of many people, serving as a source of fresh food for whalers and other visitors to the islands.  There numbers were decimated not just through hunting (if you can even really call that "hunting"), but the introduction of invasive species and loss of habitat.  Scientifically, conserving the tortoises has been a challenge because of the confusion over their island range.  Does each island represent a different species?  A different subspecies?  What are the implications of moving tortoises between islands.

The Last Tortoise: A Tale of Extinction in Our Lifetime, is Craig Stanford's exploration of the giant tortoises of the Galapagos and around the world.  Dr. Stanford is a professor at the University of Southern California who normally studies primates, though tortoises benefit greatly in this book from his services as a biographer.  The relatively short book covers a broad range of tortoise topics, such as the evolution and distribution of the family, their complicated history with humanity, and how we can work to save them in their natural range.  The author rights with strong prose, almost indignant at the fact that we, as a society, are failing these unique creatures on so many fronts and allowing so many of them to sink into extinction.

The Galapagos tortoises take center stage in the book, and among the places that Dr. Stanford take his readers one of the most memorable would be the breeding centers of the Galapagos Islands, where tortoises are reared in captivity for release back into the wild.  It's always nice to see about how conservation breeding programs can be used to bolster a species and restore numbers.  Stanford makes it clear, however, that breeding programs are valuable to conservation with the understanding that they will, at some point, put tortoises back into the wild.  The alternative, he warns, is a world in which tortoises "hang on only in zoos and in the hands of wealthy private collectors.  They will no longer be a spices in the evolutionary sense.  They will just a scattered gene pool, a few protected, priceless animals locked up in cages."  

I wouldn't go that far as to downplay the importance of maintaining a backup colony of endangered animals for safety's sake - but I would agree at a world without wild tortoises in it would be a sadder one, and a Galapagos without its tortoises would be no Galapagos at all.

The Last Tortoise: A Tale of Extinction in Our Lifeime at Amazon.com

From the News: Florida FWC votes to ban ‘high-risk’ reptiles

 Florida FWC votes to ban ‘high-risk’ reptiles

Rules for owning reptiles and other exotic pets vary widely from state to state.  Some are highly regulated.  In others, anything goes.  Florida, to my surprise (I mean, how many "Florida Man" stories are there?), is actually towards the stricter end of the spectrum.  Part of the reason for concern is climatic.  When exotic pet reptiles are released in, say, Nebraska, the problem will probably take care of itself by winter.  Bad for the individual animal that suffers, of course, but at least an invasive species doesn't get the chance to establish itself in the wild.  With southern Florida's subtropical climate, reptiles from South America, Africa, or Asia can thrive.  Just recently, yet another potential new invasive - the Central American milk snake - was found in the state.

FWC (the same entity that regulates Florida's zoos and aquariums, as well as the movement of zoo animals in and out of the state) is implementing a ban on sixteen species of reptile (some of them fairly common in zoos) that it deems high risk of becoming invasive, or that are already considered invasive, such as the Burmese python.  Whether more are added to the list remains to be seen.  Hobbyists and herp pet owners are outraged, not only for what they stand to loose, but for the potential slippery slope.   They can look no further (well, actually, it is pretty far) than New Zealand, where the island nation doesn't have a single snake on its shores.  Not even in a zoo.

Sea Turtle Slip-n-Slide

The sudden, brutal winter storms that hit the southern US earlier this month have left an impact of a lot of people - and a lot of animals.  Among those suffering from the big chill were countless sea turtles, left cold-stunned by the frigid temperatures.  Even among all of the chaos and confusion that the storms brought, zoos and aquariums were able to rescue many turtles, rehabilitate them, and return them to the ocean.  Here are a few being released off the coast of Texas.

What you aren't seeing in this brief, happy video is all of the hard work and heartache that went into trying to rescue so many sick and injured animals, more than a few of which didn't make.

You also don't see all of the newly-released turtles swimming around to the other side of the boat, forming a line so that they can go down the slide again.  At least, that's what I like to think is happening.

 

Now You See Me...

One summer afternoon, when we were busy and I had far too many other things to do, a coworker and I spent an exhausting half hour crawling through bushes that seemed to be 10% leaf, 90% thorn, in search of a tortoise.  It helps to understand that it was the zoo's tortoise, a red-footed tortoise from South America, about the size and shape of a football.  It was a nice day, and one of our volunteers had taken the tortoises outside to get some sun.  He'd put them down in the grass so they found forage, maybe find some slugs or other delectables, and then he turned his back.

He swore it was only for a moment.  Rookie mistake.

"Let me guess, it all just happened so fast that he was gone before you knew it?" asked my other co-worker acerbically (or at least as acerbically as your voice can sound when you are crawling on your hands and knees through the bushes, spitting out twigs).  The volunteer didn't reply.  Frankly, I thought my coworker was being a little hard on the kid.  Animals are incredible, but we have a tendency to exaggerate their chief qualities.  Cheetahs are fast, but not as fast as many people think they are.  Great white sharks are dangerous, but not as dangerous as many people think they are.  Tortoise are slow, but... well, you get it.

I've actually seen some pretty impressive tortoise athletic achievements over the years.  Most of those have been brute-force related, with larger animals plowing through walls that were inconsiderately placed in their path.  Agility might not be a tortoise-forte, but I've seen a pancake tortoise scale a low fence that was taller than the tortoise was long.  And as for speed - well, they can move surprisingly fast when they want to - and few animals can be more single-minded when there is something that they want to do than a tortoise.  

It could even be tricky taking two or more tortoises outside at a time, I'd found, and keeping an eye on them.  Inevitably, they will set off, at high (tortoise) speed, in opposite directions.  The volunteer was right to want to put the tortoises out for some sun - but an enclosed area might have been the better choice.

In the end, we did find our shell-covered fugitive, much to the relief of our thoroughly-abashed volunteer.  By the time we did, the three of us - volunteer, coworker, and I - were thoroughly scratched up, smelly, and sweaty, having clambered all over the place, ducking and crawling into every crevice we could find, and a few we'd never imagined.  The goal might have been to give the tortoise some exercise, but in the end, we were the ones who got the work out.

Species Fact Profile: European Legless Lizard/Scheltopusik (Pseudopus apodus)

                                             European Legless Lizard (Scheltopusik)

Pseudopus apodus (Pallas, 1775)

Range: Southern Europe, Middle East, Central Asia

Habitat: Short Grasslands, Open Woodland, Dry Rocky Hillsides

Diet: Snails and Slugs, Insects and other Arthropods, Small Vertebrates, Eggs

Social Grouping: Primarily solitary, may congregate

Reproduction:  Breed between June and August.  10 weeks after mating, female will lay about 6-10 eggs, which she hides in a crevice or under a rock and guards during incubation.  The young hatch after 45-55 days, about 15 centimeters long each.  Female abandons young after they hatch.  Sexually mature at 2-3 years old.

Lifespan: Average 10-15 Years in Wild, Up to 50 Years

Conservation Status: IUCN  Least Concern

• Largest of the legless-lizards.  Reaches a maximum length of 135 centimeters.  The body is made up of ring-like segments which make the animal resemble a giant earthworm, but having a distinctive fold of skin down the length of the body.  The head is typically lizard-like, differing from that of a snake by having eyelids and ear openings.  A pair of tiny vestigial legs (about 0.2 centimeters long) are by the cloaca, about halfway down the length of the body
• Coloration is tan, usually paler towards the head.  Juveniles have more vivid marks then adults
• If threatened by a predator, it will hiss, bite, or screte musk.  If seized, it may drop off a section of its tail, which will break into pieces to distract a predator and earning the species its nickname of "glass lizard" (in European folklore, the lizard can reputedly break into pieces and then reassemble itself).  A dropped tail will be regrown, but slowly.
• Latin name translates to "Fake-Legged Without Legs."  The alternative common name, "Scheltopusik," comes from the Russian for "Yellow-Bellied"
• Two subspecies - the eastern, which has a narrower head, and the western (P. . thracius), which has a broader one
• Not endangered, relatively common over widespread range.  Tolerant of some habitat disturbance and may be found in gardens.  Sometimes killed after being misidentified as a snake
• Sometimes used in movies as a "stunt-double" for snakes - most notably in the "snake pit| in the Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Hungry's Summer Holiday

Everyone once is a while, I like to write a little piece remembering specific animals that I've worked with over the years.  I don't like to play favorites, but any keeper can tell you, some animals are just special.  Today, I found myself remembering one of my particular favorites from my earliest days in the field, when I was just a teenage volunteer.  She was one of the most personality-filled animals that I ever worked with, which really surprised me back then, because she was a reptile.  I guess you could say that it was "Hungry" who taught me that reptiles were people too, in their own way.

Hungry was a crocodile monitor , one of the stars of the reptile house.  She shared a habitat with her much-larger mate, who we will call Bob.   Crocodile monitors are the longest lizard species in the world; I've heard of specimens 13 feet long an have heard rumors of even larger ones. Most of that length is tail, though, and the croc monitor isn’t nearly as solidly built as its relative, the Komodo dragon.  Bob was impressive enough on account of his size – he was a whooping eight feet from his long, Roman snout to the twitching, flickering tip of his whip of a tail.  With the look of a dragon and the temperament of an old hound dog, Bob preferred to spend his days in snoozing in the rocks, often with only his long, slender tail dangling down into view.  The public could gawk and take pictures all they wanted to; Bob didn’t give a damn.  He wasn’t getting up for anything except a meal. 

This is a crocodile monitor, but it isn't "Hungry" or "Bob" - I actually don't have any photos of either.  One of my biggest regrets from my early days in the field is that I didn't take pictures of my favorite animals.  These days I compensate by taking pictures of everything.

Hungry may only have been half Bob's length, but she had the much bigger personality, dare I say a sense of showmanship?  While Bob napped in his corner, resting in a trampled patch of potted plants, Hungry waddled and strutted along the glass front of the exhibit, swaggering as her fat belly swung left and right.  Little kids would rush up to get close to her, and she’d regard each with a connoisseur’s critical eye.  I wondered if she was trying to decide which kid would make the most delicious morsel.  Besides her willingness to tend to visitors, Hungry had beauty to her advantage.  Her soft, smooth scaly hide was a lovely tropical green, pock marked with golden spots; stripes of yellow ringed her long, elegant tail.    The kids loved Hungry, and when her yellow forked tongue would slide from between her lips, tasting the air, the kids would stick their tongues out with her.  When she pawed at the glass, so would they.  When she climbed into the branches of the dead tree in her tank, the kids would climb the railing of the exhibit, trying to keep her at eye level.

It’s been said that the cheetah is the fastest living land animal; whoever believes this must never have watched a crocodile monitor being fed.  The second that keys were heard jingling in the distance, a change would instantly come over the lizards.  Bob would rouse himself from his silent meditations, grab the nearest tree limb and slide to the ground.  Hungry would shuffle with anticipation, eyes fixed on the backdoor leading into the enclosure.  A monitor doesn’t run to its food, it flies.  When Hungry got hungry (yes, there was a reason for the name), her open maw would launch towards the proffered rat like a cannonball, with her short legs scrambling to keep up.  She looked for all the world like a comet, with a wide pink mouth for a head, tapering into a long, sleek green tail.  The rat had to be tossed quickly, or else one of the lizards might take a snap or a swipe at the dawdling keeper.  With razor sharp teeth and a bacterial bite, a nip from Hungry or Bob had the promise of being extremely unpleasant.

Feedings weren’t only rough on the feeders, but on the fed.  During one feeding, one keeper forgot the age old wisdom of reptile care – feed the big one first.  So Hungry wound up with a rat in her mouth which Bob decided that he wanted.  Next thing anyone saw, Bob had the rat, and a large chunk of Hungry’s neck, in his mouth.  After considerable amounts of screaming, pulling, and swearing, he let go, and poor Hungry was speedily rushed over to the zoo hospital in a green plastic trashcan for transport purposes.  She made a full recovery, but was never again fed with Bob.

Bob's bite wasn’t the only time that Hungry wound up on the table; soon she found herself on the operating table again, also for food related reasons.  Hungry’s overindulgence was starting to make her a little plump, and she had developed a benign tumor of fat that bulged from her left side as she basked under the heat lamps.  The keepers decided to have the fat pad removed.  The surgery was performed and declared a success, and Hungry was sewn up with bright purple thread.  She recovered nicely and, apart from a strip of violet running down her side, she looked better then ever.  The problem seemed to be solved - until the summer came along.

Heat lamps and UV bulbs are nice, but natural sunlight is the best thing for many reptiles.  Each summer, keepers would trap up Hungry and Bob and transport them to a large, well planted wire cage for the summer.  Bob, true to form, would find a branch to sleep on and sleep.  Hungry, being more adventurous, liked to explore.  One of her favorite, if bizarre, behaviors I called her Jesus impression.  She’d climb halfway up the front of her cage, then thrust her small head through the wire fencing.  She’d then put a front paw through the wire on either side of her head, her front limbs stretched out parallel to the ground at arms’ length and her lower body dangling in the air.  She looked like she was being crucified.  It looked uncomfortable as anything and I never figured out why she did it, but she would stay in that position for hours at a time, seemingly serene.  

Up until her surgery, Hungry’s fat pad had made it impossible for her to slip her entire frame out of the mesh and escape from the cage.  After the surgery, however…

When I first heard the keepers on the radio reporting an animal escape from the front section of the zoo, I'm not ashamed to admit that I panicked.   That was where the bears and big cats were housed, and if one of them were loose, we had a major problem.  Against all logic, curiosity got the better of fear and I decided to sneak over and see what was going on (cut me some slack - I was a teenager.  You're allowed to be stupid then).  

When I got to the  scene,  I saw a team of keepers chasing down a long, low green blur that was dashing behind the cages.  Hungry had been brought to bay and was fencing off three keepers before a noose was slipped over her neck, which allowed a few (heavily-gloved) keepers to grab her.  A thorough examination of the exhibit revealed no breaks or dug out areas.  Her escape was chalked up to keeper error and she was returned to her cage.  She escaped again the next week.

This time, after her recapture she was banished back to the Reptile House for the summer.  It was theorized that with her slim new physique, she had been able to squeeze through the wires of the caging, whereas previously she had been too round.  Bob had slept through both escapes (along with most of the summer).  I don't think he ever noticed a thing.

A Piece of the Jungle

Years ago, when I was fresh out of school, I worked in the reptile house of a large southern zoo.  It was a big reptile house, with dozens of displays ranging in size from 20-gallons for small salamanders to the size of my apartment for crocodilians and monitors.  Every single one was furnished and designed by the keepers themselves.

One day, I decided to redecorate an exhibit that I inherited, one that housed a group of frilled lizards from Australia.  I spent most of the day working on it, arranging sand and rocks and branches, then put the lizards back in.  Then I went home for the night.  When I came back the next day, I got a surprise.  The lizards were in a holding tank in the back.  All of the rocks and branches were stacked outside of the exhibit tank.  Every last grain of sand was swept out.  All that remained inside was a sticky note from my curator.  "Do it better this time," was all it said.

Let's not beat around the bush - this guy was a jerk, and there were probably better ways to communicate with and train a brand new keeper in their first real job.  But I at least was able to start understanding his aesthetic.  Looking back on it, my frilled lizard display, which I had been so proud of at the time, was pretty damn ugly, sloppy-looking, amateurish.  As he explained later, he wanted exhibits to look so natural that, if you took a photo of the animal in it and showed it to an expert on that animal, they might believe it was taken in the wild.

So I tried again, and I eventually got the frilled lizard exhibit... presentable. I soon learned that it was easier to get a natural effect by starting with smaller exhibits, so I began working on the small tanks.  First I redid the Philippine tree skinks.  Then, I did the red mountain ratsnakes.  In what I considered my greatest success, I did the fire salamanders - unlike the others, this wasn't a redo, but a brand new exhibit for a new species to the zoo.  My first impulse was to go quirky - knowing the role of fire salamanders in European folklore and legend, I thought briefly about doing it as a witch's cottage.  Common sense and practically returned, and I did it as the floor of a German forest.

The technique, I learned, was to trust in nature as the best architect.  I looked at pictures of the animal in the wild and tried to recreate the effect.  For some species, I was even able to use my own memories of seeing one in the wild and tried to recapture that instant of surprise of spotting the animal for the first time.  For a greater plated lizard exhibit, I remembered the red clay of East Africa and searched until I found some.  For fire salamanders, I remembered the images in books of a salamander tucked beneath a mossy fallen log, and I tried to recreate that.  Nature abhors straight lines, so I softened the edges with live plants and pieces of deadfall.  Towards the end, I got pretty decent at it.

Nowhere in the league of the companies that specialize in this, of course, like Peeling Productions, from Pennsylvania.  When a zoo orders an exhibit from Peeling, it really looks as if someone flew down to the Amazon with a chainsaw, chopped out a 3' x 3' x 3' foot section of jungle, and transplanted it miraculously intact back to the states.  Costs about as much if they did that, too.

I don't know if I ever made my boss proud, but at least he never dismantled one of my projects again as soon as my back was turned.  And the animals seemed happy enough in them, and in the end, those were the critics that I was really trying to satisfy.

Living Art

It's been a long time since I've been to the Fort Worth Zoo, and the zoo has changed so much since then that I didn't think I could really write a review of it without visiting again.  Probably the biggest change that the zoo underwent since I saw it last was the reptile house.  The reptile house that I saw on my visit years ago was impressive enough in terms of its collection, but the building was fairly typical.  Little did I know then that its days were already numbered, and that the zoo had something spectacular in the works.  In 2009, the zoo unveiled an enormous new building, sprawling half-an-acre and filled with beautiful, naturalistic, state-of-the-art habitats featuring some of the most spectacular reptiles and amphibians on earth.

They called it MOLA - the Museum of Living Art.

From Architect Magazine

Zoos have often showcased reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates as artwork.  You go into a darkened building with tile floors, the tanks set into the walls like paintings.  Most of the "paintings" (which were themselves painted with murals in the background) were the same size, possibly for reasons of convenience when building, also for aesthetics.  Animals came almost exclusively from the wild - if a specimen died and an exhibit was emptied, the zoo would put whatever was available in to fill the gap (which is part of the reason that many of the exhibits were so uniform - the animals were interchangeable).  You'd walk down the hall, stopping at this "painting," passing by the next, maybe stopping longer at one where it took more work to find the hidden animal.  Historically, the focus was on rarity and completeness of collections.

The trend is starting to change, thankfully, towards a mindset of viewing reptiles in zoos and private collections as individuals with individual species needs.  An exhibit for one species of snake should be different from that of a different species in terms of space, size, dimensions (relative height vs length or width), complexity, heating, humidity, and furnishings.  A green iguana needs a very different habitat from a Grand Cayman iguana, a crocodile monitor from a savannah monitor, a leopard tortoise from a radiated tortoise.  To make the best habitat for the animal, you have to build it with the animal in mind.

Ironically, despite the name, Fort Worth's MOLA actually treats its animals much less like artwork than many of the old, antiquated reptile houses that I've seen.  It's lighter, airier, and more spacious, with exhibits made to fit the animals, rather than the other way around.  Sure, it has "Art" in its name... but it puts more emphasis on the "Living" part.

Rescues and Ransoms

I used the pet store, but I wasn't especially proud of it.

It was the only pet store in our small town, and it was the only place locally I could go to for reptile supplies for my pets, especially crickets.  Anything else - lamps, bulbs, bowls - I guess I could have ordered online, but I didn't trust that system for crickets - at least not in the small quantities that I needed.

Anyway, the pet store had a sketchy reputation in our town for its animal care, so I wasn't too surprised when a visitor called the zoo one day expressing concerns about it.  The other day, she had gone in to get cat food and saw a big boa constrictor in a shabby, small tank at the front of the store.  The woman didn't have too much experience with snakes, but to her it looked sunken in and depressed.  She had decided that she was going to rescue it from the store and turn it over to the zoo so it could have a good life.

And how, I asked, was she going to get it from the store?  Simple - she planned on buying it.

It's not unusual to see sad-sacks like that boa in the window of pet stores, be they small and local like the one I frequented in those day or big chain stores.  A lot of people, both casual passerby and experienced herp keepers, sometimes succumb to the temptation to take in these critters and give them a good home, nurse them to health, and in general rescue them.  They do so by buying them (the alternative, of course, being highly illegal, unless the store decides to just give the animal to you, which has never been my experience).

The problem is, the store doesn't care about your motivations.  You came in, you gave them money, and you walked out with an animal.  That's not a rescue.  That's a purchase.  It would be the exact same experience for them as if anyone else had bought one.  All they see is that they sold an animal, and it reinforces the idea that they should restock and bring in another one so they can sell that.  The logical, but harder, path to follow is to refuse to buy those animals that look like they are in bad condition.  The animal may die in the store - but then the store may take a lose, look at its ledger, and decide that it's not worth stocking that animal anymore, or at least change husbandry practices so that they stay alive and in better health longer so they can be sold.

I've been guilted into a pet store mercy buy before.  Years earlier, I bought two red-headed agama lizards (heavily discounted, which should have been a warning to me) from a local pet store to "rescue" them.  I'd seen them the last few times I went to the pet store and felt bad for them.  I knew what the species looked like in the wild.  This definitely wasn't what they were supposed to look like.  I was sure that, with the appropriate diet and set-up, they would thrive.  They didn't. One died almost immediately.  The other lasted a few months, but never really took off (and there was no reptile vet in the area to take them too).  The store filled their old tank with something else a day or two after my purchase.

The lady never bought the boa - it was sold to someone else.  Weeks later, I saw a Philippine sailfin dragon in the store window, a gorgeous, massive lizard that I had cared for in a zoo setting previously and greatly admired.  It's a species that has no business being in a pet store window.  I knew that I couldn't keep it properly - I'd have to renovate a bathroom in my apartment and give it up to the lizard to give it enough room.  I also knew no one else in town could probably have taken better care than me.  Each time I came to the store, I saw the price whittle down lower and lower.  One day, I came in and it was just, not there.

I never asked what happened to it.  I was glad when I moved, and was able to get my crickets from somewhere else.

From the News: Zoo Animals Recover (and Some Don't) From COVID-19

I'm taking a quick break from talking about reptiles to share some good news from the world of COVID.  The stories about zoo animals around the country testing positive for coronavirus has fascinated - and worried - many people (some who are more worried about the animals than they are about the thousands of people testing positive everyday).  At least we have some good news on this front.  

First, from San Diego, the gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park that had tested positive for the virus have now recovered and are all doing fine.  Likewise, Azul, a tigress from the Bronx Zoo who was one of the first zoo animals in the world found to have the virus, has not only recovered but has gotten a bill of health clean enough to allow her to be transported to Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo.  That's actually what made a big impression on me - if there was a chance that the cat still had the disease, I can't imagine that Woodland Park would have even dreamed of accepting her and risking the disease spreading to animals already living there.

Not all of the news has been sunshine and rainbows.  An elderly tiger in Sweden has died of the virus, as have two cubs in Pakistan.  Very old and newborn young animals have weaker immune systems than heatlhy adults, so maybe these animals were just more susceptible to what otherwise would not have proven to be a fatal disease - or maybe there were other factors at play.  The Pakistani cubs, for instance, were white tigers - which might mean inbreeding and reduced genetic diversity also left them more vulnerable than they might have otherwise been.  We're still learning.

What's important is to remember that everyone in our lives - human and animal - is counting on us to be safe, be careful, and do what we can to limit the spread of this disease.

Gorillas from San Diego Zoo Safari Park recover from COVID-19

Woodland Park Zoo's new tiger was one of the first animals to test positive for coronavirus

COVID killed a tiger.  Are your house cats at risk?

Two white tigers cubs in Pakistan likely died of COVID, zoo officials say

Rackety-Rack (Don't Talk Back)

The Reptile House, I learned on my first day of volunteering there as a teenager, was like an iceberg.  You only ever saw the tip protruding from the water, in this case the public gallery.  The majority of the collection was tucked away in a series of rooms in the back.  It was here that I was given my first real responsibilities as a (unpaid, closely-monitored) keeper in a zoo - caring for the baby rack.

Almost an entire wall of one room was a rack of what were essentially plastic shoeboxes, each containing a pencil-thin baby snake.  The bulk of them were were Brazilian rainbow boas, but there were a handful of carpet pythons, Madagascar tree boas, hognose snakes, and others, each in a little drawer.  Every day, I'd pull out each drawer, check on the snake, give fresh water, change their paper-towel floor if they needed it, and then move on.  Once a week I'd weigh each one; once a week I'd feed, and the next day check and record if the food had been eaten.  I marveled at how quickly and efficiently I was able to care for dozens of snakes each day.

Maybe I wasn't caring for them as well as I thought.

Rack-keeping has long been used in reptile collections, both public (like in zoos) and private (like pet owners and breeders).  The mindset is basically that by having a minimalistic set-up - paper substrate, a water bowl, a hide box - you can house many more animals (usually snakes) than if you were to give a large terrarium with lots of furnishings to each.    Rack-keepers often make the argument that snakes are secretive and shy, and that being kept in a small, dark enclosure and left undisturbed and out of view 99% of the time is good for the snake's welfare; this viewpoint is especially common among breeders of ball pythons, one of the most popular pet snakes.  This really reflects the common mindset that a snake is basically a tube that you pet food in front of once a week, and that's all it really wants.

At the zoo in question, we were mostly just keeping babies in the rack until they were large enough to graduate to a bigger enclosure or be sent out to other zoos.  Some folks, especially commercial breeders, keep snakes in racks for their entire life.

There's an increasing trend in herp-keeping, both zoo-based and private, that snakes are more complex and more intelligent than people give them credit for being.  They benefit for enclosures large enough to stretch out in and get some exercise in.  They benefit just as much from being able to make choices - where in their enclosure do they want to be, do they want light or darkness, hidden or exposed, to be up high or down low, on what kind of substrate.  A plastic shoebox doesn't allow those options.

Compared to mammals and birds, reptiles and amphibian care standards are very poorly regulated.  With USDA just getting around to (maybe) starting to monitor birds, I don't see reptile welfare getting expanded legal protection anytime soon.  Private folks are gonna do what they're gonna do (and to be clear, many of the best advances in keeping reptiles happy and healthy come from the private sector - it's just that there are a lot of people out there who base everything they do in reptile keeping on a YouTube video or cheap pet store care-sheet).  To me, it just means that zoos have to lead the way in demonstrating the best care for reptiles - both in public and behind-the-scenes.

Darwin's Enchanted Islands

Happy Darwin Day!  

Today marks the 112th birthday of the famous British naturalist, best known for his book On the Origin of Species, which laid out his theory of evolution through natural selection.  Darwin was also a frequent zoo-goer, who used his experiences observing animals at the London Zoo to help formulate and illustrate his theories.

In my last post, I mentioned how few reptiles there were that I could think of that I hadn't seen before.  It turns out, I forgot one major herp that's been on my bucket list for years - the marine iguana.  It's the only lizard species which regularly goes out to sea, diving underwater to forage on algae that it scrapes from rocks, all while being buffeted by the waves.  It's one of the most unique, strange-looking lizards in the world, and no zoos or aquariums have any at this time.  There have been records of the species being kept for years - Brookfield Zoo maintained a group in the 1960's - but it has never bred.  The Ecuadorian government, which oversees the Galapagos Islands, forbids their exportation.

Taxidermy marine iguanas in a diorama at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Actually, considering how scientifically fascinating they are, there is very, very little in the way of Galapagos wildlife in zoos.  Not only are marine iguanas absent, but so are Galapagos land iguanas, and the smaller lizards.  The birds don't fare better - I've never seen a Galapagos penguin (very similar to the African penguins which are abundant in zoos), a blue-footed booby, any of Darwin's famous finches, or - one of the top five birds I'd love to see in person - a Galapagos flightless cormorant.  Part of me has always wished I could see a full spectrum of Galapagos wildlife, similar to what we can see for Madagascar or New Guinea in zoos around the world.

The sole example of unique Galapagos wildlife that you're likely to see in a zoo (even an Ecuadorian one) are the giant tortoises.  You can also see some birds that live on the islands, but only as part of a much larger natural range, such as American flamingos and white-cheeked pintails.  I know that the Houston Zoo is planning a major Galapagos exhibit as part of its current masterplan, but exactly what that will entail (besides tortoises) I'm not quite sure.

I'm a huge lover of zoos (obviously), but it's probably just as well that, at least for now, we leave the Galapagos alone.  Zoos and aquariums are already struggling to manage the populations that they have in sustainable numbers without added several more.  The islands, set off from the world by the sea and largely protected from disturbance, are their own zoo - it's possible that if some of the species became common place in foreign zoos, tourism to the islands would drop off and much-needed revenue for conservation would disappear.

Maybe staying so far and remote from the rest of the world, its animals largely hidden from view except for visitors and BBC film crews, makes the wildlife of the Galapagos that much more mysterious and that much more appealing to me.  Which just means that someday, I'll have to go...

The only marine iguana left in Chicago - at the Field Museum

Now I've Seen It All?

Sometimes, when I'm chatting with keeper friends, we talk about the animals that we haven't seen yet and wish that we could, either in a zoo or in the wild.  The list is mostly made up of rare, obscure animals, like proboscis monkeys, leopard seals, saola, Philippine eagles, hoatzin, and kakapo.  Some of these are animals that used to be in zoos - sometimes even zoos that we work at or used to work at - and we look at old pictures.  I wonder if the keepers back then knew how lucky they were to work with such incredible animals.

There are very rarely any reptiles on the list.  That's because we've seen almost all of them.

Ok, not *all* of them.  Not even most of them.  Zoo reptile collections can actually be a little repetitive, with the same animals in a lot of zoos.  There are a lot of reptiles which are very poorly known, sometimes only from a museum specimen or two that maybe was collected back when Darwin was in his teenage years or something.  Still, there are very, very few of what I would call "recognizable" reptiles - those being the ones that at least 1% of the population has actually heard of - which can't be found in zoos.

I've seen about half of the world's cat species and maybe a third of the world's dogs... but I've seen all of the crocodilians in a single day, at St. Augustine Alligator Farm.  That's kind of an extreme example, but I have seen most of the world's sea turtles, tortoises, monitor lizards, and so on.  Part of it is that reptiles tend to be smaller and less active than mammals and so, maybe justly, maybe not, aren't given huge exhibits.  A reptile house might have the same footprint as a single mammal exhibit at a zoo, but house more species than all the mammals put together.  Part of it is that, unlike mammals, reptiles are backed up by an enormous private pet/collector trade, which makes it a lot easier for a zoo to place an order for a rare specimen, regardless if other zoos have it.

Sitting back and thinking about it, I'd say that the most famous living reptile that I've never seen would be... the leatherback sea turtle.  A gigantic, totally marine reptile, with a specialized diet of jellyfish, with extensive legal protections and very little history of being kept in zoos or aquariums.  After that... I feel like you'd have to go a long, long way down the list before you find the next animal.  Whatever it is, it's probably pretty darn obscure, even by my standards.

I don't expect to ever see a leatherback in an aquarium, unless there's one that is found to be non-releasable and somehow adjusts well to life in an aquarium.  If that does happen, I'm making a pilgrimage.  Otherwise, it might be best to just plan a vacation to a beach where they nest, the only time they come ashore after entering the ocean as hatchlings.

Just because they aren't famous, though, doesn't mean I don't always get excited when I see something new for the first time.  When I visited the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, I loved seeing all of the small, secretive little snakes and lizards that were local to the area and I'd never seen elsewhere.  Each one that I saw that was new to me felt like a new discovery. 

Species Fact Profile: Orinoco Crocodile (Crocodylus intermedius)

                                                                  Orinoco Crocodile

Crocodylus intermedius (Graves, 1819)

Range: Orinoco and Meta River Basins of Venezuela and eastern Colombia

Habitat: Llanos (Flooded Savannah), Freshwater Rivers

Diet: Juveniles feed on crabs, snails, and other invertebrates while larger individuals take fish and birds; large adults may take prey up to the size of capybara

Social Grouping: Largely solitary, but will congregate around water during dry season.

Reproduction:  Males attract females by roaring.  Females dig nest holes in the sides of sand banks during the dry season.  Up to 70 eggs laid in the nest, hatching 2.5-3 months later at the start of the wet season.  The sex of the hatchlings is determined by incubation temperature.  Females will guard the nest and may remain with the hatchlings until they are as old as three years.  Sexual maturity is determined by body length: 2.5 meters for females, 3 meters for males 

Lifespan: 70-80 Years

Conservation Status: IUCN  Critically Endangered.  CITES Appendix I. 

• Possibly the largest crocodilian species in the New World (and therefore the largest predator in the Americas) – unconfirmed lengths of up to 6.6  meters from 1800, though 3-5 meters is far more typical for a large male.  It is believed that the genes for large size were culled from the population during the skin-trade days, when larger individuals were the most sought after by hunters.  Males typically weigh 380 kilograms, females 200 kilograms
• Adults are light yellow-green on the dorsal surface, fading into yellow and then white on the underside, with gray or black banks on the back and tail.  Juveniles similar to adults but with more blotching and spotting.  Melanistic individuals have been reported but not confirmed.  An individual’s skin can change color over long periods of time 
• Head and snout are relatively slender and elongated (the species name intermedius refers to snout being intermediate between that of the gharial and other very slender-snouted crocodilians and those of other species)
• Occasionally reported to prey on domestic animals.  Unsubstantiated reports of predation on humans (Alexander von Humboldt was told by natives in the region in 1800 that 2-3 adults of the tribe were killed by crocodiles per year).  Attacks on humans reported as recently as 2009 and 2011, though neither ended in fatality
• Hatchlings and juveniles may be preyed upon by tegus, anacondas, coati, caiman, vultures, and jaguars; humans – and possibly jaguars – are the only likely predators of adults
• Occasionally sightings  sightings are reported from Trinidad and other island in the Caribbean, though these may be vagrants forced out to sea, or may be misidentified American crocodiles
• Population greatly reduced by massive over-exploitation for skins in the mid-1900s, reducing the population to as few as 100.  Considered especially desirable for their large size and very smooth belly skins, relatively free of bony plates.  Relatively easy to hunt in the dry season, when they congregate in large numbers around relatively small bodies of water.  Teeth are believed to have medicinal value in local cultures.
• Current threats include hunting for meat and eggs and entanglement and drowning in fishing nets.  Habitat being lost due to agriculture (ranching) and aquaculture.  Also facing competition from dense populations of caimans, which have moved into their former habitats
• In Venezuela, a captive-breeding and reintroduction program is underway, with releases at a variety of sites.  Similar programs being considered for Colombia

      

      Zookeeper's Journal: I saw my first Orinoco crocodile in 2008 at the Dallas World Aquarium.  That shouldn’t be surprising – back then, I feel like almost anyone outside of South America saw their first Orinoco crocodile at DWA.  There really weren’t many other places where they could be seen.  DWA obtained their first pair from the Venezuelan government in 1998 after signing a conservation agreement (I can’t help but think that such a partnership would not be possible today, given our relations with Venezuela).  The crocs were some of the stars of Dallas’ “Orinoco – Secrets of the River” rainforest exhibit, which is where I first encountered them.  The pair, male Juancho and female Miranda, bred successfully for the first time in 2003, the first of their species to be born in the United States.  When I visited for the second time in 2008, this time as part of a behind-the-scenes tour with other visiting reptile keepers, there was an entire back room at the Aquarium almost overflowing with hatchling and juvenile Orinocos, one of which I was able to handle.  Many of those crocodilians would later be repatriated to Venezuela, some for reintroduction into the wild.  Others found their way into other AZA facilities, and today the Orinoco crocodile is no longer an especially unusual sight in zoos.  That being said, I wonder how sustainable this program will be, what with almost all of the crocodiles coming from the pairing of Juancho and Miranda.  I don’t consider it particularly likely that the Venezuelans will be in a hurry to send new crocodiles for fresh genetic material, and I wonder if perhaps it would have been prudent to try to get some additional crocs out of South America while it was still possible.  If nothing else, it’s been clearly demonstrated that this species can thrive under human care and produce plentiful offspring, which can then be reintroduced back into the wild.  What remains to be seen is if the resources and determination are still in place down in the range countries to make the saving of this species possible.

Let There Be Light

 "Let There Be Light"

- The Bible, Genesis 1:3

Of course, the Good Lord never specified the type of light that he required.  The angels who would later be assigned to provide care for the newly-created reptiles would have to make it up as they go along.

Lighting and heating are two of the most important factors in taking care of reptiles.  They are often treated as being interchangeable by novice keepers - both coming from a lamp overtop the cage.  While it's true that a single bulb can give off both heat and light, however, they are very different.  Temperature is very important for cold-blooded reptiles, with many species benefiting from having access to a high-temperature basking spot of 110 degrees or warmer, as well as cooler places to retreat to.  What light provides the animal isn't as readily understood at a first glance.

Infrared light provides reptiles with warmth.  Visible light allows visibility and helps to guide their behavior and circadian rythytm.  Both are important.  Further down the spectrum, what is perhaps most important to reptiles is ultraviolet light - UVA, UVC, and especially UVB.  

UVB helps regulate a reptile's synthesis of Vitamin D3, which results in calcium absorption into bone.  Without it, the animal can eat as much calcium as it wants to, but the mineral will not make its way into the bone, and the animal will be weak.  One of the most common medical problems seen in pet reptiles is metabolic bone disease, caused by a deficiency of this vitamin.  It's sometimes called rubber jaw, because in severe cases the animal's jaws can be bent and wobbly like rubber.

Reptile Lighting Information

Here's a great detailed report of the importance of proper lighting for reptiles, which is much better than anything I'm going to be able to write.  What is important to remember is that lighting and temperature are probably the two most important factors in determining the health of a reptile, whether it is a personal pet or a zoo animal.  If those two factors are correct for the species, you're 99% of the way there to keeping it healthy and happy.  It's no surprise that being a reptile keeper involves spending a lot of time with a temp gun and a spectrometer to make sure that these factors are kept in an ideal range.

From the News: Iguanaland in Punta Gorda

Over the past few years, we've seen several new aquariums open across the US - but now for something completely different, we have a brand new reptile zoo opening this year in Florida.  Their goal is to be nothing short of the world's largest reptile and amphibian collection.

Welcome to Iguanaland in Punta Gora

There are tons of reptile zoos across the country, many of them in south, many of them, to put it kindly, kind of scummy and skeezy.  Reptile and amphibian exhibitors aren't regulated by USDA, so standards of their care are considerably looser.  There are only a few really top-notch reptile zoos in the US: Clyde Peeling's Reptiland in Pennsylvania and Reptile Gardens in South Dakota (currently the biggest in the world) come to mind among them.   

It will be interesting to see what this Iguanaland place ends up being like when it opens.  The presence (and seeming emphasis) on color-morphs of common pet trade species does initially turn me off a bit.  That being said, the owner seems very knowledgeable about endangered Caribbean rock iguanas and committed to their conservation.  In the reptile world, the lines between conservation and commercialism have always tended to be more than a little blurred. 

Photo Credit: Mike Lang, Herald-Tribune

Gardens of Iguanas

A lot of people forget, but before it got the "World Famous" part tacked onto its name, the San Diego Zoo in its early years was kind of a scruffy little underdog.  San Diego wasn't the big city that it is now, and a lot of folks wondered if Dr. Harry Wegeforth was crazy for trying to start a zoo there.  Heck, he barely had any money for it.

That might have been his saving grace.  Without heaps of cash, Wegeforth couldn't put up lots of buildings - monkey houses, cat houses, antelope houses.  Instead, he took advantage of San Diego's delightful climate and kept animals outside, which wasn't something very widely practiced in American zoos at the time.  It turned out to be very successful - and much cheaper.  Today, a visitor can explore the grounds of the zoo and see thousands of animals from around the globe without being enclosed within four walls anywhere outside of a bathroom.  Even the Reptile House isn't really indoors - animals are viewed via a wrap-around porch.

And those aren't all the reptiles, either.  The crocodilians, tortoises, turtles, and larger lizards join the other animals outside.  Even many of the smaller native herps are displayed outside in open-topped pens.  I love it.

Relatively few zoos give their reptiles outdoor access, which can be a shame, because few animals can benefit as much from the direct sunlight as reptiles.  Reptiles aren't able to control their body temperature like mammals and birds can (they are often called "cold-blooded" though their blood isn't actually cold), and so can't tolerate cold temperatures as well as other animals.  In most zoos, they have to be kept indoors during the colder months, which for some species and some parts of the US might be... well, every month.  Large reptiles can be a hassle to move, dangerous for crocodilians, inconvenient for giant tortoises, and building a large outdoor enclosure that might only be usable sporadically throughout the year isn't seen as cost-beneficent by many zoos, especially when there are so many other expenses.  As a result, few are typically given outdoor space, usually the biggest, most showy reptiles, and usually only seasonally.  

In places where it is possible to keep the animals out year round, I think the benefits show themselves.  Animals thrive under natural light provided they are warm enough.  In the wild, reptiles spend a lot of time regulating their body temperature in response to constant changes in the weather - clouds moving over the sun, cold fronts moving in - and keeping them outside, instead of under a fixed lamp, let's them recreate that behavior.  It can improve appetite and feeding responses.  Plus, coloration really comes out under the sun.  Visiting Central America, I was astonished to discover that green iguanas are... well... green.

True, we're not building a separate outdoor exhibit for every gecko and skink living in New England or Minnesota, but they can still potentially get some sun, too.  At one small zoo I worked at, I enjoyed catching up lizards and snakes in the summer, placing them in small terrariums, and taking them outside to bask on nice days.  Turtles and tortoises were taken outside and allowed to graze and wander around under supervision.   I just had to make sure that I was with all of the animals the entire time to make sure that there were no escapees.  I can't say I'd be as willing to take the risk with venomous snakes. 

I remember working with at one southern zoo, taking care of some rhinoceros iguanas that spent half the year in a pit in front of the reptile house.  The pit caught the full sun, the rocks that made a mountain in the center (bringing the iguanas to eye-level) were jagged sharp and scorching hot from the sun, and every plant in that exhibit seemed to be some sort of cactus.   I hated that exhibit with a passion, and rarely left it without two or three second degree burns and a butt-full of thorns.  Still, when I was at the bottom on the pit at looking up, seeing that big male rhino iguana worshiping the sun, his harem of females draped on the rocks below him, I had to admit - he looked good out there.  

Direct natural sunlight isn't a cure all, and I've seen some tourist traps down South that kept their reptiles in abominable but outdoor conditions year round.  If I was given the chance to wave a magic wand and send those animals to a life indoors at, say, the Bronx Zoo's World of Reptiles, I'd have done so in a heartbeat.  Still, the chance to have an outdoor life for the parts of the year where it is possible can have great health and behavioral benefits for animals.

World Wetlands Day

Today may be Groundhog's Day... but it's also World Wetlands Day!

Wetlands are some of the most critical wildlife habitats on the world.  They provide habitat for a variety of species in a very complex intermingling of land and water.  Some famous wetland habitats from around the world include the Everglades in the United States, the Pantanal in Brazil, and the Okavango in southern Africa.  Many of these habitats are commonly depicted in zoos, and it's a rare aquarium that doesn't have a wetland exhibit.

When we think of wetlands we often think of dismal swamps, damp and murky and dangerous, but they really are beautiful ecosystems that are essential to the health of our planet.  When we think of the wildlife that lives there, we think of alligators and marsh birds and turtles - but many, many species can be found there, from elephants to eagles to jaguars.  Water is essential to life, and wetlands are, by definition, where the water is.

Ecological importance (filtering water, buffering from hurricanes and storms, nurseries for fish and birds) aside, wetlands are also of tremendous economic value to society, which we tend to overlook.  The best thing we can do is focus on protecting our local wetlands - keeping them intact, removing trash and debris, limiting chemical runoff.  Above all, they need to be protected, and, when possible, expanded.