S.E.H. Conservation Committee Blog

The French committee of the IUCN recently published a 8 pages leaflet about the Red list of amphibians and reptiles of metropolitan France. The document, written in French, can be directly downloaded as a pdf file by clicking on this link.

Here below you can find the abstract of a newly published articled in Animal Conservation. The article highlights the risks of reintroducing freshwater turtles (in this article Mauremys leprosa) in a not-suitable habitat.

Conservation diagnosis of reintroducing Mediterranean pond turtles: what is wrong?

A. Bertolero, D. Oro

Animal Conservation 12: 581 - 591

The presence of the Mediterranean pond turtle Mauremys leprosa in the Ebre Delta (Catalonia, north-east Spain) is well documented after the late 1970s, when the first reptile distribution lists were published. Owing to the fact that the species was considered scarce, a reintroduction programme based on the release of individuals at sites with potential habitat suitability was launched. From 1999 to 2001, 234 turtles of different ages were released and subsequently monitored until 2007, in order to make a conservation diagnosis using five assessment criteria. These criteria were body condition, individual growth, reproduction, survival and population growth rate. Despite the relatively large number of turtles released, no viable population resulted from the programme. Assessment criteria suggested that: (1) released individuals showed good physical condition and satisfactory growth (the only positive results); (2) reproduction was almost absent; (3) local survival was reduced compared with that of Spanish wild populations of the species; (4) temporary emigration was high; (5) the growth rate of the population was negative. In conclusion, the results suggested that the habitat at the Ebre Delta marshes may not be favourable to the species, and that the scarce historical data record may indicate a relatively low-quality habitat; the few records may correspond to individuals dispersing from the river, a more suitable habitat. Thus, we conclude that historically scarce records may be the result of natural patchiness and heterogeneous distributions, and they are not necessarily a good indicator of relict, decimated populations. Good assessment criteria, as those proposed and used here, are necessary tools to assess results in reintroduction projects to recover endangered chelonian populations.

The SEH-CC gets bigger and welcomes a new representative. Cesar Ayres will represent the Iberian peninsula within the SEH conservation committee. Cesar is already involved in the conservation committee of the Spanish herpetological society and within the Spanish herpetological society for more than five years he has been in charge of dealing with illegal collection and traffic of amphibian and reptiles and on the effects of environmental changes on the Iberian herpetofauna.

Looking forward to his contribution within the SEH-CC, we all welcome him within the SEH-conservation committee!

The SEH conservation comittee is looking for any information about conservation projects/plans/actions currently ongoing on Emys orbicularis in the different European countries.

We already contacted a few people working on Emys and we already collected some information. But more projects of which we are not aware of may be going on. So, we will be happy if you would contact us leaving a feedback on this post or using the contact page of this blog or of our website to send us the following info:

-Country where the project/action/plan is going on

-Since when the project/action/plan is active

-What it is the problem and what it is the goal

-A few words describing what the project/action/plan consists on

These data are not collected by the conservation committee for personal use. The data will we put together to see what are the activities across Europe to preserve Emys orbicularis. The summary of the collected data will be put together and make available to everyone.

A new book has been published on the natural history of amphibians and reptiles in Switzerland. The authors are Andreas Meyer, Silvia Zumbach, Benedikt Schmidt and Jean-Claude Monney and among them there is a member of the S.E.H. C.C. Haupt Verlag published this book entitled «Auf Schlangenspuren und Krötenpfaden», in both French and German.

The book was written for the general public rather than herpetologists. It contains an introductory chapter on the biology of amphibians and reptiles and a second chapter on how to find amphibians and reptiles in the field. The third chapter is the main part of the book. There are detailed accounts of all amphibian and reptile species in Switzerland with multiple pictures of the species, their habitats and distribution maps. The final chapter describes threats to amphibians and reptiles and how to protect them.

The book has more than 300 pages and more than 300 photographs. In addition, there are more than 100 figures, tables and maps. You can see a sample here.