"Many of the species I grew up with -- wild boars, leopards -- are hardly ever seen now. These animals are in their last days.
"Illegal logging has damaged the forest so much there is no food for the animals. Unless we act now, they'll be gone forever in a few years."
Sitesh, 62, nurses injured wild animals brought to him by villagers back to health and also appears regularly on television shows campaigning for better public attitudes towards wild animals.
If possible, he releases the animals back into the jungle, while others he keeps in his small zoo -- including two hand-raised Himalayan black bears after the mother was killed, a 5.5 metre (18 foot) python and a rare albino fishing cat.
Even Sitesh's family home is filled with animals, the more "difficult cases" which need 24-hour care. Two jungle cat cubs, a baby python and a badly-injured Slow Loris (a primate species) are currently in residence.
"So far, I've freed more than 1,000 animals and that's not counting 2,000 birds," he said, displaying photographs of many former patients.

The Venomous Snake Response Team uses facts and understanding to help people overcome their fear and loathing. This cuts both ways — sympathizing with peoples' fears while helping them see the world from a snake's-eye point of view.

New Jersey has 22 species of snakes. Of these, only two are venomous: the timber rattlesnake and northern copperhead. Snakes are a vital link in the food chain; they help control insect and rodent populations and, in turn, provide food for raccoons, bears, coyotes, hawks and owls.

Snake populations have long been on the decline in New Jersey due to factors like road traffic, destruction of habitat, pollution, human persecution and snake collectors, to name but a few. As development encroaches on snake habitat, people find themselves living on top of the pathways snakes have used for centuries to travel between dens and foraging areas. Some new developments have been built right on denning sites!

Despite wildlife laws prohibiting killing, collecting or harassing native snakes, fear drives many people to kill them. Non-venomous species like northern water snakes are often mistaken for venomous varieties, increasing the fear factor.

Speaking at the event, Constituent Assembly chairman Subas Chandra Nemwang, chief guest of the event, lauded and paid tribute to the contribution of the Conservation Heroes who lost who lost their lives in the tragic helicopter accident on 23 September 2006 at Ghunsa, Kangchenjunga.

While reflecting on the status of conservation in Nepal, he reiterated his stance that his reflection was in no way questioning the efforts of conservationists in Nepal but rather a request to them to investigate carefully the means to improve such conservation efforts in the future, be it for the tiger, dolphin or gharial, and their habitats.

"Forests are the most important habitats for species such as the tiger, rhino and elephant; it is interesting to note that cases of forest degradation and encroachment have been highest during recent times when Nepal has been facing a volatile political climate," he added.

Starting at the beginning of this month, cobras were spotted in outhouse toilets, kitchens, front yards and the mah-jong parlour in the tiny farming village in Qijiang county in Chongqing municipality, south-western China.
'I saw one in the bathroom,'' said Zhang Suli, 47, the wife of a corn and rice farmer. ''I was scared, and I started screaming.''
The Mid-Autumn Festival holiday this week, when Chinese celebrate the season's harvest moon, has not been an auspicious one for the people of Xianling.
First, there was the cobras-gone-wild story, which veered between slapstick and terror. Then an apparent government clampdown followed, in which officials declared that most of the snakes had been captured and all was well, assertions that many locals did not believe.

Clarence Valley Wires reptile co-ordinator Stuart Dart said it was quite common for the species to be found in and around water.
“It appeared as though they were two males wrestling to be the dominant male of the area, or a male and a female mating,” he said.
Mr Dart said the sex of the animals was hard to determine without physically examining them and warned the public about approaching any snake as they were now becoming active after their winter hibernation.

You might see them on the dry ground when they are young, feeding on frogs and lizards but as adults they will look for rodents, and birds in trees. Their body is built for climbing with constricting muscles and edged scales that run along its flattened belly. These specialized scales enable the snake to climb vertically in search of prey. I have even seen them resting on a tree limb. They are constrictors so they grab the prey with their mouths, coil around them to constrict their breathing and when dead, swallow them whole. These are beneficial reptiles that help to control rodents and other pests.

It's a beautiful spectacle, graceful and calm. Not that (dancer Pamela) James really has any choice in the matter. She says she quickly noticed that Sunshine, the snake, gets nervous when the dancer moves up and down too quickly. Not thinking it a terribly good idea to make a boa constrictor nervous, James decided to pattern her dance on the snake's twisting movements.

"We're partners: she leads, I follow," says James, describing the relationship with the 20 pounds of muscle wrapped around her neck.

The scene in which she dances is written as one of the dramatic highlights of the entire work. It's a big responsibility for a young performer, one that's made both easier and harder by executing it in tandem with a predatory reptile.

The team has created a 3-D computer model of the skull of the tuatara to investigate the feedback that occurs between the jaw joints and muscles in a creature that lacks periodontal ligaments.

"Tuatara live happily for over 60 years in the wild without replacing their teeth because they have the ability to unconsciously measure the forces in their jaw joint and adjust the strength of the jaw muscle contractions accordingly", said Dr Curtis.

Although this explains why tuatara and people with false teeth manage not to break their teeth and don't end up with jaw joint disorders, it is still clear that having a periodontal ligament is very useful, in particular for fine tuning chewing movements. This may explain why it has evolved independently in the ancestors of mammals, crocodiles, dinosaurs, and even some fish.

aher, professor and curator of the collections of herpetology and paleontology at the Museu de Zoologia of the Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil, worked with the Museum of Natural Science in Houston to get Clarisse to Methodist for the scan. He believes Clarisse could be an evolutionary link between snakes who take a lot of small bites to eat their prey and snakes who swallow their prey whole.
....
Clarisse is the best preserved Caenozoic snake known in a U.S. scientific collection. According to preliminary analysis, this snake is believed to be closely related to Boavus indelmani, a booid snake described in the late 1930s. Zaher and the Houston museum hoped that getting a look at the underside of this unique fossil, as well as the inside of bones like the skull would shed some light on the evolutionary history of the species, and its relationship to booid snakes (like pythons and boas).

Training on an outside field near their home ground of Skilled Park, the snake had woken from its winter slumber and slithered through the adjacent bushland to get a closer look at training.

It had settled itself in near a walking path before the fearless Ridge picked it up by the tail and relocated it 30m down beside a nearby creek.

The Titans players gathered around as Ridge expertly handled the curious reptile, with Preston Campbell among those who appreciated his exploits with the potentially dangerous creature.

Wilcox... said Guinness wants to discourage future attempts like this.

"Snakes are solitary animals, and we've been advised to not encourage Guinness World Records record attempts where they are forced to live together for long periods of time as there is a possibility of opportunistic cannibalism depending on the species," she said. "Our animal expert has also advised against exposing such animals to human presence for long periods of time."

Jones said that Guinness told him they haven't acknowledged any previous sit-ins and have no interest in adding the category.