On Monday, a fire devastated the facility owned by our friends Chad Brown and Robyn Marklund of Pro Exotics. Almost their entire snake collection was wiped out overnight; a few snakes and eggs survive, but almost everything is gone.

While they had insurance, few companies will accept the real value of our animals. Losing twenty years of work with a variety of morphs, including some they were still working to prove out, is a huge blow to their program.

Chad and Robyn have always been amazingly stand-up guys. I have needed monitor advice many times over the years with my rescue work, and any time I asked, Robyn was there for me. He took the time out of his day to give me a hand with animals he had no responsibility for. He just did it, because that is who he is.

Chad has always treated anyone he met as if they were an old friend. Never one to let his celebrity go to his head, Chad gladly cleaned poo alongside his guys at shows and at work.

A member of our community here at kingsnake.com has taken the first step to give some of that support back to these great guys and their business: Pitoon of United Herps started a fundraiser to get them back on their feet.

Now all of us at kingsnake.com are asking you to consider giving your support to these two guys, their animals, and their company. Let's come together as a community and help them recover.

To donate, you can click here on Facebook, or make a donation through Paypal to the email address robyn@proexotics.com; just select "gift" and send.

Every little bit will help our friends get back on their feet. And Chad and Robyn, we're here for you!

The Ancient Egyptians knew it, but we're just catching on: the Nile Crocodile is actually two very different species.
From NatureNews:

The iconic Nile crocodile actually comprises two different species only distantly related. The large east African Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) is in fact more closely related to four species of Caribbean crocodile than to its small west African neighbour, which has been named Crocodylus suchus.

Evon Hekkala of Fordham University in New York and her colleagues revealed evidence for the existence of the second species by sequencing the genes of 123 living Nile crocodiles and 57 museum specimens, including several 2,000-year-old crocodile mummies.

A follow up interview with one of the researchers proves to be just as interesting. From Discover Magazine:

For years, people have been looking at what they considered to be the Nile crocodile and they didn’t really have much material to compare across Africa. In the 1970s, the industry that was involved in tanning crocodile hides was looking for ones with fewer bony scutes. A man called Fuchs did an analysis of the scutes to identify stocks that have fewer of them. He proposed some of these subspecies but the crocodile researchers threw out his work and said this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

That’s the earliest sign of a morphological difference. People had been looking and looking and they just couldn’t see these differences. There had been all this evidence throughout the years about some extreme differences but most of the anecdotes were about their behaviour. Crocodiles are generally very hard to tell apart from their exterior features.

We can now revisit the morphological data to see what springs out. There’s an unpublished preliminary analysis of skulls by Chris Brochu that does pull apart the two species based on just skull morphology. We’re working together to write a description of the new species to pull together the behavioural, genetic and morphological data.

This just proves to move forward, sometimes we must look back.

Any one person can make a change in this world for the better, Eighth grade Rachel Hopkins is showing exactly how it's done.

Last month, the Raleigh eighth-grader addressed the Wake County Board of Commissioners to share her vast knowledge about frogs and to put in a good word for proclaiming the last Saturday in April as Save the Frogs Day.

Impressed, the commissioners said they would take the issue to the governor, and the paperwork that would make Rachel's dream a reality is now making its way through the political pipeline.

Meanwhile, the frogs could use some help.

One-third of the world's amphibian species, including frogs, are threatened, Rachel said, and at least 200 species have already met with extinction since 1979.

"Frogs will not survive the 21st century if they continue declining at their current rate," she said.

If you happen to shrug, Rachel is quick to set you straight. She admits she fell in love with frogs initially because "they're just really, really cute - I love their little eyes" and "they have a lot of personality," but the more she learned, the more she came to love.

Every time I see a story like this, I feel proud of our upcoming herpers, Rock on, Rachel!

To read the full story, click here.

Cyclones and floods ravaged Australia earlier this year, and now the impact on the local wildlife is rearing its head. Sea turtles and dugongs are washing ashore in astounding numbers lately. From the Telegraph:

Now naturalists fear that up to 1,500 dugongs – a species of sea cows – and 6,000 turtles along the Reef are likely to die in the coming months because their main food source, sea grass, which grows on the ocean floor, was largely wiped out by the floods and cyclone.

In some places the plants were ripped from the seabed by currents created by the storms and in others they were inundated under silt and soil washed out from the land by the torrential rains.

Beachgoers have reported stumbling across groups of turtles in shallow waters near Townsville – only to discover they were dead or dying.

"This is a long-term environmental disaster," said Dr Ellen Ariel, a turtle expert at James Cook University.

"It is not like an oil spill where you can clean the water and move on. It is such a large stretch of coastline... We have had mass strandings of turtles. The turtles are sick and starving and can't go on any longer. They don't have anywhere to go."

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says it expects more dugongs to die than in any previous event.

Hurricane Irene was no where near as devastating as we thought it might be, but that doesn't diminish the impact on the east coast Sea turtle populations. From Pilot Online:

One-third of the sea turtle nests buried in the beaches of the Outer Banks were destroyed by Hurricane Irene, and the number could rise if remaining nests fail to hatch, but that's just nature taking its course, biologists said this week.

Loggerhead and green sea turtles laid 147 nests on National Park Service beaches from Ocracoke north, the second highest number on record. Seventy-eight of those hatched before the storm.

Of the 69 remaining when the hurricane hit, 45 were lost, said Britta Muiznieks, wildlife biologist for Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Beginning on the Sunday after the storm, the remaining nests were checked, and it appears that 20 still have live eggs, she said. However, saltwater inundation and extra layers of sand may have harmed them.

What is left for kids to paint these days? I guess the old train trellis is no longer cool, because according to TheDestinLog.com, turtles are coming into Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge in increasing numbers.

A woman who lives off of Beach Drive in Destin discovered two eastern box turtles with their shells painted — one had the No. 3 on it, while the other paint job couldn’t be identified.

[....]

“One might think this is cute and harmless, however, it can adversely affect the health of these animals. And, since we don't know exactly the purpose of these numbers, we are concerned about what other harassment the turtles may be exposed to,” the refuge’s Facebook page stated. “This entire shell structure is absorbent and if the outer keratin is breached by infection or injury, the turtle can lose its protection and infection can proceed into the bony layer and the body cavity, threatening the turtle's life"

And in staying with the idea to save the best for last, baby Sea Turtles were released to the Gulf. From Bradenton.com:

Volunteers with Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch on Monday released about 100 baby green sea turtles to the Gulf of Mexico.

The hatchlings had been born the night before, and volunteers were able to rescue them before they became disoriented by nearby lights.

The nest was the first in at least 11 years to be laid by a green turtle. All but one of the more than 140 nests recorded on Anna Maria Island this year were laid by loggerhead turtles.

Our hearts are heavy for our friends at Pro Exotics today. A fire broke out early this morning at their Colorado facility. It is currently still burning, and according to their Facebook page, they do not expect any of their snakes to survive. We will keep you updated on this and try to reach Chad or Robyn today to find out what happened.

We at kingsnake.com will keep Chad, Robyn and their entire staff and families in our thoughts.

UPDATE:
The local press Fox31 Denver is on the scene and interviewed Chad Brown and Robyn Marklund. From the their site:

"This is decades of work to produce the animals that we've been producing," Brown says. "This is a huge loss for our business.

Pro Exotics has been in business for 20 years.

"These are very special animals," Brown says. "There's a number of unique animals that were the only ones of their type on the planet."

"With the heat inside I can't imagine those animals surviving," he says. "They're very tough animals but to survive that type of heat is very unlikely."

"I could see the flames inside the facility, and certainly the smoke was really heavy" says Brown's partner, Robyn Markland.

"This is going to be our life-changing moment, we'll figure things out and we'll move forward," he say

To see the interview and read the full story, click here.

The inability to reach medical care is one of the biggest issues in the treatment of venomous snake bites in Africa. The lack of anti-venom is a close second.

As many as 1.5 million people in that region are bitten by snakes each year, according to a new study that analyzed three decades worth of surveys and medical reports. Previous studies were based on less reliable methods and may have underestimated the problem, the researchers said.

The majority of snakebites and deaths from these bites occur in rural areas, where access to health care services is limited, the researchers said.

The new findings are important because, without knowing the true size of the problem, and which areas are most affected, authorities cannot properly address the issue, said study researcher Jean-Philippe Chippaux, of the Institute of Research for Development (IRD) in Paris.

Currently there is only enough anti-venom (also called antivenin) available in the region to treat about 10 percent of snakebite cases. Pharmaceutical companies have been reluctant to manufacture anti-venom because they do not know how much to make or where to distribute it, Chippaux said.

The new findings may signal to these companies that there is a need for more anti-venom. Doctors in the region should also be trained to treat snake bites and administer anti-venom, Chippaux said.

To read the full article, click here.

David Williams is currently working on a project to reduce mortality rates and increase anti-venom. That is still a bit down the road, but he, along with a group of co-authors, released a paper as the first phase of that project this spring. You can read the abstract and purchase the full paper here. As more details of the project become finalized, we will help David spread the word.

From funeral crashing snakes to a story that reminds me of my experience doing education at the Wisconsin State Fair, it's more oddities in the news.

From the Sacramento Bee:

A Sacramento man has been taken into custody for allegedly taking big bites out a pet python, which was reported recovering after surgery.

David Elmer Senk, 54, was booked into Sacramento County Jail on suspicion of unlawfully maiming/mutilating a reptile. Bail was set at $10,000.

Sacramento police were called to the 3600 block of Marysville Boulevard in Del Paso Heights about 6:30 p.m. Thursday on a call about a man who had been assaulted and was not responsive. When they arrived, they found Senk.

While speaking with Senk, a citizen got the officers' attention and told them that Senk had just taken two large bites out of their small live python. Animal control was called to the scene and Senk was taken to jail. The snake was not in good condition when handed over to animal control officers, police said.

[....]

Police said that Senk was "an acquaintance" of the snake owner. Senk allegedly asked to hold the snake and then bit into the repitile twice.

The snake is doing well now and I am left thankful that the child that bit one of my snakes at the State Fair did NOT do anywhere near this amount of damage! I counted 12 stitches on the ball's belly.

I wonder, is that a snake in your pants or are you just happy to see me? Seriously, it is never a good idea to steal a snake from one store to sell to another. From USA Today:

Eric Fiegel, 22, was arrested at 3:40 p.m. Tuesday after police reviewed surveillance footage from a pet shop that shows a man stealing baby albino boa constrictors July 30 from Predator's Reptile Center in Mesa by placing them in his pants and exiting the store, according to police.

[....]

Fiegel was later positively identified from a police lineup by two witnesses and also from the surveillance footage that showed him placing the snakes in his pants, according to a police report.

From Reuters, a snake is now looking for a new home after paying final respects:

A 6-foot (1.83-meter) long tropical snake that showed up uninvited at a Pennsylvania memorial service in May has been nursed back to health and put up for adoption, an animal rescue official said on Friday.

The red tail boa constrictor was found near a parking area at Hershey Cemetery in central Pennsylvania as guests gathered for a funeral. The snake, which was not aggressive, was later handed over to Forgotten Friend, a reptile sanctuary.

My rescue has gotten a ball python which was listed as the cause of a heart attack, but none of our stray intakes had gone to say goodbye to a person.
Lastly, in the no good deed goes unpunished, a Merrillville, Indiana woman tried to help the turtle cross the road was not rewarded too well. From Merrillville Community.com:

A turtle's salvation led to two traffic wrecks involving four vehicles Monday on Taft Street, Merrillville police said.

Jim Lilley, Merrillville's chief of detectives, said a driver stopped her vehicle before 1 p.m. in a southbound lane of Taft Street near 93rd Avenue, attempting to rescue a turtle that was crossing the road.

The stopped vehicle, which had its hazard lights running, then was rear-ended, Lilley said.

All that poor turtle wanted to do was get to the other side.

Sometimes you're just left shaking your head wondering what the hell some people are thinking. This week had a huge selection of those stories. I promise I did not make any of these stories up -- and none are from the Weekly World News.

First up from nzherald.co.nz:

A Kiwi is facing a string of charges after allegedly threatening police with a large snake during a bizarre stand-off on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

The man, reportedly from Masterton, was arrested after police claimed he threatened them with the 1.5 metre-long snake at the scene of a motor vehicle accident in Maroochydore on Saturday.

Yep, he threatened cops with a carpet python. Perhaps he was hoping they would be stunned by their beauty?

Now, I understand more people list the fear of snakes than any other fear, but really, you need to aim a bit better. From the Daytona Beach News Journal:

Deputies were called out to the man's West Volusia home about 4 p.m. Thursday after receiving a report a man, later identified as Garrett Bauernschmidt, had a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Susan Williams, the man's caretaker, told authorities she had arrived at the home and found a large water moccasin lying near the front door.

Bauernschmidt retrieved his .38-caliber handgun and shot one round of birdshot at the snake, but missed, according to a report from the Volusia County Sheriff's Office. Williams told deputies the man was manipulating the safety to enable the second chamber when the gun discharged.

And the snake lived another day completely unharmed.

Lastly, a toilet is no where for any animal let alone a Bearded Dragon. From the BBC:

The owner of a bearded dragon dumped in a white bag in the toilets of an Edinburgh supermarket is being sought by animal welfare officers.
The adult male reptile was found in Morrisons on Pilton Drive in the men's toilets on Sunday.
He is now being cared for at the Scottish SPCA's Edinburgh and Lothians Animal Rescue and Rehoming Centre.

There are places you can leave your animals, no matter what kind, if you can no longer care for them

Oregon State University researchers are looking into zooplankton often referred to as Water Fleas (Daphnia magna) as a possible weapon against the devasting chytrid fungus affecting amphibians worldwide.

From International Business Times:

It was known that the zooplankton could devour some types of fungi. Oregon researchers wanted to find out whether Daphnia magna could also consume the chytrid fungus that's been devastating amphibian populations worldwide, including Colorado's endangered boreal toad. Through extensive research, scientists confirmed that Daphnia magna could consume the free swimming pores of the fungal pathogen.

"Our laboratory experiments and DNA analysis confirmed that it would eat the zoospore, the free-swimming stage of the fungus," said lead researcher Julia Buck, an OSU doctoral student in zoology.

The fungus B. dendrobatidis, dubbed a "chytrid" fungus, is responsible for a recently discovered disease of amphibians chytridiomycosis. It can disrupt electrolyte balance and lead to death from cardiac arrest in its amphibian hosts if it reaches high levels, an OSU release said Friday. However, OSU researchers found that Daphnia magna might make a meal of the troublesome fungus.

This breakthrough is welcome news, however another article points to an oddity. Why has Chytrid not impacted Asia yet?

Much of the natural environment in Asia seems conducive for Bd, so why has the continent so far been spared from the amphibian plague? The researchers have three hunches. The first, and most worrisome, is simply that Bd has not yet emerged in Asian environments. Analyzing the geographic distribution of the places where Bd did turn up, though, doesn’t point towards normal emerging disease patterns. On the other hand, Bd could be native to the Asian environment, meaning local amphibian species could have built up an evolutionary resistance to the normally devastating disease. Finally, it could be that Bd has tried to rear its head in Asia, but that some unknown factor in the nature is preventing the fungus from taking hold. Microbes on Asian amphibians’ skin, for example, could be saving their hosts from the disease.

Though things seem rosy for Asian amphibians, the lack of explanation is worrisome. The research team acknowledges that much more data are needed in order to fully assess and understand the Bd threat to amphibians in the Far East. Given the complexity of natural environments, small changes in temperature due to climate change, for example, could be enough to tip the scales in favor of Bd’s emergence onto the Asian amphibian scene. Following populations of Asian amphibians to see how Bd changes over time would be one way to elucidate the mystery. The scientists also propose analyzing the genetics of Bd strains found in different parts of the world to see if they differ in virulence.

To read the full article, click here.

Most of us who grew up loving snakes, find ourselves in a situation of explaining why. Naturalist and ophiophilist Trisha Douda volunteers her time teaching people the basic in and out of all things serpentine but also ways to avoid natural pit falls in Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.

“There’s 2,900 species of snake, and it’s impossible to know everything about all of them, so I stick to the Santa Monica Mountains,” Douda said. “I just got involved because I knew these hills so well and was always sharing what I knew anyway.”

A distance runner who grew up near King Gillette Ranch, Douda has been studying snakes for nearly three decades, dating back to her childhood when she used to catch snakes and keep them in her room. Noticing that they looked miserable in captivity, she has long since refrained from keeping them as pets and instead enjoys observing them in nature.

Anyone who wants to learn how to do the same is welcome to join her guided hour-long hikes, which usually begin in the morning when snakes are most likely to be seen during hot summer months.

[....]

“Snakes have a lot of redeeming qualities with a limited body structure,” Douda said. “They have survived quite beautifully.”

One of their most positive contributions to humankind is their consumption of rodents, which significantly reduces the spread of diseases brought by mice and rats.

To read the full article, click here.

As a child, two buildings held my attention at the zoo: the reptile building and the house for the big cats. Today I work with reptiles and live with them every day, but until now, my love of big cats was from afar.

I had no plans set aside for a trip while in Los Angeles for NARBC Anaheim, but was very happy when my friend Myke suggested he wanted to take me and the rest of the gang to Forever Wild.

After a morning of errands, including a much-needed Starbucks run and a stop to fill the uber-cool Rover with a gazillion dollars of gas, we hit the road. I hadn't been out of L.A. much, so I'd never seen its surrounding areas, the parts of California that don't look like... well, the Midwest with palm trees.

An hour and a half and a second fuel up later, we hit a lovely dirt road. Unfortunately both Becca and Des get car sick, so the bouncing was insane. We arrived at a rustic building with director Joel waiting outside for us; the center was closed to the public, which gave us a bit more freedom. And yes, that means we had a ton of fun.

Unlike every single other place I have taken you to, this is a rescue sanctuary 100 percent. Every animal we saw was "donated," confiscated or surrendered to the facility. They take in animals from parrots, to horses, vipers and big cats. Operating solely out of their own pockets and donations, this facility is not different at all from my own rescue, and I felt a kinship with Joel. Having a great boost in the past from an "Extreme Home Makeover" build, they are still always struggling, just like any rescue.

Our tour started in their main center with their reptiles. A selection of local rattlesnakes as well as a group of exotics were on display, as well as a handful of non-venomous critters; everything in the room was a rescue, and all were animals that needed someone like Joel.

Today is a a day of celebration for the folks at The Turtle Hospital in Marathon, FL. Sara, the loggerhead speared in the head, was healthy enough for release.

Sara is a young turtle, about 12 years old. It was only a week ago she started eating on her own, gobbling up some squid. Once that happened, Moretti said, "we knew it was time for her to go back home."

[....]

The staff at the Turtle Hospital sees many accidental injuries, "animals tied up in fishing line or hit by a boat," Moretti said. "When we see something like this, intentional, it's rare."
It's even rarer for a turtle to survive and recover so quickly from the kind of damage Sara suffered.

Under a beautiful blue September morning sky, Sara was released near the Seven Mile Bridge in Marathon. For the volunteers, the doctors, and Moretti, this was the kind of day that makes them smile.

The reward for information of leading to the spearfisher who did this has been raised to $16,000. To read the full article and see the release video, click here.

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center. is giving Loggerhead Turtles a chance at survival.

“Twenty percent of the cases are boat strike-related injuries," says Terry Norton, a veterinarian who is director of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. "We get fishing line and fishhook-related injuries. There’s a disease called fibropapilloma, caused by the herpes virus, that can cause tumors on the skin. We get some real debilitated turtles.”

The operating room at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center looks like one you’d see at a major medical center for humans.

There are bright surgical lights, stainless steel tables and an x-ray machine. The doctors and nurses wear blue surgical scrubs. This morning, Norton is treating Ziva, a 68-kilo female loggerhead turtle.

“This is a turtle with a boat strike injury to the head and to her shell," he says. "She actually had a little abscess in the skull. These little Velcro patches are for putting weights because she floats asymmetrically so that helps her dive a little better and get around a little better.”

To read the full article, click here.

In the never-ending search for alternatives to fossil fuels, alligator fat may be the next big thing.

Amid growing concern that using soybeans and other food crops to produce biodiesel fuel will raise the price of food, scientists have identified a new and unlikely raw material for the fuel: Alligator fat.

[....]

They showed in laboratory experiments that extracted oil from alligator fat can easily be converted into biodiesel. The oil actually was more suitable for biodiesel production than oil from some other animal fats. The gator biodiesel was similar in composition to biodiesel from soybeans, and met nearly all of the official standards for high quality biodiesel.

To read the full article, click here.

NARBC had a great line this morning at open. The conference center is packed with conventions, but no matter how our community is dressed, we can pick out our own. Hanging out and opening the show for Desiree Wong and the International Reptile Conservation Foundation booth. Desi was on our morning caffeine run. Here is a quick shot of the line, when Desi returns, I am off to mingle. Ill check in later with the live blog. Remember live blogs are just that, no editor, live and quick.

We're on the road again! I'm heading out to represent kingsnake.com at the North American Reptile Breeders Conference in Anaheim, CA.

kingsnake.com will be covering NARBC live, just like we did Daytona NRBE last month.
If you're there, look for me at set-up on Friday as well as at the show and auction over the rest of the weekend. Stop me and say hi!

We'll be enjoying the chance to bring the show to those not able to be there. And if you are at the show, we will keep in touch with you as well. Live blogs of the talks, photos from the show floor, interviews with vendors and attendees as well as taking you along on any herping trips will all be happening.

A few ways to keep up with us this week are listed after the bump.