After years of problems from weather to oil spills, it appears that the Florida Loggerhead nesting numbers are booming!

Loggerhead nesting statewide was almost the highest since monitoring began in 1989, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said Friday. In total, surveyors counted 58,172 loggerhead nests on the state's “index” beaches, second only to the peak seen in 1998.

Just five years ago, nesting on those same beaches hit a low of 28,074 and prompted widespread concerns about the status of the turtle.

“We're pleased to see this increase, but we recognize that loggerheads, and other sea turtle species, still face many challenges,” Blair Witherington, a commission research scientist, said Friday.

The majority of loggerhead nesting in the United States — 90% — occurs in Florida, especially along the east coast.

The even better news is that nesting season is still going until mid-November. To read the full article, click here.

A group of juvenile Desert Tortoises has been released in Nevada in efforts to track their movements to make relocations more successful in the future.

"Habitat destruction is one of the biggest threats facing desert tortoises in the wild," said Jennifer Germano Ph.D., post-doctoral researcher at the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center. "Currently we are using translocations as an experimental tool to help minimize some of the impacts to tortoise populations. Tracking this group of young tortoises will allow us to better understand how these animals respond to translocation, which will help us improve recovery efforts for this species in the future."

A transmitter has been placed on each of the tortoises to allow researchers to track the movements and health of the juvenile reptiles (ranging in age from 3 to 8 years). Translocations have recently been recommended for tortoises impacted by regional habitat disturbances due to energy project development and as a tool to augment depleted populations. Through this effort, researchers hope to better understand what factors improve long-term survival for individuals and how they can improve the tools they use for the conservation management of this species.

To read the full article, click here.

And last, the grillnet industry is on a course to continue killing sea turtles despite the Leatherback's listing as state marine reptile in California.

Longlining along California’s coast has been banned due its high bycatch of non-target animals, including federally protected marine mammals and endangered species.

The California drift gillnet fishery targets swordfish and thresher shark using nets that stretch a mile in length. But obviously this fishing method collects life indiscriminately from the ocean, resulting in the death or injury (a death sentence in the wild) of more than 130 protected whales, dolphins, seal and sea lions and thousands of other sharks and marine mammals, according to the Sea Turtle Restoration Project.

Anything taken aboard other than a swordfish or shark is dumped back into the ocean – dead, alive or dying.

“Curtains of death, in the form of the California driftnet fishery, should be abolished in California waters and need to be phased out as soon as possible,” biologist and executive director of SeaTurtles.org, Todd Steiner said. “Sea turtles, sharks and whales are all being hammered by this fishery that targets high-mercury seafood species that are largely unfit to eat.”

To read the full article, click here.

Sometimes we think government regulators are out to get our hobby. But the more I talk with them as individuals, the more I realize some of them simply don't understand how we feel about our pets.

That word -- "pets" -- pretty much sums up the issue, in fact. While I was at the National Reptile and Amphibian Legal Symposium, I had a conversation with one of the US Fish and Wildlife representatives, who had listened to my impassioned comments on general pet owner issues relating to the addition of species onto the Lacey Act. It turns out she was flabbergasted to hear that we reptile people see these animals as our pets, and not as a commodity.

As government regulation and a bad economy combined to threaten the reptile community, we as hobbyists, breeders, and keepers did a pretty good job of talking to our legislators about the financial impact of bans and restrictions. That was a pretty smart thing to do, particularly with more conservative lawmakers who are very attuned to the plight of small businesses.

But we've done a terrible job of talking about how we feel about our animals, and that's hurt us.

Most people who own reptiles keep them as pets, not as a business. It's their beauty and personality, not any prospect of financial gain, that make them important to us.

In my conversation with the regulator, I could see she was really struggling to understand. So I changed "Burmese python" to "cat," and gave her the same scenario. She instantly realized where our passion and anger over the rule change came in. Just in an instant, the realization of leaving behind a beloved pet made all the world of sense.

Reptiles may not be dogs and cats, but to those of us that love and keep them, they are as dear to our hearts. That's something we need to keep talking about.

Lonesome George died the very last of his kind, alone and unable to leave a legacy. With that in mind, scientists are working to prevent any other species going away like the Pinta Island tortoise has.

Sadly, George’s story is not unique. The armored shells of turtles and tortoises represent one of the most uniquely adapted vertebrate body plans and have served to protect these animals since prehistoric times. But evolution’s best defense mechanisms provide little protection against humankind’s willful determination to slaughter these incredible creatures. In our modern globally-integrated economy, turtle hunting will never be a sustainable industry. Turtles neither mature fast enough nor produce enough offspring to withstand even moderate levels of continual harvesting.

For decades, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists like the late John Behler and Brian Horne have crisscrossed the globe to study rare turtles and tortoises and prevent their demise. Dr. Horne, like other experts in the field, believes that the international trade of wild-caught turtles is the main factor in driving more than half of the 330 species of turtles close to extinction. On a percentage basis, turtles as a group are now more at risk of extinction than birds, mammals, or amphibians.

To read the full article, click here.

In an era where children are more likely to play X-box, Avalon Theisen has always preferred to play outside. Now, this young girl has organized a "Save The Frogs Day," and sells handmade crafts to raise money to donate to conservation programs.

While most girls her age might shy away from the sticky amphibians, she embraces them, sometimes quite literally.

"Frogs are really cool," she said. "They are very cute and they have always kind of interested me."

She's gone to frog-listening classes and can identify them by their calls. She knows that frogs help tell the health of the environment and that they are an important part of the food web. They also help to keep the insect population down.

George Heinrich, a St. Petersburg wildlife biologist who has taught the home-schooled Avalon for the last four years, loves what he sees in her.

"She's a very bright child," he said. "She's like a sponge. She takes what you teach her and runs with it."

The two have paddled their way down the Hillsborough River and taken nature hikes at Brooker Creek Preserve and Boyd Hill Nature Park. They've even gone to Florida's east coast to watch sea turtles hatch.

Congrats, Avalon! You make us proud! To read the full article, click here.

After a milestone at the Queen Elizabeth Botanical Gardens on Grand Cayman, where Blue Iguanas were moved from "critically endangered" to just "endangered" status, a developer is looking to move in and destroy some of the amazing habitat that harbors the Blues as well as many other species of animal:

According to the DoE’s technical review committee, which is persistently ignored by the CPA, the accumulative applications by the developer equate to the potential development of around 535 acres of land and that a Planned Area Development (PAD) application should have been submitted to planning along with a comprehensive environmental impact assessment.

In a memo at the beginning of October relating to the latest application to the CPA by the developer, which is for a golf course backing onto the Botanic Park and still under consideration, the DoE said it was concerned about the cumulative impact of the development and a lack of consideration within the context of the other Eagle Asset development parcels.

The DoE pointed to the encirclement of the Botanic Park through the series of development applications, which have been strongly resisted by the department due to the significant adverse impact on the blue iguanas. Nevertheless, all of the applications, modifications and changes considered by the CPA to date have been granted, posing a significant threat to the future of the important conservation and tourist facility.

“The current application parcel is land occupied by individuals from the free-roaming population of blue iguanas which originates from the Park,” the DoE warned in its comments to the CPA on the latest application for a golf course. “Removal of this habitat would directly impact this population. The potential introduction of roadways and associated cars would make this area significantly less inhabitable for the iguanas.”

To read the full article, click here.

Venomous snakes can kill, but they can also cure.
From CNN.com:

The venom of the black mamba snake, one of the world's deadliest poisons administered by one of the world's deadliest reptiles, can kill you within half an hour. Untreated bites have a mortality rate of 100%.

Hidden in the grim cocktail the snake carries, though, are a couple of proteins with a remarkably different effect. Research published this week in Nature has revealed two molecules in mamba venom that can eliminate pain with as much potency as morphine, suggesting an unusual new source for painkillers.

To read the full article, click here.