1997 Fall Symposium

"Snake Ecology for the 21st Century"

October 18-19, 1997

The Symposium features 20 distinguished researchers of snake behavior and ecology from five countries including Dr. Gordon Burghardt, "the Dean of Snake Behavior", as the banquet speaker. His presentation is entitled "The Lonliness of a Psychologist Who Runs With Snakes". An auction benefitting the Texas Herpetological Society will follow the banquet.

The Symposium will also have contributed poster sessions and exhibits. Workshops will be held on field techniques, radio-tracking, pit-tagging, and analyzing behavior in snakes. On Sunday afternoon there will be field trips to the University of Texas at Tyler Ophidian Research Colony, the Caldwell Zoo, and Sheff's Woods (A Nature Conservancy Preserve with a 14 year recapture study of snakes).

The meeting will be held at Camp Tyler, a youth camp on a large lake with 600 acres of woodland. Group cabins for 80 people will be available (rustic but cheap). The camp has great cooks and is only about 10 minutes from UT Tyler and local hotels. For those staying at Camp Tyler, you will need to bring bedding. If you wish to stay in a hotel you will need to book a room now. This date coincides with the Tyler Rose Festival and rooms are booked well in advance. If either of these present you with a problem, please let us know at once and we will try to assist you.

Contact Dr. Neild Ford for more details: Neil_Ford@mail.uttyl.edu

Following is a brief schedule:

Friday, Oct 17 - Registration, reception, and workshops from 4-10pm

Saturday, Oct 18 - Oral presentations in the morning and afternoon, banquet and auction in the evening

Sunday, Oct 19 - Oral presentations in the morning, field trips in the afternoon

Following is a list of speakers and titles:

Robert Mason "Snakes, sex, and scents: pheremonal communication in garter snakes and brown tree snakes"

Michael E. Dorcas "Snake thermal ecology: integrating laboratory and field techniques"

Terry Farrell "the factors affecting the recruitment of young snakes into a pigmy rattlesnake population"

David Holtzman "A review of the snake orientation literature"

Bill Lutterschmit "Comparative physiology of metabolic plasticity in snakes: a macroecological study"

Akira Mori "Cold adaptation in the subtropics: Foraging ecology of the Japanese pit viper, Ovophis okinavensis"

Daryl Karns and Harold Voris "Ecology of an assemblage of aquatic snakes in southern Thailand"

William Brown "Lifetime reproduction in the Timber Rattlesnake: a progress report"

Charles Peterson "GIS modeling in studies of snake populations"

Harry Greene "Slides from his new book on Snakes"

Mary Mendoca - TBA

Dave Hardy "Pressure/Immobilization for pitviper bites: a controversial method of first aid"

Pat Gregory "Feeding, reproduction, and population dynamics in garter snakes and rattlesnakes"

Mats Hoggren "Sperm competition in the adder"

Gordon Schuett "Snakes as models for the study of hormones, brain, and behavior: new data and future directions"

Mike Plummer "Survivorship and movement ecology of resident and translocated hognose snakes"

Steve Beaupre "Intergrative biology of the timber rattlesnake: behavior, physiology, and thermal biology"

Anders Forsman "Intraspecific divergence in head:body allometrier in adders and garter snakes: adaptation or random processes?"

BANQUET

Gordon Burghardt "THE LONELINESS OF A PSYCHOLOGIST WHO RUNS WITH SNAKES"