Photographer Mike Korostelev spent some one-on-one time with a crocodile, resulting in remarkable underwater photos.

From the Daily Mail:

But far from being scared, Mr Korostelev was delighted with his deadly encounter.

He said: 'It was not an accidental meeting, the main purpose of my trip was to capture an American crocodile in its natural environment.

'I met this crocodile underwater face to face. When it swam close to me, the only thought I had was about how great it was that I could take great pictures.

'It nuzzled into the camera several times and sometimes it touched me with its tail.'

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Owners who purchased a property overrun with copperheads used to kill one hundred of the snakes each year, but when they learned how important snake venom is to medical research, they had a change of heart.

From Click2Houston:

"We were supposed to come out on a Friday the first time," said Swanson. "We ended up being delayed by a day because he was burying his aunt, who had just died from breast cancer the day before. When he found out that we were out here to collect these snakes to try to use them for cancer research, it changed their whole outlook on it."

It changed the Hubbards' outlook so much that they plan to turn part of their property into a conservation area so people can view the creatures in their natural habitat. They're hoping to open up the eco-tourist venture by sometime next summer.

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How did taxidermists preserve the likeness of a now extinct species? Very carefully and with painstaking research.

From Gizmodo:

Lonsesome George was the last of the Pinta Island giant tortoises on the Galapagos. Due to human intervention in the ecosystem his entire species whittled down to just George. Since his discovery he'd been well cared for and revered by scientists across the board. Several attempts at mating George just never panned out and he died from old age. Within 24 hours of his death he was frozen with the decision to taxidermy him.

The first step of the process was to get George to the museum for evaluation. This involved huge amounts of coordination and paperwork to get him to NY through customs and into the States safely intact. They worked against the clock to minimize any types of freezer burn or damage done to George that could happen when kept frozen too long or transported poorly. After the museum assessed George, he was brought to the Wildlife Preservations taxidermy studio in Woodland Park, NJ.

George Dante, president of Wildlife Preservations and an expert in the field of taxidermy, lead the effort in bringing George's likeness back into existence. Since there were no other animals of his species to base him off of, extensive amounts of research went into making sure the process was as accurate as possible.

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George Craig rescued the world's largest captive crocodile and has cared for him for nearly 30 years.

From the Daily Mail:

George captured Cassius in 1987 from a river in the Northern Territory, where he was notorious for his huge size - and was under threat of being hunted down and killed by the local population.

Cassisus, who is missing his front left leg and tip of his tail due to vicious fights, was deemed a massive threat to humans after attacking boats.

So George set about capturing him to save his life, and bringing him to live in his sanctuary.

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What does conservation really mean? And, perhaps more importantly, how do we achieve it?

Living Alongside Wildlife has a fascinating four-part story by Jon Hakim about the Bangladesh Python Project, which is an organization devoted to conserving herps in Bangladesh.

Working primarily in the Lawachara National Park, the Bangladesh Python Project tracks, monitors, and studies snakes, frogs, tortoises, and all manner of herps found in and around the park. The Project and its founder, Shahriar Caesar Rahman, also work with the over 30,000 people who live in the park.

It's this relationship with the local villagers that brings questions about conservation into sharp relief:

If the tortoises, pythons, monkeys, pigs, and other wildlife that call the park home are to have any chance at a future, it'll have to be one where humans and wildlife learn how to accept each other's presence, despite the damage and take that will occur on both sides. Over the course of my nine days in Lawachara, I found that the Bangladesh Python Project had made impressive strides in moving towards coexistence, and that it had a long, long ways to go.

A python that enters a village and kills a villager's ducks has damaged the livelihood of a person who is already living in poverty and depends on all the resources he has to survive.

Yet the pythons aren't invaders; they were here first. How can conservationists find the right balance between protecting endangered reptiles and amphibians and understanding human concerns? How can they best forge relationships with locals and educate them about herps' importance to the ecosystem?

Hakim's series raises these questions and more.

Part one.
Part two.
Part three.
Part four.

A viral origin for a fatal respiratory disease found in captive ball pythons may have been identified.

From Science Daily:

Investigators observed the virus, which they named ball python nidovirus, in eight snakes with pneumonia; virus levels were highest in the animals' lungs and other respiratory tract tissues. The team also sequenced the genome of the virus, finding it to be the largest of any RNA virus yet described.

Ball pythons have become one of the most popular types of reptiles sold and kept as pets, the authors said, because of their relatively modest size, docile behavior and ease of care. Respiratory disease has been noted in these animals since the 1990s but until now a potential cause has not been identified, said senior study author Joseph L. DeRisi, PhD, chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, in part because of the limitations of available technology.

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The Wildlife Conservation Society released seventeen endangered Siamese crocodiles in Laos as part of their program to work with local villages to strengthen the crocodile population.

From National Geographic:

The release of the crocodiles is part of the Community-based Crocodile Recovery and Livelihood Improvement Project, designed and implemented by WCS’s Lao PDR Program. ”The program has three key objectives,” WCS explained in its statement today, “contributing to local livelihoods by improving coordination of water resource use and zoning of lands used in local agriculture; conserving and restoring crocodile wetland habitat important for local livelihoods, crocodiles, and other species; and replenishing the crocodile population in the wetland complex and surveying and monitoring the current population.”

The program has worked with nine villages – each village has a “Village Crocodile Conservation Group” (VCCG) to coordinate implementation of program activities in the Xe Champone wetland complex and surrounding areas.

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A fungal disease responsible for killing millions of bats may have spread to snakes.

From Saporta Report:

Bats are dying from the white-nose disease, which has killed an estimated 5.7 million bats and driven one species found in Georgia to the brink of extinction. Researchers plan to count the bat population in Rabun County next week as part of the effort to monitor the disease. Experienced volunteers are welcome to participate.

Now snakes are a concern. The first wild snake in Georgia to be diagnosed with snake fungal disease was found on the edge of a blackwater swamp near Statesboro, and the implication is the disease could be spreading.

The fungus associated with white-nose disease shares similarities with the one connected to snake fungal disease, including that it occurs naturally in soil, according to a statement from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

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A rare two-headed snake was found by a Turkish farmer.

From BBC News:

The young snake appears to belong to the Coluber genus of thin-bodied, fast-moving snakes commonly known as racers. Cuneyt Alpguven, who works at Antalya Aquarium's reptile house, says two-headed snakes are very rare and have little chance of surviving in the wild. "Being two-headed is a major disadvantage, because its anatomical structure makes it more vulnerable to attacks while it also draws the attention of predators."

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Why risk your own health by milking snakes? So others can benefit.

From The Mirror:

The pair run the Kentucky Reptile Zoo full-time, a non-profit relying solely on people coming through the gates and the sale of venom.

Kristen added: "Almost any venomous snake is capable of causing severe injury but you are pretty unlikely to die if you get appropriate medical care.

"It's unlikely here as we do everything we can to get appropriate care and have anti-venom on site for everything anti-venom is made for.

"We both believe what we're doing is a good thing - it saves lives."

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Rokkam Kiran Kumar spent ten years rescuing snakes in residential India, and now he wants to take it a step further by educating others in snake safety.

From The Hindu:

Acknowledging his decade-long efforts, he was recently given official permission to rescue snakes by the Chief Wildlife Warden with the support of the Conservator of Forest.

“On an average, I rescue five to six snakes in a day. But some days, I get more than 30 calls and it is difficult for me attend to all of them,” said Kiran. In order to address this issue, Kiran has recently registered his society called ‘Snakes Saver Society’ and formed a team with 16 other members, whom he has trained to catch and rescue snakes. “We now want to reach out to city schools and colleges and conduct awareness workshops on snakes and how to be safe,” he said. “There are about 250 species of snakes found in the region, but only a handful of them are venomous,” he said.

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Hundreds of surrendered Sonoran Desert tortoises are in need of new homes, and turning in wild tortoises compounds the problem.

From AZ Central:

"It's a heartbreaking thing when you see them come here, tears in their eyes, and you try to comfort them," said Daniel Marchand, curator at the Phoenix Herpetological Society, a private sanctuary which takes in surrendered reptiles.

But PHS can no longer take in tortoises due to the scope of the current problem.

Releasing them in the wild is not the answer, because one tame tortoise with a virus can kill an entire neighborhood of wild Sonoran Desert tortoises.

Then there's the issue with people finding tortoises in the wild and turning them in to Game and Fish.

"We don't want people turning in baby tortoises," said Burnett. "They're probably wild tortoises, so we want them to leave them in the wild. Obviously, if they're in the middle of the road, move them to the side of the road, but please don't turn in baby tortoises. Let them be in the wild so they don't have to be in captivity."

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Former kingsnake.com Chat Week guest Adam Britton calls for a better understanding of crocodile behavior to reduce fatal mistakes.

From Yahoo!:

Mr Britton said fatal attacks had very gradually increased since crocodiles were protected in the 1970s, to an average of one every two years.

"You can get three or four attacks within a short space of time, it doesn't necessarily mean there's suddenly been a dramatic increase in the number of crocodile attacks," he said.

"It just means there's been a dramatic increase in the number of people taking unnecessary risks, or putting themselves in a position that they don't think is necessarily safe, and it's tragic when it happens."

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Cars may travel faster on roads, but some snakes don't.

From Live Science:

A speed test for the northern pine snake (Pituophis melanoleucus) shows that it takes the snakes 2 minutes to cross a two-lane concrete road. During that time, about 70 cars may pass over a well-used highway to the New Jersey coast. On sand, a trip the same distance would last only 45 seconds, said Dane Ward, a doctoral student in environmental science at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

When a snake moves across a sandy area, it creates sandbanks that it uses to propel itself forward. Concrete does not have enough debris or grip to help with this forward motion, Ward said. "It seems that the snake is having difficulty generating enough lateral thrust to move itself farther," he told Live Science.

To compensate, snakes on concrete roads slither in an "S" motion, which isn't typical for northern pine snakes, Ward said.

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A chef was killed by a venomous snake twenty minutes after he chopped off the snake's head.

From the Mirror:

A police spokesman said: "It is a highly unusual case but it appears to be just an accident. He prepared the snake himself and was just unlucky.

"There was nothing that could be done to save the man. Only the anti-venom could have helped but this was not given in time. It was just a tragic accident."

The snake was being diced up to be made into snake soup, which is a delicacy in the area and a much sought after dish in high-end restaurants. China has seen a rising demand for snake products, not only in restaurants but also for use in traditional medicine.

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