It's not a secret that most herps are poorly studied. Even species that have, collectively, been studied (say, the common garter snake), have not been the subject of ongoing systematic surveys regarding populations in the same way that game animals are.
And why not?
I know state agencies have limited budgets, particularly in this economy, and I don't expect them to pay tens of thousands of dollars to study the population of every herp in their state. But there's almost nothing done on most herp species in most states.
How many Texas Horned lizards are in the state of Texas? Who knows? What about prairie ring neck snakes, or plains black headed snakes? Or western diamondback rattlesnakes? Or six lined racerunners?
How hard would it be to implement a program using volunteer labor to do surveys in state parks? If avocational bird enthusiast are used to help do population surveys of birds, why isn't this done with herps? It wouldn't be entirely free or effortless; there'd have to be some screening of volunteers to make sure they know how to ID the local and regional herps, and that they know how to safely mark/recapture different herps. But that should be fairly easy to do. Have the state herpetologist compile a quiz for different regions (what is the common and scientific name of the herp in this picture?) maybe, and have local parks people use those. Run background checks to make sure there's no poaching convictions.
If there was a program encouraging pairing skilled volunteers up, and assigning them a state park to survey on--say to plant board lines, to run drift fences--and do mark/recapture surveys on the herps of that park, how much knowledge could we gain? I know most herpers would jump at the chance to do surveys on large tracts of protected land--let me set up a good board line in Palo Duro State Park and I'll be more than happy to supply my own boards, tongs, medical insurance, etc.
Instead, many state agencies seem to view us as enemies, as poachers, as a threat. Most of us aren't. Most of the field guys love these animals. We want to know more about them, we want there to be good data on them, and the chance to help that in a meaningful way--where our observations will be published and the facts we find spread beyond the confines of whatever internet fora we frequent--well, that's a dream for us.
So come on, all you state parks and wildlife people--we're here. We're useful. Work with us.
So, it is taking place, but not nearly as frequently as it should be IMO. Field herpers can and should provide state and local organizations and institutions interested in indigenous herp conservation with useful data, locality, and distributiopn information for the herps found in their state. I myself have come up with a few new county records and vouchers here in Wisconsin over the past several years just out of casual field herping efforts. Perhaps this could be a positive and more effective way for many herpers to be seen as the like minded, concerned, and conservation oriented citizens that they are rather than all just as poachers or commercial collectors.
In addition, I, as well as other local herp hobbyists, have contacted relevant WI-DNR personnel volunteering to participate in these studies, and have been refused. WI-DNR herpetologists have stated that it is their policy to exclude individuals with any "personal interest" in herps from these studies in order to protect sensitive localities and species of concern.