3rd Annual Congress of Herpetology

by Crystal Cockman

May 29, 2018

On Friday through Sunday, April 27 – 29, 2018, I attended the 3^rd NC Congress of Herpetology Meeting at the NC Zoological Park, Asheboro, NC. This was a joint meeting between the NC Herpetological Society and NC Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation.

There were a great variety of interesting speakers at this event. The first speaker spoke about results from a decade of Hellbender surveys and conservation efforts in North

Carolina. This was information from Lori Williams, with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, and John Groves, with the NC Zoo (retired). Hellbenders are large salamanders present in cool water streams in the mountains. They presented results from 263 snorkel surveys. They found that 127 streams did not have hellbenders present, and 136 did. 101 streams were surveyed, and 481 hellbenders were found.

The found that hellbenders preferred river runs over riffles and pools, and were found under thin and flat rocks more often than under round and smooth. Streams with cooler average water temperatures and higher dissolved oxygen had more hellbenders. North Carolina has a higher population of hellbenders than any other state, but there are still many threats to this species – including sedimentation, poor water quality, habitat degradation, hard and soft barriers, small population sizes, and a lack of successful reproduction and recruitment.

Another presentation provided information on a study about inter- and intra-population variation in behavior and survival of Eastern Box Turtles in southeastern forests: with implications for the use of prescribed fire in forest management. John Roe with UNC-Pembroke presented this study. Prescribed fire is an important management tool in longleaf forests in the southeast, and they wanted to know how box turtles respond behaviorally to fires and how these fires effect their survival. From 2012 to 2016, they looked at responses of box turtles to fires at Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve (WEWO), which frequently experiences prescribed fires, relative to turtles at Lumber River State Park (LRSP), where fire was no being used for management.

Annual survivorship ranged from 85.8 to 91.3% for the various site and sex group combinations. Female mortality was 6.8% higher than males, probably because they were moving more to lay eggs, and as would be expected, most female mortality was in the spring. The WEWO mortality was 4.9% higher than LRSP. The turtles at WEMO were located near streams or in hardwood forests and bottomlands, where they could avoid fire. Individuals that were found in the more fire prone areas experienced markedly higher mortality. It is unknown whether these habitat selection templates are a fire-avoidance mechanism or behavioral responses to other environmental factors. John suggests that further studies that assess the response of box turtles to fire over longer time-frames or following experimental manipulations of fire regimes, would help land managers understand the implications of current management practices for non-target biota.

The plenary speaker for the first night was Karen Lips with the University of Maryland, and she spoke on Emerging Infectious Diseases And Impacts On Biodiversity. She spoke about emerging fungal diseases and the devastating effects they have on population abundance and species diversity in amphibians, bats, coral reefs, plants, and snakes. In particular, she told about the amphibian fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), and its large host range and the presence of persistent environmental reservoirs being a challenge to preventing development of effective conservation measures. Bd has been found on all continents (except Antarctica), but its history and effects on native amphibian populations are poorly known for most areas and most species. Bd is broadly distributed in most regions both geographically and among taxa. Surveys from museums show that the history of Bd at some sights has been many decades longer than expected. Karen suggests that similarities in the biology of emerging fungal pathogens in wildlife requires international collaboration, multidisciplinary research and a variety of conservation methods to protect global biodiversity.

Day 2 started off with a talk by John Sealy, retired from UNC-Greensboro, on The Timber Rattlesnake Conservation Action Plan (TRCAP): The first range-wide Timber Rattlesnake conservation effort, an overview. TRCAP was developed by a team consisting of over 70 concerned rattlesnake biologists from federal, state, university and private institutions, as well as private citizens. The plan is meant to provide detailed info on our current knowledge of the Timber Rattlesnake concerning life history, ecology, distribution, status and needed conservation actions within each range state. The study covers 35 states and 2 Canadian provinces. One interesting fact from this study is that New Hampshire has only one location with remaining timber rattlesnakes, and they are inbred such that they have a unique piebald coloration. The study hopes to result in creation of a science-based management plan for at-risk populations of this iconic species.

Alicia Davis, with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission presented 2017 American Alligator research in North Carolina. Surveys were conducted by NCWRC in 2017 for alligators in North Carolina. Alligators stop feeding and growing when temperatures are below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Reproductive maturity is related to size, not age, so they grow slower and breed later in the northern part of their range. Males have bigger home ranges than females. The NC state record alligator is 13 feet and 7 inches. Surveys conducted last year were in Brunswick and Columbus Counties. These were done by boat, canoe, and ground. Alligators were observed in 12 of 35 blocks. There were 118 alligator observations. Ponds, lakes and ditches had the most alligators, and most were seen by ground surveys, not by canoe or boat. The probability of detecting alligators increased as water temperature increased. They prefer freshwater over saltwater. They found that 23% of transects were occupied by alligators. You can learn more about the NC Alligator Management Plan at ncwildlife.org/alligator.

D. Kleopfer, with the VA Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, gave another interesting study presented on Saturday on assessing the sustainability of Virginia’s commercial Snapping Turtle harvest. The last decade has seen an unprecedented increase in the levels of commercial snapping turtle harvest. Part of the trouble is with the definition of “farm-raised” – which just means they have spent some time on a farm, not that they were captive raised. In 2013 there were 8000 turtles and over 125,000 pounds of snapping turtles exported, and 70% of that harvest was done by two individuals who lived out of state. Millington Seafood in Maryland processes all the turtles. They are apex predators, and they don’t move around a lot, so if you pull out a bunch, you won’t have many coming in to replace them. Overall, the snapping turtle harvest in Virginia is not believed to be sustainable. In 2012, there was a limit of a 11” carapace length for harvesting individuals, with no bag limits. The recommended changes to the regulations and permit conditions were to regulate the gear, limit the number of traps to 30, standardize flotation devices with “state trappers number,” eliminate set poles, limit the number of harvesters to 30, require reporting of released turtles and bycatch, and to increase the size limit to 13”.

On the last day we took a Field Trip to the Uwharrie National Forest. We climbed up Dark Mountain on the Uwharrie Trail, and flipped rocks looking for snakes and other critters. We found three worm snakes, and on the way back down we found a rough green snake. From there we traveled to a wetland on US Forest Service land on the side of Tower Road. We found marbled salamander larvae there, as well as a cricket frog. A group that took a trip to Ridges Mountain, an area owned by the North Carolina Zoo, found a scarlet snake. Overall, this was a nice way to end the three-day conference by seeing some of our unique amphibian and reptile species in the wild. There are many challenges to reptile and amphibian conservation, but thankfully there are also many dedicated scientists and researchers who are working hard to find ways to overcome these challenges.