Round Island Boas Reintroduced after a 150 Year Absence

[findiviglio]

Hi All,

Some promising news about an endangered species…for a change! Please let me know your thoughts – is the program worthwhile?
Mauritius, an island nation off the coast of southeast Africa, is best known to naturalists as the site of the Dodo Bird’s extinction (Mauritius also is, in a sense, the reason I was hired by the Bronx Zoo and spared life as a lawyer – see article below for the story!). Herp enthusiasts, however, know it as the habitat of several unique reptiles, all of which are now very rare or extinct. But we can delight in some news just released by the Durrell Wildlife Trust - a new population of the Round Island or Keel-scaled Boas, Casarea dussumieri, will soon be established in the wild. This unusual snake disappeared from nearly all of its range in the 1860’s, and its return is the culmination of 40 years’ worth of captive breeding and habitat restoration efforts. Read article here Round Island Boa Back in Wild after 150 Years That Reptile Blog and let me know what you think…is it worthwhile, will it work?
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Thanks, Frank
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[JeffreH]

Hey there Frank,

It appears the link is broken or not working for the article regarding the "Round Island Boa back in Wild after 150 Years." Strangely, I was able to access it yesterday... but today it leads to an error or page not found.

Anywho - I was able to skim through the article yesterday and it looked promising. The removal of invasive species from the island and introduction (and establishment) of the skink species as its main food resource should prove highly beneficial to this species re-establishment on the island. Islands are pretty unique habitats and often have very intricate and delicate ecosystems that have evolved together in isolation... unfortunately I think success of this species will be dicated almost entirely but human activity. I have a few questions that I'm not necessarily looking for an answer to, but come to mind when I think of these projects:

1) How much area in Mauritius is dedicated to conservation? Are there any protected areas that exist in Casarea dussumieri's realized niche? What is the layout like?

2) What is the political system like in Mauritius? Africa is notorious for corruption and political unrest that can be detrimental to concersvation efforts.

3) What is the population of indigenous people? How is the land used by them? Bushmeat hunting, fuelwood, agriculture and mining have ridiculous impacts on the Congo and Madacasgar in Africa that have made conservation efforts suffer in part.

4) What is the local appreciation for the protected species? Indigenous tribes in Africa and in the neotropics have been known to develop unique rituals that involve some species. The "Aye Aye" for example is killed for superstitious reasons in Madagascar purely because the people believe it is associated with death. Without local support, conservation efforts are futile in my opinion.

If people can appreciate the area and leave it relatively intact, I think this effort is certainly worthwhile. If the skinks were able to become re-established, I'd wager this leaves relatively low interspecific competition for food resources by the snake that will aid its fitness. The elimination of some invasive species certainly helps against unnatural predation and competition as well... but I fear primarily for two things: A) Humans. B) Genetic isolation. With this species having been virtually extinct in nature, I cannot help but imagine that captive breeding efforts have only been done with a few individuals to save the species as a whole. This genetic isolation may or may not prove harmful - but in the event that some disease pops up or some genetic flaw, these guys may be in trouble. Regardless, as far as I'm concerned we probably did all that we could to save them and its certainly a very positive thing that we are able to even attempt to re-introduce them back to the island.

Very good read Frank - I look forward to reading more into again when I have the time and when the link gets fixed = )

[findiviglio]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the heads-up; here's the new link: Round Island Boa Back in Wild after 150 Years That Reptile Blog The folks who manage the blog made some changes to the layout and neglected to inform me. I can't seem to figure how to edit the post itself., so that the new link appears there as well (no surprise there, I;m a dinosaur!)

You raise some great points; unfortunately, I'm not up on all, but there are some useful facts in this account of the Durrell Institute's activities in the region. I'm guessing, based on work with other herps having tiny founder populatiuons, that genetics won't be much of a problem, especially as, having been isolated for so long, the species has likely found a way around the usual problems; but accelerating environmental changes, new diseases or invaders could change all that.

Thanks again for your interest, enjoy, best, Frank

[deranged chipmunk]

admittedly, i entered this thread thinking "there were boas in rhode island?" (mental note, never let glasses leave the head) as i was reading the article and Jeff's response, i couldn't help but wonder something. this may take a while to get out of my head, but please bear with me. as i understand, through evolution, even same species living on the same island evolve to some extent to the conditions of their particular habitat, is that correct? if so, will late generations of captive bred reptiles still have that ability? or is it just a matter of acclimation, such as the case of pythons in florida? also the article mentions that the island was cleared of rats, goats and rabbits, which i understand were feeding on the skink, which in turn worked it's way up the food chain. but how can they be sure that the island is cleared of invaders? understandably, the fact that the skink is re-established is one indicator, but how do they know history won't repeat? i guess that is sort of addressed by Jeff's mention of humans as part of the problem.

forgive me if none if this makes sense, but this is a subject that really intrigues me and i am still learning about all herps.

btw, Frank, once again, another wonderful article from you

[findiviglio]

admittedly, i entered this thread thinking "there were boas in rhode island?" (mental note, never let glasses leave the head) as i was reading the article and Jeff's response, i couldn't help but wonder something. this may take a while to get out of my head, but please bear with me. as i understand, through evolution, even same species living on the same island evolve to some extent to the conditions of their particular habitat, is that correct? if so, will late generations of captive bred reptiles still have that ability? or is it just a matter of acclimation, such as the case of pythons in florida? also the article mentions that the island was cleared of rats, goats and rabbits, which i understand were feeding on the skink, which in turn worked it's way up the food chain. but how can they be sure that the island is cleared of invaders? understandably, the fact that the skink is re-established is one indicator, but how do they know history won't repeat? i guess that is sort of addressed by Jeff's mention of humans as part of the problem.

forgive me if none if this makes sense, but this is a subject that really intrigues me and i am still learning about all herps.

btw, Frank, once again, another wonderful article from you

Thanks for the kind words and interesting thoughts, Bill.

They may need a bit of time to adapt to RI winters, as would I!

Very good point re evolution. No hard/fast rules but from what we have seen with reptiles they seem to "hold onto" their gentic based evolutionary abilities; and, while individuals will adapt to captivity and change their behaviors (8 large gharials I cared for in an 80,000 gallon exhibit stocked with fish would line up at the keeper door when hungry, rather than catch their own!), they re-adjust to the wild quickly. Some Mammals and birds, on the other hand, seem to respond very quickly to captive environments with changes to structures, physiology; captive diets so changed the hyoid/tongue structure of Arabian ornyx that the animals would have been unable to effectively eat desert vegetsation; this after only a few generations in zoos; red grouse gut length shortened so significantly due to pelleted zoo diets that they were unable to digest the high fiber/low nutrient wild diet properly; again, only several generations; many rodent based examples as well, which makes sense; sorry, interesting topic, rambling.

Goat-rat-rabbit removal and follow-up protocols are well established, as they have been critical to so many plans, but much depends on the location, and rats are always difficult to monitor (and to keep out, even on islands); but the Durrell folks are first rate, if anyone can make it work, I believe it will be them.

Thx for your interest, Frank