Round Island Boas Reintroduced after a 150 Year Absence

[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