The refuge receives no government funding, and with costs increasing daily, Vargas hopes to cover expenses by charging admission and making this family affair into a commercial venture and environmental education center.

It must be emphasized, however, that this is not a zoo, but a rehabilitation center. The main function of the refuge is to release the animals brought to it, after they have recovered from their mostly human-inflicted injuries and can again fend for themselves in the wild. Nevertheless, many of the animals you will see at the refuge sadly will remain there for the rest of their lives, no longer able to survive on their own.

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“[Vargas] has been receiving injured and mistreated reptiles and amphibians since he was 12 years old,” says Lidia Coto, the knowledgeable volunteer guide who gave The Tico Times an extremely interesting and entertaining tour of the refuge.

Vargas lectures at the National University School of Veterinary Medicine in Heredia, north of San José, and does private research projects for companies and the Environment Ministry, but his herpetology studies at the refuge are his passion. He says he manages to treat and release about 60 percent of the animals brought to him.

Posing as tourists, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers cited Graham Potter, 57, and Randal Daniels, 72, of Everglades Island Airboat Tours for feeding marshmallows to alligators and raccoons.

Florida law prohibits feeding those two species as well as sandhill cranes, foxes, bears, pelicans and crocodiles.

“Those airboat tours are notorious for feeding wildlife,” said Lindsey Hord, head of Florida’s Alligator Management Program.

Neither Potter nor Daniels, who face up to 60 days in jail and $500 in fines, could be reached for comment, and a manager at the tour company would not to speak to The News-Press.

A man who boasted on Facebook that he killed an 11½-foot alligator has been arrested in Central Texas.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Game Warden Fred Ensinger said Thursday the gator was discovered near a creek in Bastrop County about a week ago. He calls the gator an "anomaly," nearly twice the size of gators rarely seen this far from the Texas Gulf Coast.

Ensinger says the suspect's Facebook postings about shooting the big gator helped authorities track him down. Ensinger wouldn't identify the suspect because he hasn't been charged with what is likely to be a misdemeanor.

Fox, who is rumored to have the largest bosom in all of Israel, was hurried to a hospital outside Jerusalem where she received a tetanus shot and was later discharged.

As for the snake, puckering up with a supermodel proved to be the kiss of death. The creature succumbed to silicone poisoning shortly after the incident.

However, a reptile expert said that the silicone poisoning scenario is impossible.
"Snakes can eat some really sick animals and not contract mammalian diseases. So I have not heard of a snake getting sick or dying after biting a human," Mark Kilby, owner of the Luray Zoo and Luray Reptile Center in West Luray, Va., told Life's Little Mysteries.

But mostly, snakes aren't vampires. They don't suck when they bite. "I can't see the boa constrictor that bit that model getting any of the contents of the material from the implant, being silicone or saline, in its mouth to cause any ill effect to the boa," Kilby said.

When it comes to snakes, staying away is staying safe.

The best way to avoid getting bitten by any snake is to simply stay away from it, base biologists say. When outdoors, Team Edwards members should always watch where they put their hands and feet. If walking through dense shrubs or vegetation, heavy long pants and high boots should be worn.

If you cross paths with a rattlesnake, the rule is to take one step away.
"One step away from the snake will put you a mile away out of trouble, a snake can only strike about one third to half of its total body length," says Marchand.
3 feet away is a safe distance -- and the Herpetological Society says it's a myth the snake will not chase after you.

"Tomorrow I get to skin snakes and chop their heads off, and I am super-excited about it," said Laney Wallace, Miss Snake Charmer 2011.

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The roundup has become a huge part of the town's identity. The Jaycees say 30,000 to 50,000 people attend the roundup each year. It's become as much party as public service event.

"We have a lot of fun doing it. We enjoy it. We're all Jaycees back here in the snake pits," Willman says.

After skinning their snake, guests leave hand prints in snake blood.

Jeff Hulstein and Nathan Sheets left their wives at home in Dallas, Texas, and brought their sons to the roundup. They hired a guide to take them snake hunting and then brought their box full of snakes to the event.

"We saw this as a rite of passage to be able to bring your boys out here and let them see how you have good clean fun and learn something and appreciate nature," says Jeff Hulstein. "It's one of the ways we are going to raise these boys into men."

Combining statistical computer modeling with genetic data and the fossil record, Alfaro, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and his colleagues demonstrated that different environments have specific optimal body sizes for their chelonian inhabitants.

These researchers act as "evolutionary detectives," piecing together how the tremendous diversity in living chelonians today evolved from a common ancestor that lived millions of years ago. DNA sequences from modern chelonians provide important clues for determining the evolutionary path followed by their progenitors, said co-author Graham Slater, a National Science Foundation-funded UCLA postdoctoral scholar in ecology and evolutionary biology.

The results show a surprisingly strong statistical correlation between habitat change and significant adjustments in body size. Chelonians living in marine or island habitats have an optimal body size several times larger than their cousins on the mainland, said first author Alexander Jaffe, a high school student at Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood, Calif. Marine turtles have the largest optimal shell length (about 4.5 feet), followed by island tortoises (approximately 2.5 feet), while freshwater and mainland chelonians are several times smaller (roughly 1 foot).

The cheerily-named Cage of Death, which lowers tourists into the water to swim alongside crocodiles, is meant to be the highlight of a visit to the cove.

The bite-marked cage is dangled from a monorail. After my encounter with Burt I was hoisted up and along to the next pool and, swinging like a chicken nugget in the wind, was lowered in to meet Houdini.

Named for his ability to break out of enclosures, I eyed the box’s metal roof nervously as I was lowered into the cold water of the pool. His dinky wife Bess came over for a look so I dived down to the bottom of the cage to say g’day, but 15ft-long Houdini stayed basking in the sun, his eyes closed and his front legs tensed ready to pounce.

He was enjoying his siesta, so I was hoisted out and dunked in with Choppa, who lost two legs fighting and was thrown out of a crocodile farm for being a brute. Luckily he was also enjoying a post-lunch snooze so I could get close without worrying about losing any of my limbs.

By the time I got to prehistoric-looking Denzel, an anti-social bully according to his rap sheet, I was beginning to enjoy my dunking, but was still relieved when my 15 minutes were up.
Until that swim I’d been doing my best to avoid man-eating reptiles at the waterholes and wetlands of the Top End, as they call this part of Oz. But this is croc country, where Mother Nature rules and salties are kings of the food chain.

For hundreds of millions of years, evolution has been perfecting its own brand of biological warfare: venom. The toxic compounds in venom are finely honed weapons capable of launching precision attacks against cells in the nervous system, bloodstream, and organs. Now, medical researchers are tapping these potent chemical cocktails to develop new therapies for cancer, heart disease, and chronic pain. Nature’s swords, it turns out, can make powerful medical ploughshares.

Why turtles, and why now? Turtles are disappearing from the planet faster than birds, mammals, and even amphibians. Today, over 40% of turtle species are identified as threatened with extinction; the primary threats are human-caused. However, it's not too late for our turtle heritage to be salvaged. The United States has more endemic turtle species than anywhere on Earth; a turtle biodiversity hotspot. Our careful stewardship can preserve the rare species and keep 'common species common.'

The frog says, "Ribbit ribbit." Anyway, that's what I learned from my old See n' Say. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Fisher-Price was not holding that toy to the highest standards of scientific nuance. See, it turns out that frogs "talk" to one another in other ways, as well. In particular, they vibrate. Not vocal chords. But their whole bodies.

In this video interview with Michael Caldwell, frog researcher at the Smithsonian Institute for Tropical Research in Panama, environmental journalist Gaia Vince introduces the quieter side of frog communication, where amphibians can say a lot without saying a word.

Khadka revealed 146 gharials raised at the breeding center in Chitwan National Park were released in Narayani and Rapti rivers alone. But a recent count found just 25 of them in these rivers. “The numbers have declined in other rivers as well,” Khadka said releasing 10 six-year-olds, including six female, in Rapti in Chitwan Wednesday.

“It takes a lot of effort and money to raise gharials. But they are long dead when we look for them in rivers,´ he stated. Experts, however, maintain that the numbers are down also because the chances of gharials raised in controlled conditions surviving in big rivers are low.

“They are raised with utmost care in parks and their chance of surviving in the natural environment is always low,” claimed Chief Conservation Officer of Chitwan National Park Narendra Man Babu Pradhan.

The national tri-state Chambal sanctuary management coordination committee has been formed to look into the conservation issues. The first meeting of the committee has took some serious decisions like developing a tri-state management plan for gharial in consultation with experts, local communities, state forest department and others.

According to a press release by the conservator of forests, Wildlife and Nature Conservation Circle, fishermen captured the 2.3 feet long reptile at Koya under Kumarkhali upazila.

Mistaking the one and a half-year-old gharial for a young crocodile, they sold it to another fisherman for Tk 2,000 which was rescued by police and forest department staff.

Hossain Mohammad Nishat, divisional forest officer of Social Forestation Department informed Dr Tapan Kumar Dey, conservator of forests at the Wildlife and Nature Conservation Circle who brought the injured gharial to Crocodile Breeding Centre at Bhawal National Garden. After providing first aid the reptile was released in a pond.

By noon the next day, the wind had died down, but the Croc Bank was strewn with piles of debris. On the beach, enormous trunks of trees from far off shores lay washed up like beached walruses. The Kovalam bridge was under a rushing torrent of water, and the road to Kelambakkam had disappeared. Apart from the thin strip of road, the predecessor of the East Coast Road, a sheet of water covered everything. The Croc Bank was marooned for three days. Had high tide coincided with the cyclone hitting the coast, Madras would have been devastated.

The crocs seemed bewildered by the sound and light show that had changed the profile of their enclosures. But, the worst was over and now it was just a matter of cleaning up. The following night, after a long day of back-breaking work, a deeply-asleep Rom was woken up by the incessant barking of Balu, the watch dog.

A large male gharial had escaped and was pushing its way through the casuarina grove to the sea. Rom picked up a fallen branch and fenced with the 13 foot crocodile to keep it at bay.

It is often impossible to know exactly which snake species was responsible for a bite; identification is particularly difficult in developing countries as the majority of snake-bites are inflicted at night in rural communities that do not have electricity or artificial lighting.
Then the victim, who often lives in an impoverished remote place, has to find suitable medical treatment before the toxic venom leads to permanent disfigurement or death.
Late last year, an international team of researchers from Costa Rica, Australia, Brazil and the UK published an academic paper calling for a more integrated approach to dealing with snake-bites.

The BBC documentary One Million Snakebites details how one expert in India, Romulus Whitaker, is trying to engage and educate local communities about the snakes living around them.

By helping local communities to understand and respect the snakes they share their land with, passionate herpetologist Whitaker hopes that snakes such as the threatened king cobra will no longer be persecuted.

Whitaker has worked with the Irula tribe, who have a long tradition of snake catching, to create a cooperative that now supplies snake venom to laboratories across the country to create lifesaving antivenom, the only effective treatment for snake-bites.

Jennie Erin Smith's "Stolen World: A Tale Of Reptile, Smugglers, and Skulduggery" is a fascinating read that I found both hard to put down, and hard to pick back up again when I did. I can't put it down because it reads like a Ludlum novel, but I am afraid to pick it back up again because many of the stories she relates make me cringe.

Back in the days before the internet, before captive breeding, before the word "herpetoculture" existed, and before most of the laws and regulations about reptiles and amphibians were even proposals, there were the snake men. Reptile cowboys who strapped on the boots, jumped in the swamp and wrestled the python into a bag, or a cobra, or a krait, or a mamba.

Those men would fly around the world, collect the animals, box them up, put them on a plane, and the animals they acquired would show up at the world's biggest zoos, or in the hands of the few private collectors of the time. It was a loose group of people who maintained their own "internet" based on phone calls, letters, and the occasional mailed price list. There were no reptile expos, no magazines, no clubs, and few organizations open to non-academics.