The Utila Spiney-tailed Iguana was the species that introduced me to conservation and started my education work with the International Reptile Conservation Foundation. Now, one of the zoos working with them has successfully kicked off their breeding program. From Google News:

Reptile keepers at Bristol Zoo Gardens successfully hatched 17 baby Utila spiny-tailed iguanas - a species which is listed as critically endangered and was once considered to be one of the rarest iguanas in existence.

The eggs were laid after two young adult iguanas arrived at the zoo last year as a new breeding pair aiming to boost numbers of this species in captivity.

They were transferred to a temperature-controlled incubator for three months until hatching and then moved into a vivarium on display in the zoo's reptile house. Tim Skelton, curator of reptiles and amphibians at the zoo, said: "I'm thrilled that we have successfully hatched so many iguanas from the first clutch of eggs laid by our new female.

One of the biggest obstacles for conservation groups is money. A recent study shows that failing to conserve can have negative impact on a country's income. From Latin American Press:

Six of the world’s most biologically diverse countries in the world are in Latin America. Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela and Peru cover 10 percent of the Earth’s surface, but are home to 70 percent of the planet’s mammal, bird, reptile, amphibians, insects and plants in the world.

South America alone has more than 40 percent of the world’s biodiversity and more than a quarter of its forests.

[....]

These protected areas benefit the farming and fishing industries as well as tourism, said the report. Those areas have to fend off illegal occupation, logging, hydrological changes, pesticides, farming chemicals, fires, soil erosion, hunting and infrastructure projects, it added.

The State of Wyoming is having a contest to pick their conservation stamp based on the Horned Toad, aka short horned lizard. First place can bring you home $3500 and the chance to have your art go toward saving a species. Click here for more info.

The San Diego Zoo recently was able to create a viable cell culture of the endangered Mississippi gopher frog.

"With amphibians we have found that we can routinely obtain viable cells from a fresh biopsy, but they fail to thrive and divide, leaving us often unable to establish and freeze cell cultures," said Oliver Ryder, Ph.D., San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research director of genetics. "The question then is, how are we to know if there are viable cells in a tissue-pieced amphibian biopsy when we cannot grow the cells from a fresh biopsy?"

Thanks to a breakthrough achieved at the Institute for Conservation Research, the Mississippi gopher frog case provides proof that endangered amphibian cells can be grown and cells frozen from fresh or tissue-pieced and frozen biopsies.

The tissue-piecing technique has been used for some time with numerous species. In mammals, for example, scientists can mince a skin biopsy, treat it with cryoprotectant and freeze it. Later the tissue pieces can be thawed in a lab to establish a cell culture. But this method had not been previously successful with endangered amphibians until now.

Controversy is still raging about the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard in Texas.

Though the dunes sagebrush lizard’s habitat spans less than 2 percent of the entire oil-rich Permian Basin, industry-backed politicians Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) have asserted that protecting the lizard will shut down essentially all oil drilling, causing an economic catastrophe in New Mexico and Texas, as well as a nationwide oil shortage. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has called the claim false.

“Industry is trying to make the dunes sagebrush lizard into Godzilla, needlessly scaring citizens to score political points,” said Mark Salvo of WildEarth Guardians. “There is no reason to be afraid of this three-inch reptile.”

For the full press release, click here.