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Reptile conservation includes efforts to save specific species and their habitats. These activities include education, habitat protection and breeding.
Comprising the turtles (Testudines), crocodiles and squamates (Squamata) groups, and the tuatara of New Zealand, reptiles are a heterogeneous class with diverse body forms, habitat affinities and ecological roles. Until recently, comprehensive extinction risk assessments for reptiles have been unavailable.
Threats to Reptiles
A fifth of reptile species are in danger of extinction, and the threats to them are more severe than those facing amphibians. This is according to the first comprehensive conservation assessment of reptiles, published this week in the journal Nature. The researchers looked at 10,196 reptile species, assessing each one for the same criteria used in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. They found that 1,829 of these reptiles are threatened, including iconic creatures such as king cobras and Komodo dragons.
The study found that habitat loss, driven by agriculture, logging and urban development, is the main threat to reptiles. Illegal collection for the pet trade is another significant threat, as are invasive species, chemical contamination and road mortality. Other factors are the climate crisis and habitat fragmentation, as well as population declines from disease, parasites, and natural events.
The study also notes that reptiles are often omitted from conservation-prioritization analyses because of the lack of global assessments, which is an issue that is being addressed in the future with the Global Reptile Assessment. The report also noted that the assessment process was influenced by regional workshops and IUCN SSC Specialist Groups, which introduced geographical and taxonomic biases into the assessment. As a result, the results should be considered cautious.
Education
Reptiles are a vital part of the ecosystem, and they need to be protected from human-caused threats to their survival. Education is an important component of conservation efforts, and it can take many forms, from one-on-one interactions to mass campaigns that spread awareness through social media, broadcasts, and signs.
Educators must tailor programs to the specific audience, whether it be a group of pre-school children, school age children or adults. They must also be aware of the cognitive development and attention span of the group, keeping the presentation at a level that is appropriate for their audience. Educational activities can take place in settings such as zoological parks, schools, birthday parties and library lectures.
Education programs may include dispelling myths about reptiles and educating people about the needs of wild reptiles, such as food, water and shelter. They can also educate people about the threats that reptiles face in their natural habitat, such as pollution, urbanization and desertification.
The goals of education often include increasing the population size for species that are endangered or threatened in the wild. These programs may be accomplished through captive breeding and releases, or by encouraging the development of wildlife corridors that connect protected areas. Captive breeding is also an important part of international reptile conservation initiatives, such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Habitat Protection
Reptiles are particularly vulnerable to landscape change, due to low dispersal capacities, extreme site fidelity, and physiological dependence on environmental conditions such as temperature and water availability18. Global assessments of extinction risk document that, across tetrapods, amphibians and mammals have higher rates of threat than reptiles, but the omission of reptiles from conservation-priority analyses is being corrected1.
Threats to reptiles are varied. They may be driven by habitat destruction, such as from agricultural expansion and logging, or habitat degradation. However, they are more likely to be driven by changes in habitat quality or fragmentation than by the complete loss of habitat. Moreover, threats that affect habitat structure and connectivity impact more species than those that affect the amount or type of habitat available (Fig. 3).
Because of their long evolutionary history and varied survival adaptations, reptiles require a wide range of habitat types to support their life histories. Many of these are specialized, including rocky pond edges that provide complex lizard basking habitat and anti-predation refuges, vernal pools that support breeding for amphibians, and open canopy upland areas that are nesting habitat for snakes and frogs. To protect Maine’s reptiles, we need to conserve all these types of habitats in their natural state. Many reptiles are also sensitive to climate change, with impacts on thermal niches in particular being of concern.
Breeding
In many states, it is illegal to breed reptiles without the proper permits and licenses. If you are considering breeding reptiles, please make sure you are a knowledgeable and experienced breeder or that you have the assistance of someone that is.
Breeding for reptiles can be rewarding, but it is important to do it responsibly. Irresponsible reptile breeding worsens genetic disorders, creates oversaturation of the market, and increases the likelihood that one of your reptiles will develop a fatal disease. For example, gout is an incurable and fatal disease that occurs when too much uric acid builds up in the joints of your reptiles. It is a painful condition that can only be treated with euthanasia.
HCI is an amazing organization that helps save imperiled reptiles and amphibians by creating land conservancies. Their board of directors is made up of highly reputable people that have worked with reptiles and amphibians all over the world. They have very little overhead, so 75%+ of every dollar donated goes straight to saving these beautiful animals.
In general, conservation strategies for birds, mammals, and amphibians are effective surrogates for conserving reptile diversity. However, there is a low surrogacy value for reptiles with the most restricted ranges and this suggests that a case-by-case approach is needed. Using data from the IUCN Red List, we estimated optimal, surrogacy and random curves for each reptile-surrogate combination.