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SA's reptiles need your help
11/05/2005 10:49 - (SA)
Cape Town - Next time you bump into a tortoise, tangle with a snake or have a close encounter with a crocodile, let someone know.
Members of the public have been invited to lend a hand in a four-year project aimed at assessing the status of South Africa's rich reptile population.
The project, which will help scientists identify creatures threatened with extinction, was launched in Cape Town on Tuesday.
The last co-ordinated attempt to record the distribution of South Africa's reptiles was 16 years ago, Witwatersrand University reptile researcher Professor Graham Alexander said in a statement released to coincide with the launch.
"Many new species have since been discovered and there is an extreme shortage of information on these and several other species that are most in need of conservation management.
"A new conservation assessment is critical for the conservation of reptiles in South Africa."
Reptiles include turtles, tortoises, lizards, snakes and crocodiles.
According to the South African National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi), the statutory body which developed the project and will fund it, South Africa has about five times more reptile species than would be expected for a country of its size.
Gathering thousands of records
It has the third highest number of lizard species in the world, after Australia and Mexico.
Sanbi biodiversity director Kristal Maze said information on the creatures was essential for identifying conservation priorities, which were likely to include regulation of collection for the pet trade and preserving habitat.
The project, known as the Southern African Reptile Conservation Assessment, would be driven by experts from South African universities, museums, conservation agencies and the Herpetological Association of Africa.
It would be co-ordinated by the University of Cape Town's Avian Demography Unit (ADU), which previously produced an atlas of the birds and frogs of southern Africa.
The project would involve gathering thousands of records of reptile sightings from all over South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland.
ADU project co-ordinator James Harrison said members of the public could help by taking digital photographs of any wild reptiles they saw and submitting them to the project, together with accurate information on where they were taken.
Photos good enough to allow identification of the species would become part of a "virtual museum" collection on the project's website.
Anyone wanting to find out more about how to participate should visit the project website www.saherps.net which Harrison says is not operational yet but should be up and running by the beginning of next week.
- SAPA
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