Lanny-yap: Scientist Describes Declining Snake Populations As "Deeply Troubling"

10 June 2010

Scientist Describes Declining Snake Populations As "Deeply Troubling"

Out of 17 snake populations monitored over many years in Europe and Africa, 11 populations plummeted about 10 years ago and have not bounced back, says herpetologist Chris Reading of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology near Oxford, England. Just what caused the declines between 1998 and 2002 is not yet clear, but Reading and nine other biologists sound an alarm in a Biology Letters paper released the week of June 7.

Losing a lot of snakes can upset the way ecosystems work, Reading says. Snakes often rank as top predators, and even ophidiophobes may appreciate the job that snakes do in controlling rats and mice.

The new finding strikes herpetologist Harry Greene of Cornell University as “deeply troubling.” Checking for trends in other populations will be difficult, he says, because snakes are notoriously hard to count. “Being secretive is a very snakey thing.”

No data were included on U.S. snakes, but Greene notes worrisome signs from eastern king snakes in Florida and southern hog-nosed snakes throughout their range. “Of course some snakes seem to be doing fine, but overall the trend is alarming,” Greene says.

Declines of wild creatures have become a recurring theme since Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring warned of pesticides threatening birds. Today, the IUCN estimates that many bird, mammal and amphibian species are threatened with extinction.

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10 June 2010

Scientist Describes Declining Snake Populations As "Deeply Troubling"

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