HR December 2016, Volume 47, Number 4. Our cover features a field photo of an adult Vipera walser, a recently described species from the western Italian Alps, photographed by Matteo Di Nicola. This issue is scheduled to be mailed 19 December, although full contents are now available online to SSAR members at ssarherps.org/herpetological-review-PDFs. All Natural History Notes, Geographic Distribution Notes, and Book Reviews are Open Access and are now available for download. If you are not a member of SSAR, please consider joining the leading international herpetological society. Student and online-only rates available. Follow the “Join SSAR” link. Congrats to Matteo for another great cover photo!

The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles’ Roger Conant Grants in Herpetology are due Dec 15, 2016. This includes grants for graduate and undergraduate research. The Herpetologists’ League’s E.E. Williams Grant in Herpetology is due Dec 15, 2016 and its Jones-Lovich Grant in Southwestern Herpetology is due 6 January 2017. For more information about the HL grants and the application process see here : http://herpetologistsleague.org/awards-for-hl-students/

Please join us in congratulating SSAR President-Elect Rick Shine for winning the 2016 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science! You can read much more about Dr. Shine’s research and this prestigious award here:

http://science.gov.au/community/PrimeMinistersPrizesforScience/Recipients/2016/Pages/Richard-Shine.aspx

Information from the Wildlife Conservation Branch in the Biological Resources Division of the National Park Service (NPS):

You are invited to join us for Conservation and Management of Amphibians and Reptiles for U.S. National Parks in the Southeast, a webinar sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Branch in the Biological Resources Division of the National Park Service (NPS).

Date: Thursday, October 20, 2016

Duration: 1.5 hours

Start time: 9 am PT, 10 am MT, 11 am CT, 12 pm ET

Registration URL: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1212362580358473220

Webinar ID: 972-782-611

IMPORTANT:

1. GoToWebinar will send you an email AFTER you click the above registration URL. The email will contain the link you need to click to join the webinar at the specified time and date.
2. DO NOT click the “Add to Calendar” feature that you are provided in your registration confirmation email or on the registration confirmation website. Doing so will incorrectly record the time of the webinar in your calendar due to a glitch with the program. You must manually insert the time and date into your calendar. Apologies for the inconvenience.
3. Telephone / dial-in information will be provided to you once you have logged into the webinar. You must use your telephone to call in to the webinar. We cannot allow audio connection via computer because it creates malfunctions during the recording.

This webinar covers material provided in:

Habitat Management Guidelines for Amphibians and Reptiles of the Southeastern US by Mark A. Bailey, Jeffrey N. Holmes, Joseph C. Mitchell, and Kurt A. Buhlmann (Eds.). The webinar will cover habitats and species in the NPS’s Southeastern Region. However, the information provided in the webinar will be applicable to locations outside of park boundaries too and so will benefit any biologist or land manager.

About the Speakers:

Mark A. Bailey has a Master of Science in Zoology from Auburn University. He has been active in the conservation and management of southeastern wildlife, with emphasis on herpetofauna, for over 30 years.  He worked for the U.S. Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy before establishing his own consulting firm, Conservation Southeast. He is the past Alabama state representative to the Gopher Tortoise Council and serves on the board of the Alabama Wildlife Federation. Along with the other co-authors of PARC’s Habitat Management Guidelines of the Southeastern United States, he is a recipient of the Florida Wildlife Society’s Paul Moler Herpetological Conservation Award. He is co-author of Turtles of Alabama.

Joseph C. (Joe) Mitchell has a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Tennessee, and has focused on the conservation, ecology, and natural history of amphibians and reptiles for over 40 years. He is self-employed (Mitchell Ecological Research Service, LLC), and has conducted conservation and management research on 16 national parks and 21 military bases, among others. He wrote the first habitat conservation plan under a joint venture by two federal agencies (USFS, USFWS). He is the author of The Reptiles of Virginia, Smithsonian Institution Press, and senior editor of Urban Herpetology, Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles.

Kurt A. Buhlmann holds a B.S. in Environmental Studies from Stockton State College in New Jersey, an M.S. in Wildlife Sciences from Virginia Tech, and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Georgia.  He has worked with The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Forest Service, Conservation International, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and others. He is currently a Senior Research Associate with the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. He also operates Buhlmann Ecological Research and Consulting, LLC as an environmental consultant. Kurt’s research interests include life history and evolutionary ecology with application for species recovery, conservation and management.  He has studied terrestrial habitat needs of amphibians and reptiles around seasonal wetlands, the effects of prescribed fire, control of invasive species, and wetland restoration. He has been involved with turtle habitat management and restoration projects, and has helped implement reintroduction strategies for Gopher Tortoises at several sites in the Southeast, and more recently, head-starting research with freshwater turtles (Blanding’s and Wood) in the Northeast, as well as with Desert Tortoises in the Mojave Desert.

About the Webinar Series:

Park Units in the Northwestern US: Restoration and Recovery for Amphibians and Reptiles (covering NPS’s Alaska, Pacific-West, and Intermountain regions) was presented on March 10, 2016.

Park Units in the Midwestern US: Restoration and Recovery for Amphibians and Reptiles (covering NPS’s Midwestern Region) was presented on April 14, 2016.

Conservation and Management of Amphibians and Reptiles for U.S. National Parks in the Northeast (covering NPS’s Northeast Region) was presented on July 28, 2016.

Please contact Jen Williams (jen_williams@nps.gov or 970-267-2159) if you are interested in a copy of these webinars or their accompanying materials.

This is the last webinar in this series! PARC’s Habitat Management Guidelines for Amphibians and Reptiles in the Southwestern United States was just published in August of 2016. If you are interested in this publication and are a National Park Service employee, contact Jen Williams. Otherwise, you can order a copy directly from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0966740246/