British Herpetological Society Herpetological Journal Volume 31, Number 3, 2021 Contents Full papers Killing them softly: a review on snake translocation and an Australian case study 118-131 Jari Cornelis, Tom Parkin & Philip W. Bateman Potential distribution of the endemic Short-tailed ground agama Calotes minor (Hardwicke & Gray, 132-141 1827) in drylands of the Indian sub-continent Ashish Kumar Jangid, Gandla Chethan Kumar, Chandra Prakash Singh & Monika Böhm Repeated use of high risk nesting areas in the European whip snake, Hierophis viridiflavus 142-150 Xavier Bonnet, Jean-Marie Ballouard, Gopal Billy & Roger Meek The Herpetological Journal is published quarterly by Reproductive characteristics, diet composition and fat reserves of nose-horned vipers (Vipera 151-161 the British Herpetological Society and is issued free to ammodytes) members. Articles are listed in Current Awareness in Marko Anđelković, Sonja Nikolić & Ljiljana Tomović Biological Sciences, Current Contents, Science Citation Index and Zoological Record. Applications to purchase New evidence for distinctiveness of the island-endemic Príncipe giant tree frog (Arthroleptidae: 162-169 copies and/or for details of membership should be made Leptopelis palmatus) to the Hon. Secretary, British Herpetological Society, The Kyle E. Jaynes, Edward A. Myers, Robert C. Drewes & Rayna C. Bell Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, London, NW1 4RY, UK. Instructions to authors are printed inside the Description of the tadpole of Cruziohyla calcarifer (Boulenger, 1902) (Amphibia, Anura, 170-176 back cover. All contributions should be addressed to the Phyllomedusidae) Scientific Editor. Andrew R. Gray, Konstantin Taupp, Loic Denès, Franziska Elsner-Gearing & David Bewick A new species of Bent-toed gecko (Squamata: Gekkonidae: Cyrtodactylus Gray, 1827) from the Garo 177-196 Hills, Meghalaya State, north-east India, and discussion of morphological variation for C. urbanus Rachunliu G. Kamei & Stephen Mahony Front cover: Male Hierophis viridiflavus involved in a male to male combat at MUD section of the study locality at Chizé west France. Photographed by Xavier Bonnet. See article on page 142. Copyright It is a fundamental condition that submitted manuscripts have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the copyright for their article is transferred to the publisher if and when the article is accepted for publication. The copyright covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including reprints and photographic reproductions. Permission for any such activities must be sought in advance from the Editors. Volume 31, Number 2 was published on 1 April 2021 Volume 31 (July 2021), 118-131 Killing them softly monitoring of the translocated population. Mitigation database using the following search terms: “snake translocation, however, tends to be targeted at human- translocation”, “snake long distance translocation”, Herpetological Journal REVIEW PAPER wildlife conflict, with the aim of reducing wildlife mortality “snake short distance translocation”, “snake repatriation”, https://doi.org/10.33256/31.3.118131 and danger or nuisance to people (Sullivan et al., 2015), “snake headstarting”, “snake mitigation translocation” and is rarely followed by monitoring (Massei et al., 2010). and “snake conservation translocation”. We also used Published by the British Mitigation translocation has a history of high failure rates reference lists and personal contacts to find articles. Herpetological Society Killing them softly: a review on snake translocation and (Sullivan et al., 2015), and this is likely to be particularly This resulted in a database of 65 publications. We then true for reptiles and amphibians where translocation of removed non-empirical (e.g. literature reviews), duplicate an Australian case study all types has resulted in successful outcomes in only 41 publications (e.g. university theses and their subsequent % of attempts (Germano & Bishop, 2009). Translocated publications) and non-peer reviewed case studies or Jari Cornelis1, Tom Parkin2 & Philip W. Bateman1 reptiles appear to suffer high mortality rates relative pre-prints. Finally, we screened for methodologies to resident individuals, and this is often attributed that aimed to evaluate the viability of short-distance to aberrant movement patterns, stress, disease, and translocation (SDT), long-distance translocation (LDT), or 1 Behavioural Ecology Lab., School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Brand Drive, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia inability to survive winters for species where finding repatriation for their study species or what impact these 2 Australian Museum Research Institute, 1 William Street, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia adequate hibernacula is a priority (Nowak et al., 2002; processes would have on the species biology (e.g. space Brown et al., 2008; Massei et al., 2010; Harvey et al., use). Following this, we were left with 34 publications Human-wildlife conflicts with ‘nuisance’ snakes are becoming more frequent around the world as urbanisation continues 2014; Sullivan et al., 2015). comprising 38 studies (publications that included, for to encroach on remaining habitats. In an attempt to mitigate this issue, snakes are often translocated in an uncontrolled While much data for conservation translocation is example, both LDT and SDT were treated as two separate fashion, with little to no conservation value. To determine the most appropriate methods of translocation we reviewed available in the primary literature, the data for mitigation- studies) on 24 snake taxa, across 9 countries (Table 1). the available primary literature on studies performing translocations of snakes. We found two types of translocation: long based reptile translocations, which are often ad hoc, For each project we recorded the taxa studied, type of and short-distance. Based on the welfare of the animals involved and difficulty of achieving success with long-distance either simply does not exist or is largely inaccessible translocation (mitigation or conservation), whether the translocations, we deduced that short-distance translocations are the most favourable. We also reviewed the literature (Germano et al., 2015). In Australia, a huge number of donor population was wild or from captivity, and the on a third method - repatriating wild populations of snakes with captive-bred or captive-reared individuals, the results largely uncontrolled, mitigation translocations take place success of the project. Translocation success is hard to of which were very similar to those of long-distance translocations. In conjunction with a mark recapture study carried every year with the intent to reduce human-wildlife determine and it has been suggested that a translocation out by snake catchers in Darwin, Australia, we use our findings to make suggestions on the most appropriate course of conflicts. For example, one voluntary organisation can only be considered successful if it results in a self- action for the mitigation-based snake catching activities in Australia. The difficulty of ensuring successful outcomes for in New South Wales Australia, ‘rescued’ over 22,000 sustaining population (Dodd & Seigel, 1991; Griffith long distance translocations along with a high mortality rate meant we cannot suggest this as an appropriate method for squamate reptiles during a ten year period, with the et al., 1989). However, it can require several years of managing ‘nuisance’ snakes. Instead, we argue that short distance translocations are the most suitable for the welfare of majority of snakes translocated to another locality (Shine monitoring to make such an observation which is beyond the snakes involved. Nevertheless, no outcome will be more favourable for the snakes than to be simply released within & Koenig, 2001). However, with the evidence from the remit of many of the studies we have compiled. their home range accompanied by a change in attitude of the general public towards a willingness to coexist. Although we scientific articles indicating that snakes and other reptiles Hence, for studies that did not fit this criterion, we focus primarily on Australia our suggested framework can be applied in any country where there is conflict with snakes. react poorly to being translocated, and with mitigation- considered the translocation a success if 70 % or more of Furthermore, should our suggestions be implemented, they are merely a temporary solution to an ongoing problem and we based relocations occurring globally and serving little the translocated individuals survived for the duration of are in desperate need for further research to devise a long-term management plan. to no conservation purpose, it has been suggested that the study, or if the survival probability of the translocated regulations should be changed to match conservation individuals was not significantly lower than that of the outcomes (Germano et al., 2015). resident population. Studies that did not estimate Keywords: serpentes, translocation, relocation, repatriation, human-wildlife conflict The aim of this review is to evaluate from the literature survival or did not monitor appropriately to estimate the viability of different methods for translocating survival were classed as uncertain. snakes. There have been some recent reviews on We reviewed 34 projects comprising 19 long distance translocation for mitigation purposes and translocation translocation