= Herpetofauna – Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne – Ollie Sherlock

= Expo 2012

= Top Ten Most Exotic Frogs

= Meeting Review – David Kirshner – September 2011

= My Story – Cherie Campbell

= First Aid for Snake Bite

= Herp Happenings

VIEW/DOWNLOAD ISSUE Odatria_11_NOV11

Our last meeting (also our Annual General Meeting) for the year is:

Wednesday 7th December 2011

Prahran RSL – 301 High Street – Prahran

7.15pm – 10.30pm

Ollie Sherlock

Ollie Sherlock will be talking about two trips he’s made over the past 6 months to Shark Bay Western Australia and Arid Recovery (a conservation project in Roxby Downs, South Australia).

Whilst in Shark Bay, Ollie spent a week pitfall trapping on the Peron Peninsula, surveying for small reptiles and mammals with The Department of Environment and Conservation, Western Australia. He encountered a diverse range of small herp’s’ including geckos, skinks and pygopods which he will share with us. The second part of the talk will be on a trip to Arid Recovery, Roxby Downs South Australia where Ollie worked for a week learning about this fascinating conservation project. Ollie will talk about the project and the amazing plants and animals found in the area.

Brian Barnett & Russell Grant

Brian & Russell will give a joint talk on ‘Incubating Snake eggs”. This will include many early photos of the pioneering era where nothing much was known on this subject through to the modern day methods which have moved away from the traditional substrate/water mix method that had been used for several decades. The two speakers are experts in this field having incubated thousands of eggs in a variety of methods.

]]> http://vhs.com.au/vhs-agm-7-dec/feed/ 1 http://vhs.com.au/odatria-issue-10/ http://vhs.com.au/odatria-issue-10/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:44:35 +0000 admin http://vhs.com.au/?p=1056 = Editorial – Brian Barnett

= Meeting Review – John McGrath – 25th May 2011

= 10 Fascinating and Unique Crocodilians

= Profile – Bryan Fry

= Jerry’s Adventures – Steph McKenzie & James Branagan

= Langkawi Reptile Sanctuary – Kevin Welsh

= WPTAC Update – Peter Comber

= Herp Happenings

= 2012 VHS Reptile Expo – Seeking Sponsors

VIEW/DOWNLOAD ISSUE Odatria_10_AUG11

Our next meeting is:

Wednesday 21st September 2011

Prahran RSL – 301 High Street – Prahran

7.15pm – 10.30pm

David Kirshner

David came to Australia from Canada over 30 years ago, originally to carry out research on crocodiles but he has always had a fascination with goannas. He’s been keeping and breeding lace monitors in his home for several years, which has allowed him to observe their behaviours up close.

A keen photographer and videographer, David has kept a detailed visual record of his monitors and will be using many of these photographs and videos to illustrate his talk.

The talk will be divided into two parts: Part one will be on captive care of monitors and part two on breeding. Although many of the images and videos will be of lace monitors, both talks will contain useful information for keepers and breeders of all monitor species and where differences occur between lace monitors and other species these will be highlighted.

A review of this meeting will be in Odatria #11

Our next meeting is:

Wednesday 25th May 2011

Prahran RSL – 301 High Street – Prahran

7.15pm – 10.30pm

“The Holden Ute vs. the Elfin

– Road testing Australian Geckos”

by John McGrath

Home-grown products are often the best; the enduring success of the Holden Ute is underpinned by capacity to function effectively as a workhorse in a wide variety of conditions. Elfin, which has the distinction of being the oldest continuous manufacturer of sports cars in Australia, have adopted a completely different approach, and since 1951 have relied upon appealing to a small niche market.

Admittedly, this talk is (predominantly) about geckos, not motor vehicles, but the two native sub-families of gekkonids have also adopted very different strategies in order to conquer the continent. As a result, Australia is blessed with an assemblage of species – some incredibly bizarre in appearance – to rival any other region of the globe. Many are highly prized among hobbyists, both in this country and overseas.

Tonight we will examine the lineage and evolution of both sub-families, together with the captive maintenance of a variety of species. We will also explore recent advances in husbandry equipment, and to this end a couple of leading authorities have agreed to design and exhibit state-of –the-art gecko display enclosures.

So there may not be much of interest for petrol heads after all – unless they also happen to be amateur herps…

About our speaker

Unfortunately, the ubiquitous “Gecko Wrangler” is not the curator of a reptile park, zoo or museum (he remains open to offers). To his chagrin he is also yet to make his debut on syndicated television, although he has roughed out a couple of scripts.

As a small child in his native England, the budding hobbyist became fascinated by newts and slow worms (there’s not much else in the UK). Upon arrival in Australia at the age of 10, a host of herpetological wonders were to be found outside the back door. The capture of his first snake (a copperhead) proved to be extremely fortuitous, since his parents quickly negotiated a trade-off, whereby John could keep any animal he desired so long as it wasn’t venomous.

John has kept Australian geckos since his teens (when the world was still flat) and is particularly interested in the potential for line breeding variants of some of our species. He has contributed many articles to herpetological publications, is co-author of “Keeping & Breeding Australian Lizards” and has conducted (irregular) presentations on Australian geckos.

John’s other hobbies include playing drums and, with wife Lala, travel and fishing. Unfortunately Lala catches all the big ones. He remains hopeful that, if there is room in Australia for a “Crocoseum”, a Gecko World theme park may just be viable.

A review of this meeting is in Odatria #10

= 2011 Expo Overview – Andrew Owen

= WPTAC Update – Peter Comber

= Meeting Review - Doody/Scheelings – 8th December 2010

= Odatria Survey Results

= Wanted – Murray Darling – Damian Michael

= 10 Unusual and Amazing Snakes

= DIY Reptile Racks – Andrew Owen

= Herp Happenings

VIEW/DOWNLOAD ISSUE Odatria_9_APR11

Nominated and supported by his peers, the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) has been offered to and accepted by Brian Barnett.

It has been designated the position of Conservation & Environment in particular Herpetology. Brian has been recognized by his peers and country for the lifelong dedication and application to helping others in the field of herpetoculture. For over 50 years he has pioneered and implemented many of the facets of herpetoculture that we all take for granted. There are so many ‘firsts’ that could be attributed to him and as he always states, “I have made every mistake possible – but that is the track of learning, never repeat a mistake”.

A full response by Brian will be issued in the next edition of Odatria (#9) the online publication of the Victorian Herpetological Society. http://vhs.com.au/odatria/

Brian and his Grandson Taipan get ready for the 2011 VHS Expo

The following are some links to newapaper articles about Brian’s fantastic award

http://www.brimbankweekly.com.au/news/local/news/general/brian-barnett-gong-for-a-happy-herpetologist/2063083.aspx

http://www.starnewsgroup.com.au/star/stalbans-deer-park-caroline-springs/282/story/127717.html

We ask you to bear with us as we continue to build the site.  Some pages are still under construction.

Please feel free to offer any suggestions in reltion to content etc.

We would like to offer special thanks to Denuel from D3prodesigns for all his assistance and guidance in the construction and development of this site.

These members have been actively working towards bringing you the best Expo the VHS has had to date on February 19th 2011.

The 2011 Committee would like thank the only “retiring” Committee member from 2010 – Mike Alexander for all his work over the last few years.  Mike will still be helping us with the Expo and other projects and we wish him well for the future.

President:      Brian Barnett 

Secretary:      Kevin Welsh

Treasurer:      Andrew McKenzie

Executive:      Peter Comber

Executive:      Phil Elliott

PHOTO – circa 1960

7.15pm – 10.30pm

“The Terrible Truth about Toads: Impacts of Cane Toads on Native Predators and Implications for Extinction, Recovery and Control” by Dr J. Sean Doody – Monash University.

Invasive and toxic cane toads are well-known for lethally poisoning predators that try to eat them, including birds, mammals, and reptiles. However, robust (multi-year) evidence for population-level impacts is limited to a single study demonstrating major effects on three species of goannas, contrasting with no effect on freshwater crocodile populations, despite some dead (poisoned) crocodiles in the Daly River system. Thus, dead animals cannot be generalised into population-level impacts. Other studies documenting mass mortality of radio-telemetred goannas and quolls are also indicative of major population-level impacts on those species. A second study apparently demonstrating population-level effects across months on populations of freshwater crocodiles in the Victoria River system indicates a lack of generality across river systems for that species. There have been no species extinctions; although population extinctions may have occurred, particularly in quolls, based on decades of ‘no-sightings’ in much of Queensland. Despite reports to the contrary, there is no solid evidence of recovery of predator populations in the years following toad arrival. This is due to the lack of pre-toad baselines of predator abundance in Queensland, and a short post-toad time interval in areas with baselines (Northern Territory, Western Australia) in these longer-lived species. Meanwhile, realistic and effective large-scale toad control options remain elusive. Smaller-scale approaches are proving useful in reducing and potentially eradicating local toad populations, educating stakeholders on toad issues, and bringing together communities. However, because an encounter with one toad is sufficient to kill a predator, the persistence of just a few toads in a population of predators would lead to an encounter probability of 100%, meaning that anything short of eradication is unlikely to save predator populations from imminent declines. Thus, local control would need to be comprehensive and sustained indefinitely to prevent major impacts. Moreover, using control as an effective conservation tool requires follow-up studies to demonstrate the persistence of predator populations, although this requires substantial resources. I discuss a rare opportunity for local control that may be both effective and sustainable due to site-specific geomorphology, scale, and logistics.