Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 4
Management Responses
Management actions against invasive herpetofauna have slowly increased as
awareness of their impacts has advanced, although management has not yet pro-
gressed to the level of routine success that frequently characterizes actions against
invasive mammals or plants. Logically, alien herpetofaunal management may occur
at any of the three stages of the invasion process discussed in Chapter 1: preventing
introductions from occurring, establishing early-detection and rapid-response pro-
grams to eradicate incipient populations, or managing well-established pests long-
term so as to mitigate their worst effects. As for other alien species, impact
reduction will most effectively be achieved by having a strong prevention program
to keep herpetofauna from travelling and naturalizing outside their native ranges.
To create such a program involves knowing the details of how species are trans-
ported by humans, and research requirements to meet that need will be examined
in the next chapter. However, prevention programs can never be perfect barriers to
introduction, so it also remains important to determine to what extent eradication
and long-term control programs may prove effective against naturalized herpeto-
faunal populations. Relatively few attempts have been made in this direction, and
they are not widely publicized, but I review here the instances of which I am aware.
Prevention
Before considering eradication and control programs, let us briefly review the range
of prevention options that have been adopted against alien reptiles and amphibians.
By and large, such efforts have been sparse. Most governmental jurisdictions do not
approach import restrictions on reptiles and amphibians in any sort of comprehen-
sive or coordinated manner. Instead, if they act at all, governments typically ban a
few species known or believed to be pests, and restrictions may be independently
adopted by a variety of agencies. In the case of the United States, for example, the
Fish and Wildlife Service prohibits only the brown treesnake from import without
a permit (U.S. Code of Federal Regulations: Title 50 CFR Section 16.11-16.15);
the Department of Agriculture prohibits three tortoise species (
Geochelone pardalis
,
G. sulcata
, and
Kinixys belliana
) because they are known carriers of African ticks
