Janaury General Meeting
The general meeting scheduled for this Wednesday, January 30, has been cancelled due to the forecast of severe weather. The safety of all our members (and animals) is of our highest priority. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused and hope to see you at our next general meeting on February 27th. Please stay safe!
Next Speaker :
2019-04-24
Chris Lechowicz : SCCF Pine Island Sound Eastern Indigo Snake Project: Current Challenges click for more/less infoThe SCCF Pine Island Sound Eastern Indigo Snake Project (PISEISP) was developed in 2012 in Lee County, Florida by the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation, a non-profit organization on Sanibel Island, after the once extant eastern indigo snake disappeared from Captiva in 1988 and from Sanibel in 1999. Prior to the beginning of the project, the three other large islands in Pine Island Sound had recent unverified reports of eastern indigo snake sightings. Through permits from the USFWS via the Orianne Society an effort to assess, inventory, and develop plans to sustain this federal and state listed threatened species on the last islands in Florida known to harbor eastern indigo snakes began. With research, education, and community participation, this project has shown some success and has gotten positive publicity on the effort to sustain populations of this snake. Much work is still needed to keep the snake and the project in the public's focus as new people (residents and visitors) come to the islands. The research currently being conducted is focused on population biology, home range and habitat use.
Chris Lechowicz is a long-time CHS member that grew up on the southwest side of Chicago and in the Chicago Herpetological Society. He has two Bachelors of Science degrees from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in Zoology and Computer Science and a Masters of Science degree in Environmental Science from Florida Gulf Coast University. He is the Director of the Wildlife & Habitat Management Program and staff herpetologist at the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF) in Sanibel, FL where he has worked for over 16 years. Chris is coauthor of the book Amphibians & Reptiles of Sanibel & Captiva Islands: A Natural History (2013) and has a natural history website (graptemys.com) dedicated to the map turtles (Genus: Graptemys). Chris's current herp research at SCCF is with Florida box turtles (T. c. bauri), diamondback terrapins (M. t. macrospilota), and eastern indigo snakes (D. couperi).
Events :
April 13-14th, 2019 - Reptilefest returns to Northeastern Illinois University
Our Mission
To educate the general public about these frequently misunderstood animals, promote conservation of all wildlife, especially reptiles and amphibians, and to encourage cooperation between amateur and professional herpetologists toward a broader and deeper knowledge of this fascinating field.
