KHS SEVENTY-SECOND FIELD TRIP

KHS SEVENTY-SECOND FIELD TRIP SCHEDULED
Something Else To Do On A Nice Spring Day

Nature’s early warning system: snakes, toads, lizards. They spend their lives slithering, crawling and hopping, never getting more than an inch or so above the earth, nor traveling very far from where they started. It's little wonder that these creatures so easily show the effects of toxins in our soil and water, and the pressures of human encroachment on their habitat.

The Kansas Herpetological Society will be conducting its semi-annual field trip on April
24-25 to help assess the health of the population of these critters and the land they live on in Greenwood County.

The public is invited to join.

"We so often take these animals for granted, or worse, fear or hate them," said Kathy Ellis, KHS president and longtime member. "But they're a crucial part of the ecosystem and have a lot to contribute for our own benefit."

During the field trip, KHS members and friends will hike the countryside in search of reptiles, amphibians and turtles, observing and identifying them and counting their numbers. A few will be kept for scientific study, but most will be released unharmed where they were captured. Results of the field trip -- the numbers -- will be reported in the Journal of Kansas Herpetology and shared with agencies such as the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

Continued Ellis: “Our field trips also have an educational aspect. Members of the public can tag along with people who know about this stuff. We'll show them how to approach these animals, including which ones they might want to avoid. They’ll be able to see first hand the important role these animals play in our shared environment.”

Field trips are free and open to anyone; children must be accompanied by an adult.
Participants will begin to congregate at the Gobbler's Knob Campground at Fall River State Park on Friday evening (23 April). At 9 am on Saturday and Sunday mornings, the assembled group will depart the camp to prearranged survey sites, led by KHS Field Trip Chairpersons Daniel Murrow and Dan Carpenter. Directions to the park campground are available online at

http://www.cnah.org/khs/FieldTripSpringInfo.html

The field trip will conclude at around 5 p.m. on Saturday and noon on Sunday. Lunch and dinner are not provided. There are motels and restaurants in nearby Fredonia.

Dress for the field and the Kansas weather. Items to bring: leather gloves, drinking water, snacks and a sack lunch. Also nice but not necessary: a camera, 2-way radios or a cell phone, a hat, sunscreen and an old pillowcase and gallon zip-lock bags for captured critters.

The Kansas Herpetological Society is one of the nation's foremost membership organizations dedicated to scientific study and conservation of amphibians, reptiles, and turtles. The group has conducted more than seventy field trips since it began coordinating the events in 1974. For information on the KHS, visit the KHS website at

http://www.cnah.org/khs

or call M. K. Baldwin, KHS Secretary, at 785-272-1076.

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Contacts for this news release:

Dan Murrow, KHS field trips
913-652-6971
dan@iturnrocks.com

Joseph T. Collins, snake guy
785-393-4757
jcollins@ku.edu

Robin Oldham, KHS publicity
620-795-2293
familyoldham@embarqmail.com