We need experienced herp volunteers to commit for the week of Feb 19^th through Feb 27^th of 2010, with the largest group concentrated on Saturday, February 20^th for the 2010 Crab Trap Clean Up.

For 2010, I am assembling a team to work closely with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fisheries specialists to have herpetologists and those who have experience working with diamondback terrapins/ and or turtles to be on hand to closely inspect traps when removed from the water to identify possible DBT remains. In the past, data collected from these cleanups has shown a small mortality rate of terrapins in crab traps which we believe to be inaccurate as we consistently pull up abandoned traps in the bay that have drowned terrapins in them. We believe that one of the reasons for this potentially skewed data is in part because volunteers for these clean ups compose of the general public & staff that do not have a trained eye and are unable to identify extremely decomposed remains and/or very small scute/carapace/plastron fragments from terrapins. NOTE: It is of the utmost importance that you feel comfortable and are able to identify extremely small turtle fragments to take part in this volunteer group, if you do not feel qualified to do this, please do not respond. It is very important for the future conservation of this species that biologists can prove an unsustainable rate of mortality in traps for these animals. This data paired with future distribution and population density research on the Texas coast could potentially make a case for a mandatory regulation of terrapin excluder devices on crab traps in Texas, as is done in other states.

As February draws closer we will work out a schedule, but please email me if you have interest and availability to participate and please mark this week on your calendar, especially the 20^th, for involvement in the clean up.

Volunteers will need to bring waders and/or wet gear.  TPWD will provide gloves, tarps, crab trap hooks, etc...for the volunteers. We will try to get together enough GPS units for all volunteers to be able to record locations if remains are detected.