In the FC section "General Herp Talk" I provided a brief review of the book "Exotic Amphibians and Reptiles"; followed by an excellent discussion by John Zillmer.
https://www.amazon.com/Exotic-Amphib...ustomerReviews
Next in this section I previously commented about the book’s narrative on exotic introduction of the North American Bullfrog.
Now a look at the book’s comments on exotic introduction of the common snapping turtle.
Doing a bit of easy research in follow-up, I reviewed anthropological and historical human dietary evidences for turtles in past societies and geographical locations.
The book notes only the following about the common snapping turtle:
“… exotic to AZ, CA, NV, NM, OR,UT, WA.”
However, in Western North American Naturalist, Jones et.al. report on evidence of the common snapping turtle in New Mexico and propose it is native fauna and not exotic.
“The turtle specimen derives from an archaeological context securely dated to the early seventeenth century. The presence of C. serpentina in this context, taken together with the composition of the rest of the Isleta Pueblo Mission archaeofaunal assemblage and the present-day C. serpentina population in the Middle Rio Grande, suggests that C. serpentina has been present in this drainage since at least the seventeenth century and is likely native.”
https://bioone.org/journals/western-...082.0317.short
Since the common snapping turtle is found native in Colorado and Texas, including counties that border New Mexico, it would be reasonable that the species could also be native to New Mexico. The logic of natural ranges extending into adjacent counties would seem to require deeper review of the subject for any species.
In summary, it seems to me the book is not comprehensive in its narratives, facts, and even some reasonable suppositions. Since neither the bullfrog nor the common snapping turtle are fully vetted, one might conclude the other entries are suspect in terms of complete discussion. In addition, assigning causal factors for an animal to be deemed exotic needs to be carefully and fully researched. The issue then is that this book will be used by game and fish commissions to create regulations and laws; and will also be cited in future academic papers. Corrections and/or retractions in publications are difficult to come by and so future publications will simply cite the book “as is” and the shortcomings carry on ad infinitum.
Threaded Mode
