Reptiles at Risk

A Brief History of Reptiles at Risk on the Road

Posted by Jeff Hathaway on July 24, 2006 at 5:44 PM

In the summer of 2004, Dan Hoops and I toured northwestern Ontario, spending 11 days on the road doing provincial parks, public libraries, etc. While at Rushing River and Blue Lake parks, we met quite a few people vacationing from Manitoba, and many of them asked us when we'd be doing programs near their hometowns. During the long drive back home, we started formulating a plan to go farther west, theoretically all the way out
to the west coast! It's interesting, the things one comes up with during long drives home!

We quickly decided that organizing so many venues into a co-ordinated tour would be extremely difficult unless there was a significant incentive for them to work with a strict travel schedule; obviously a major incentive would be if the program was provided at no charge to the venues! And so, we debated ways to access funding for such a program tour. We approached the Canadian Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Network (CARNCET)
about a partnership arrangement, since they have charitable status, and our programs do fall within their mandate. We broadened the idea into a nation-wide program tour, and applied for funding during the spring 2005 with the intention of touring eastern Canada that summer, and western Canada in 2006. Suffice it to say that our funding applications did not meet with success, and we ended up cancelling the eastern Canada tour.

We considered shelving the whole idea, but I still reviewd various funding possibilities. Laurentian University entered the picture that fall- as Dr. Jacqueline Litzgus had started a herpetology course there, and requested that we bring our live collection into the lab. We were happy to do so, and also discussed our tour project with her. We ended up working together on a funding application for NSERC Promoscience, which was fortunately successful, since our other applications were not! We waited as long as we could, hoping to secure additional funding, but then decided to proceed with what little we had by reducing the scope for 2007 and hybridizing our plans to include more self-funding such as paying programs, sales of photos of kids with snakes, etc.

And so, here we are, on the road in southeastern Manitoba, starting a bare bones tour of the regions of Manitoba and Saskatchewan where reptile species at risk are found! We're still booking venues out there, but our calender is starting to fill up nicely. We've got an interesting mix of programs coming up a provincial and national parks, public libraries, museums, nature centres, camps, community events, shopping malls, and more to come!