Cameron Siler was recently featured in a US Fish and Wildlife News article entitled “The Sound of Silence” about the rampant illegal trafficking of Philippine monitor lizards for the US pet trade (pgs. 18–21). The publication also features other articles about herpetological trafficking, in groups such as poison frogs and turtles. Download the full Winter 2021 news release. View or subscribe to...

Habitat destruction is a problem for all species, but it is especially detrimental to conservation efforts of large vertebrates with highly specialized habitats. Large-bodied sailfin lizards, which require lowland, costal and mangrove forests, have seen their suitable habitats shrink, leaving them with little area to live. In the past 75 years, degradation of the coastal forests and mangroves has lead to a...

Despite rampant coastal development throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific, studies of conservation genetics and ecology of vulnerable, coastal species are rare. Large bodied vertebrates with highly specialized habitat requirements may be at particular risk of extinction due to habitat degradation and fragmentation, especially if these habitats are naturally patchily distributed, marginal, otherwise geographically limited, or associated in space with high human...

We provide a phylogenetic and population genetic evaluation of the illegal pet and bush meat trade of monitor lizards in the Philippines. We use a molecular dataset assembled from vouchered samples with known localities throughout the country, as a reference for statistical phylogenetic, population genetic, and DNA barcoding analyses of genetic material obtained during a three year survey of the Manila pet...