Nev. studies changes to reptile collection rules
By Ben Botkin, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Commercial collectors have plucked nearly half a million reptiles off the Nevada desert landscape in the last three decades.
There have been more than 420,000 collections since figures began being kept in 1986. The figure alarms conservationists and state wildlife officials and underscores Nevada’s uniqueness in the reptile world.
In the Silver State, commercial reptile collectors are not limited on how many or when they can take or when they can gather the scaly creatures, which eventually become someone’s pet desert iguana, chuckwalla or desert horned lizard.
