The Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners voted this summer to ban the commercial collection of reptiles.
It was a welcome surprise to many wildlife advocates, as Nevada had been one of the last states to allow the unlimited collection of reptiles from its vast desert landscape.
Wildlife advocates say snakes, lizards and other desert creatures suffered because of it.
Jim Moore is a desert ecologist with the Nature Conservancy. He said it's not just the population of reptiles that have suffered under the old rules but other animals as well.
“Their unlimited collections was starting to have an effect not only the population of reptiles that were being collected but also on those things that rely on reptiles,” he said.
In particular, birds like roadrunners rely heavily on lizards and snakes as food sources. As those numbers started to dwindle, so did the roadrunner population.
Conservationists have been trying for close to 30 years to get a ban in place. More than two decades ago, the Nevada Supreme Cour truled that unlimited collection was not allowed, but the Wildlife Commission went against that ruling.
Ccientists, conservationists, and lizard enthusiasts, however, weren't going to give up.
“It was very difficult to try to get a coalition of like-minded people to see that reptiles had any value whatsoever,” he said.
The problem, Moore explained, is that Nevada became the hole in the protection network around the Southwest. If someone was caught with a lizards or snakes, they could claim they collected them in Nevada on a legal permit -- and that resonated globally with the popularity of internet sales.
With that loophole now closed, Moore hopes the animals will be better protected.
“If they’re all collected and sold overseas, then there won’t be anything for our kids and grandkids to see out in the wild,” Moore said.
So the rules are in place, now comes the hard part: enforcement.
Moore said while agents of the Dept. of Wildlife, Forest Service, Park Service and Bureau of Land Management can now all look for people taking reptiles from Nevada's public lands, they all have millions of acres to patrol.
"It is a very difficult thing to enforce, even in the best of circumstances,” he said.
Jim Moore, desert ecologist, The Nature Conservancy