Project Abronia

My Introroduction to Abronia...

I have been interested in Abronia since I first saw a photo of one, back in 1988 in a reptile book I found at the Library in my University…I can’t even recall the title of the book now.  I didn’t know at the time what the lizard was and had never seen one before but I still remember well the photo (I believe it was Abronia oaxacae) and the caption below which identified the animal as an arboreal alligator lizard from Southern Mexico.  At that time, many of the 28 species now identified to Science still were not even described.  My next exposure to Abronia wouldn’t come until later in the early 90’s when I saw them again in person this time at a reptile Expo in San Diego.  Looking back, I wish I would have purchased those animals just to get a head start on working with them but I didn’t because I was going to School and didn’t have several hundred $$ in disposable income to spend on a couple of reptiles.  My first car cost less than those Abronia graminea I saw at the expo.  I eventually did see them again, this time at a University in the Puget Sound area of WA where a Herpetologist Professor was working with them and had already done numerous field studies with several species of the Genus.  He had a few captive breeding successes and actually gave me a baseline to work from in how to manage them in captivity.  I eventually bought a single male Graminea from a vendor on the internet with the hope of getting a female eventually.  That was in 1998.  I was offered a pair of graminea in 1999, which I bought but then had to return within one week (or so I thought) because the stock market crashed and I was nervous about my finances again.  Again I regret ever having returned those animals to the seller…because I wouldn’t see any more available until 2003.  That is when I finally acquired my first trio from the aforementioned Professor, of Abronia vasconcelosii, which were captive born from his group.  He had acquired a small group from a reptile hobbyist living in Canada and had kept them for about 3 years to that point, with some success in captive breeding and some challenges in rearing young. 

So in 2003 I embarked upon my journey of keeping Abronia in captivity, finally with a real chance at breeding success for the first time.  I have had success keeping and breeding that same trio of A.vasconcelosii ever since the second year I had them in my care, and have continued through today, building up a small colony of them with some success and some failures along the way.  Initially I was very unorganized, especially with my protocols around rearing the young, and I had several casualties, which was very frustrating.  I now have F3 babies this year from two females that were born in 2004 from my F1 female.  There appears to be breeding activity in the vasconcelosii enclosures again this year, but it is never an exact science with these animals.  Some years I get babies and some years I don’t…even after observing copulation.  I’m clearly still learning. 

I have now expanded my personal breeding colony to include Abronia taeniata and Abronia graminea.  I had the female taeniata give birth to a litter of 7 babies in 2006 which have all now reached maturity and are showing signs of breeding this year.  We didn’t lose a single neonate.  The graminea are a special project that I’ve been working on with my good friend in Mexico, Roberto Mora.

Roberto and I met several years ago when I was searching for someone in Mexico who might be keeping or working with Abronia.  It’s a long story but I believe fate brought us together as we have both been very fortunate to have each other as partners in our efforts to advance conservation projects for Abronia over these several years.  Together we now manage a small but efficient reptile breeding facility that was built and funded by each of us with our own personal savings accounts, and is fully licensed and permitted with SEMARNAT for captive reproduction of Abronia graminea, along with a number of other species of reptiles native to Mexico.  We have a group of 19 adult A.graminea in the breeding colony there in Veracruz.  Our primary goal in this project was to learn about keeping several species of Abronia from Mexico in captivity and if it were possible, we had hopes of breeding them over multiple generations.  We soon learned that there were other priorities that needed attention with Abronia like protecting habitat and buying land with our proceeds from the breeding project.  Roberto has lead a personal crusade to educate the locals about Abronia and their need for protection within their native habitats, wherever he goes.  He and his wife actually run a small, mobile environmental expo that is a sort of educational fair where they go out and meet with local communities to teach them about the native wildlife and there is always special emphasis on the reptiles…in particular on Abronia. 

We have worked step by step with the different wildlife Agencies in Mexico, including SEMARNAT and PROFEPA to advance our captive breeding projects and we are working on expanding to include other species of Abronia in the coming year.  We have also started working with a long time friend of Roberto’s who is an excellent Herpetologist and lives in the Southern state of Guerrero, Mexico to get a few of the species there under way.   His name is Rafael Alguilar, and we are working closley with him to advance captive breeding studies, as well as field surveys and collaborative habitat protection in the regions around Guerrero.  We are in early stages but making progress to work with Abronia martindecampoi and Abronia deppei, among other species in that region of Mexico.  Rafael is a very respected Herpetologist and truly a World-class authority on the natural history aspects of Abronia in their native habitat.  We are very excited to be collaborating with him on these projects.  You can read more about this effort and see some photos of Rafa, Roberto and the facilities in Chilpancingo on the forum at this link:

  http://www.projectabronia.com/distribution/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=110

We have ongoing plans to buy land in each of these areas to preserve for Abronia, and have already used the proceeds from our captive breeding projects to buy 10 acres in Veracruz and another 10 acres in Campeche (for Ctenosaura alfredschmidti…not Abronia but another rare lizard that is in need of protection and active conservation efforts).

In cooperation with SEMARNAT and PROFEPA, we are allowed to export a small number of captive bred offspring from our breeding project each year.  I can’t emphasize enough, how difficult and cumbersome the process has been for getting legally exported animals out of Mexico…from the paperwork that is required to the permitting process, inspections, and managing live lizards through customs and ill-prepared brokers, spending thousands of dollars in the process.  It is seriously one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, and I know Roberto would agree.  BUT…we have all the appreciation and respect in the World for the some of the good people in SEMARNAT who we have worked with us and have been supportive throughout the process educating us along the way to navigate the systems in place.  It is actually getting easier with experience, and I do have an appreciation for why the regulations are in place.  They serve their purpose and are important.