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TLC’s New Mascot Showcases the Need for Conservation in Texas

Andrew G. Gluesenkamp

QUICK NOTE FROM THE TLC STAFF: We are excited to announce that the Texas Horned Lizard is officially TLC’s new mascot! After conducting a week-long social media contest, the Texas Horned Lizard won by a narrow margin of just 11 votes over the Barred Owl. This Texas icon is the newest member of the TLC family and we couldn’t be happier. 

We have asked our friend over at the San Antonio Zoo, Conservation Director Andrew G. Gluesenkamp, who leads the zoo’s Texas Horned Lizard Reintroduction Project, to share with us why this is the perfect animal to represent our organization.

Congratulations to Texas Land Conservancy for selecting the Texas horned lizard as their new mascot! I can’t imagine a better species to represent this organization. The Texas horned lizard is an iconic and charismatic symbol, and many Texans have fond memories of this once-abundant species. Unfortunately, the lizard has declined or become extirpated from much of its former range in recent decades. As a result, many younger Texans have never seen one in the wild and are familiar with the species only from images and stories from old-timers. There is no single smoking gun to explain the decline and disappearance of the Texas horned lizard. A common refrain is that the red imported fire ant is to blame since lizard populations began to decline in many areas around the same time as the ant made its appearance. However, habitat loss, fragmentation, and non-native invasive plants are also culpable to varying degrees in different places.

While the threats listed above remain serious challenges, changes in land management practices have resulted in improved conditions for the lizard across large tracts of (primarily private) land. Land management practices aimed at restoration and increasing biodiversity are now commonplace and management for game species (i.e. quail) may benefit the lizard as well.  Unfortunately, unlike their favored prey (harvester ants), horned lizards are poor dispersers and they are unlikely to colonize an area of suitable habitat unless it is adjacent to occupied habitat.

That’s where reintroduction efforts come into play.

The San Antonio Zoo Department of Conservation and Research is embarking on an ambitious plan to reintroduce the Texas horned lizard to areas within its historic range. After decades of research and conservation efforts by numerous conservation partners (including TPWD, TCU, Fort Worth Zoo, and Dallas Zoo), we now have sufficient ecological and genetic information about the species, and management and monitoring methods to aid in small-scale reintroductions. Successful reintroduction will require site assessment, pre- and post- release management and monitoring, and release of large numbers of lizards. A key component is captive production of lizards rather than translocation of lizards from one population to another. This will require development of red harvester ant husbandry techniques, maintenance of a breeding colony of horned lizards, as well as genetic and pathogen screening of breeders and offspring.

Initial steps in our reintroduction program include development of ant and lizard colonies and review and management of candidate release sites. We anticipate conducting our first soft release of lizards in 2018 and will expand the scale of this effort as additional funding becomes available. This project will continue indefinitely and we hope to expand to meet landowner demand as we develop necessary techniques and protocols.  At a minimum, we hope to develop a replicable program for horned lizard reintroduction that can be shared with others wishing to engage in horned lizard management and conservation.

Conservation organizations such as TLC are important partners in developing relationships with landowners and raising awareness of conservation challenges and opportunities.  With any luck this species will serve not only as a reminder of what we have lost but also as an example of what we can accomplish.

If you have any questions related to the San Antonio Zoo Texas Horned Lizard Reintroduction Project, feel free to reach out!

Andrew G. Gluesenkamp, PhD
Director of Conservation, Department of Conservation and Research
San Antonio Zoo
3903 N. St. Mary’s Street
San Antonio, TX 78212
andy.gluesenkamp@sazoo.org

Click here for more info about Andrew G. Gluesenkamp, PhD
About the Author, Andrew G. Gluesenkamp, PhD
Andy has had a lifelong fascination with nature.  He attended the University of California at Davis where he participated in surveys of rare and threatened amphibians in the San Joaquin Valley, worked as curatorial assistant in the Zoology Museum, and conducted independent fieldwork on reptiles and amphibians in Belize and Ecuador.  He graduated with a BS in Zoology in 1993.  He entered the graduate program in Zoology at the University of Texas in 1994 where he studied a wide range of topics relating to reptiles and amphibians and worked in various museum collections.  During this time, he discovered his love of caving and biospeleology.  His dissertation work focused on the relationship between development and morphology in bufonid frogs using a phylogenetic approach.  He graduated with a Ph.D. in Zoology in 2001.  He conducted postdoctoral research as a Parsons Fellow at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History before returning to Texas to work as a karst specialist and cave biologist.  He worked as a biological consultant specializing in karst issues, a university lecturer, and as skeletal preparator for the Texas Memorial Museum.  He also conducted numerous grant-funded projects on rare and endangered salamanders in central Texas as well as research on karst organisms in California, Texas, Cuba, and Mexico before becoming the State Herpetologist for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (a position he held for seven years).  He has served as an officer of the Texas Speleological Survey and Texas Herpetological Society and remains active in both organizations.  Andy came to work as Director of Conservation in the San Antonio Zoo Department of Conservation and Research in September 2016.  Here, he continues his research on central Texas groundwater salamanders and other projects focusing primarily on rare and threatened fish, reptiles, and amphibians.  He is actively involved in various projects in Texas and Mexico.  He is a member of the Chinese Cave Fish Working Group and leads the San Antonio Zoo Texas Horned Lizard Reintroduction Project in addition to numerous collaborative research projects, both in Texas and abroad.  
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