Center For Biological Diversity Joins Teen, Independent Scientists to Save Vanishing Lizard
From the Center for Biological Diversity:
Fifteen-year-old Kade Wilson recently learned that a shopping center was planned for a field behind his Oklahoma home where he liked to watch Texas horned lizards (casually known as “horny toads”). With the lizards already listed as “threatened” under the Texas Endangered Species Act – and laws against killing them in both Texas and Oklahoma – Kade knew the shopping center meant trouble for the reptiles.
So he joined a petition by the Center and two independent scientists, filed last Friday, to protect Texas horned lizards under Oklahoma’s state Endangered Species Act. The lizard may be formidable looking, with numerous horns on its head – but this once-common creature has now nearly disappeared due to habitat destruction, pesticides and introduced fire ants.
“I’m a 15-year-old and I might not be a scientist or a biologist,” said Kade, “but I know that these horny toads are just trying to share the Earth with us, and we’re taking it away from them.”
Kade Wilson…….good for you!
Here’s a link to a longer story about the Texas horned lizard (or, as Kade Wilson and I call it, “horny toad”) and the teenager who is doing something about saving a species.