STAR PHOENIX (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) Lowly lizard numbers lacking in Saskatchewan (Les MacPherson)
Like few other jurisdictions in the world, Saskatchewan is blessed with an abundance of wildlife. We have bears and coyotes and moose and eagles and wolves and cougars and two kinds of deer and on and on. Just the other day near Lake Diefenbaker I came almost nose to nose with an antelope. He was blinded by lust, I think. Only on close inspection did he realize we could never be more than just friends.
Wildlife is spilling into the cities. Our neighbourhood, for example, is teeming with rabbits. These are not the little bunny-type rabbits you see in toilet paper commercials. These are big jack rabbits. If it weren't for their distinctively huge ears, you might think they were small kangaroos. We counted five the other day, all hopping about in just one vacant field. It looked like Australia.
The rural rabbit population is controlled by predators. In the city, however, there are no predators large enough to threaten a big jack rabbit. Even marauding cats are afraid of them. Neighbourhood gardeners will soon be wondering why their lettuce isn't coming up.
Saskatchewan wildlife is not only abundant but diverse. Mammals, we've got. Fish and fowl, we've got. The one thing we're short of, really, is lizards. Our province is almost entirely devoid of lizards. We are all but lizardless. We find ourselves in a state of near-lizardlessness.
Too bad. Lizards are fascinating, all the more so because we never see them around here. How exotic seem the tales told by friends returning from tropical vacations, where lizards routinely scamper up and down the hotel walls. You won't see that in any hotel room in this province. Not unless you've been drinking tequila.
I once read a delightful account of a lizard-watching couple somewhere in South America. Like many couples, they sat down every evening to watch TV. What they always ended up watching instead, however, was a small, resident gecko on their living room window. Every evening, around the same time, this gecko would catch and reel in with its long, sticky tongue a large moth. Back-lit by the porch light, the gecko was translucent, revealing within its gut the devoured moth's distinctive silhouette. If we had something like that here, I'd cancel my cable TV.
Alas, there are no geckos in Saskatchewan. Neither are there skinks, whiptails or iguanas in the province.
British Columbia at least has skinks. We used to catch them in the woodpile at my cousin's place at Salmon Arm. These were skinny little lizards, fast as lightning. If you did manage to grab one, it would often escape by shedding its tail, which wriggled enticingly while the dismembered lizard darted for cover. A skink that loses its tail this way soon grows a new one, so Paul McCartney and Brigitte Bardot did not feel the need to intervene.
How sad that this kind of fun with lizards is unknown in Saskatchewan. You can spend a lifetime in this province and never see a lizard.
This is confirmed by the authoritative Peterson's Field Guide to Western Reptile and Amphibians. It identifies no fewer than 58 species of lizards in western North America. Of these 58 species, a grand total of one has been observed in Saskatchewan. This would be the short-horned lizard, the range of which extends, just barely, into southern Saskatchewan. That might explain why I've never seen a short-horned lizard or met anyone who has. sasquatches are sighted more often.
Still, if you look in the right places, you might see a short-horned lizard. This according to Susan Robinson, the designated lizard expert at Grasslands National Park. The short-horned lizard, she says, is uncommon, small and wonderfully camouflaged. Confronted by a threat, it remains motionless and all but invisible.
"They're really difficult to see," says Robertson. "You're lucky if you see one."
What you'd see, if you were lucky, is a small, squat, splotchy brown lizard about the size of a big toad, but festooned with pointy, knobbly scales. It looks like a miniature monster.
Robertson, who conducts park tours, sees one of these lizards rarely enough that each time is a thrill. Usually, they're in low scrub or broken shale, where they live on insects. Once seen, a short-horned lizard is easily approached. To disturb them, however, is illegal. The short-horned lizard is protected as a "special concern species." That's just one step from endangered. It was to protect such as the short-horned lizard that Grasslands park was created.
A worthier project than protecting the short-horned lizard, I cannot imagine. After all, this is Saskatchewan's provincial lizard. By default.
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