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“Our mission is to enhance the relationship between the University and its alumni and friends and promoted pride and commitment within the University Community.”
Raymond Saumure
Biologist protects wildlife in the Mojave desert
Story By Teresa Pitman / Photo from Las Vegas Springs Preserve
During Barack Obama’s campaign for president, he traveled to Las Vegas and posed for a widely-distributed photo in front of a parking lot covered with solar panels to highlight his interest in sustainable energy. That parking lot belongs to the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, where U of G grad Raymond Saumure works as a wildlife biologist.
“The solar panels generate about 75 per cent of the power used at the preserve,” says Saumure. With the hot and sunny weather Vegas is famous for, there’s plenty of sunlight to fuel the $250-million worth of museums on this 180-acre site in the middle of the city.
Saumure adds that several buildings are made of straw bales or rammed earth, and the landscape around them uses desert-adapted plants since water is an expensive commodity in the Mojave Desert. “We’re very conscious of water and energy conservation.”
Some of his concern for the environment is fed by his passion for the wildlife that populates the preserve. When Saumure joined the project, it was just a patch of desert under construction; he saw it through to completion and opening in June 2007. Run by the Las Vegas Valley Water District, the Springs Preserve is the birthplace of Las Vegas, a botanical garden, a zoo, a museum, and a place to hike and enjoy the natural environment. “As the wildlife biologist, I’m kind of a Jack of all trades,” says Saumure. “Sometimes I get a call because there’s a black widow spider or a scorpion in somebody’s office. Sometimes I’m out bringing in new animals from other locations, or supervising the restoration of a natural habitat. It’s always different.”
Spending his days with animals is exactly the kind of life Saumure dreamed of as a child. Surprisingly, given his current work with amphibians and reptiles of all kinds, he confesses to having been afraid of snakes as a young boy. “Then a neighbour put a snake in my hand and I realized they weren’t scary and got interested in them,” he recalls. The family lived in Gatineau, Que., and when Saumure caught a hatchling snapping turtle, but didn’t know how to care for it, his father arranged for him to volunteer with the National Museum of Canada in Ottawa so he could learn more about amphibians and reptiles.
After high school, he attended U of G but recalls “it was a difficult time for me. Guelph is a tough school in biology, and my grades weren’t good.”
They were good enough. He got involved in research and was proud to have four notes published in journals before he graduated with his undergraduate degree in 1993. And he qualified for grad school. He completed a master’s at McGill University, then worked at the Biodôme (a high-tech zoo) in Montreal, but was laid off after several years, just as he was starting his PhD. A door closed, but another door opened ─ in an unexpected place.
“A colleague had moved to the Vancouver Aquarium, and the aquarium had a contract to open Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, so he encouraged me to apply.” Saumure got the job.
Moving to Las Vegas was like “moving to Mars. Everything was different ─ the plants, the animals, the bird calls and, of course, the weather. They don’t consider it hot here until it’s over 110 F (43 C).”
Despite the heat, it was exciting to be in on the development of the $50-million Shark Reef. Designing the habitat and sourcing animals and fish to fill the exhibits was a big change from studying the lives of turtles in Ontario and Quebec, but Saumure enjoyed the adventure. “I was flying sea turtles in from Miami to Las Vegas and misting them every half hour on the flights to keep them hydrated. I also got to know a lot about sharks.”
His wife, Catherine (Van Velzer), B.Sc. ’91, is a marine biologist and was also hired by Shark Reef. (They met at U of G during a “killer chem” lab.)
When Shark Reef was up and running, Saumure returned to McGill to complete his PhD and shortly after graduation was contacted by the same colleague who’d recruited him for the Shark Reef project. Plans were underway for the Springs Preserve, and his colleague thought Saumure might want to work on the project. He did, and six years later, he still loves it.
In June, the journal Conservation Genetics published the results of a study initiated by Saumure that discovered the Vegas Valley Leopard Frog (Rana fisheri) listed as extinct since 1942 is not extinct at all, but is genetically identical to a species living 250 miles away in Arizona, along tributaries of the Colorado River.
That amphibian, the Chiricahua Leopard Frog (Rana chiricahuensis), is currently listed as being threatened.
Saumure became interested in the Vegas Valley frog because the Las Vegas Springs Preserve was once inhabited by the species. He worked with a team of scientists in several U.S. states to extract DNA from specimens of the “extinct” frog that had been stored since 1913 at the California Academy of Sciences. Arizona scientists were independently studying DNA from the threatened Chiricauha frog. Finding a genetic match means this team of conservation-minded biologists has been given a second chance to save the amphibian.
Saumure also works with the Southern Nevada Water Authority to monitor wildlife as Las Vegas continues to grow and grapple with drought and climate change. In his spare time, when not spending time with Catherine and their six-year-old son, he works on Herpetological Conservation and Biology, a peer-reviewed journal he co-founded.
“Established journals were not publishing much about amphibian and reptile natural history, and those that were wanted only research based on a hypothesis,” explains Saumure, who continues to conduct research and write papers. “In addition to accepting hypothetico-deductive research, we thought there was a need for publishing surveys, government agency reports, or descriptive studies, because that information is often critical for conservation work. We need to know what these poorly-studied animals are doing, where they live, where they go.” The journal, which is entirely electronic, is free to anyone with internet access and does not charge researchers to have their work published.
It’s been hugely successful and was recently featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education. “I think we’re ahead of the wave of online, open-access, scientific publications,” he says. The site had more than 42,000 unique visitors in 2010. Some articles have been downloaded more than 7,000 times; the average is between 2,000 and 3,000, and those are high numbers for articles about snakes, turtles and frogs.
It’s a long way from the woods and streams of Ontario and Quebec to the Mojave Desert, but Saumure’s deep interest in the turtles, tortoises, frogs ─ and snakes ─ that live in both habitats made the transition easier. There may be another great project getting underway sometime in the future, but with his work protecting and showcasing wildlife, plus his research and editing of the herpetological journal, he can readily say: “Right now, I’m happy where I am.”
