A Brief History

The Cornell Herpetological Society was founded in January 1993 by undergraduate students Kevin Zippel, Matt Meyer, and Starfinder Stanley under the guidance of former faculty advisor Professor F. Harvey Pough. Its mission was, and still is, to promote the understanding of reptiles and amphibians. After Dr. Pough left Cornell University, later that year, Professor Kraig Adler assumed the role of faculty advisor to the club.

Our Purpose

The goal of the Cornell Herpetological Society is to provide a forum for the informal exchange of herpetological knowledge and information, including but not limited to natural history, ecology, and conservation efforts. One manner in which we accomplish this goal is through the presentations of guest speakers at scheduled CHS meetings. The Society serves as a tool to advance herpetological knowledge and cultivate these interests among the community by acting as an educational vehicle to the community at large. The CHS seeks always to combat the prejudices and misconceptions that exist about reptiles and amphibians and tries to promote interest in their study. The Society supports and encourages conservation efforts that act to ensure the continued survival of these animals in the wild.

Educational Programs

In addition to presentations and speeches given at the meetings, the Cornell Herpetological Society also conducts educational programs for the Cornell community and the Ithaca public. These programs range from workshops for studetns of the Veterinary College on the proper care of captive reptiles and amphibians to presentations for middle school children on the natural history of reptiles and amphibians. The nature and content of the presentations vary for different groups, but in all cases we seek to dispel common myths and impart a new understanding of reptiles and amphibians in our audiences. For more information on the educational programs, or to have the Cornell Herpetological Society present an educational program to your group, please contact our Education Coordinator, Nicholas Sly.

Field Trips

Another of our major activities are the field trips that we organize. These trips fall into two categories: zoo/museum trips and local survey trips. The zoo/museum trips occur every fall semester in which we travel to a major zoo or research museum, where we have the opportunity to see the animals in the institutions collections, get behind the scenes tours, and speak with the curators of the collections. From these trips, we learn how the major organizations are run and the different ways in which these institutions serve the general public as well as the academic and zoological community. Survey trips generally occur once every semester, and are performed with the Finger Lakes Land Trust, an organization dedicated to preserving natural areas in the Finger Lakes region of New York. With Betsy Darlington, a member of the Finger Lakes Land Trusts Board of Directors, we survey and record the herpetofauna of different FLLT properties. This benefits the FLLT by providing them with information that they can use to explain the value of their stewardship, and it allows the members of the CHS to get into the field looking for herps in a systematic way.

If you are interested in becoming a member of the Cornell Herpetological Society, you can email one of the CHS officers, or sign up at the next scheduled meeting.