Watch: Wildlife managers catch scrub lizards for translocation

Wildlife managers are scrambling around in the bushes in an effort to help a struggling Florida lizard regain some of its lost territory. Kevin Enge, an associate research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, first surveyed Florida scrub lizards (Sceloporus woodi) in 1986. He returned some 30 years later in response to a petition to list the lizards under the federal Endangered Species Act in 2016-2017 to find that the lizards’ range along the Atlantic Coast had contracted by 48 miles. In response to this shrink in range, he has been working with colleagues to translocate 100 scrub lizards from healthy populations to two state parks to Palm Beach County’s Hypoluxo Scrub Natural Area earlier this year.