Biology student Sarah Goymer, 22, monitors critically endangered Goniurosaurus geckos native to Vietnam at La Sierra University in Riverside on Friday, Aug. 18, 2023. La Sierra is collaborating with the Cologne Zoological Garden in Germany on a breeding program aimed at safeguarding five tiger gecko species from extinction. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
A team of La Sierra University biologists drove to LAX on Thursday, Aug. 17, to pick up guests from Germany — 52 Vietnamese tiger geckos.
The geckos were sent from the Cologne Zoological Garden, which chose La Sierra as a second location for an “ark” conservation breeding program.
“These animals are so critically endangered, it’s safe to have two separate breeding colonies, in case something happens to the Cologne Zoo,” Lee Grismer, a La Sierra biology professor, said Thursday as the newly arrived geckos were moved, one by one, from shipping containers to tanks.
Grismer said the program was first discussed with Thomas Ziegler, aquarium curator and nature conservation project coordinator at the Cologne Zoo, several years ago, before the coronavirus pandemic delayed plans for about three years.
The private, Seventh-day Adventist, university in Riverside was chosen because of Grismer’s expertise.
He’s a leading expert in the world of gecko research, and said that, by one count, he has discovered about 270 new vertebrate species — but he added: “I don’t keep track of that stuff.”
The breeding program is being led by Sarah Goymer, 22, a biology major from Paradise, California. She’ll be aided by two other undergraduates, Alexandria Falvo and Jeren Gregory, a La Sierra news release states.
Goymer said she started studying cultural anthropology, but then took a biology class with Jesse Grismer, an assistant biology professor and Lee Grismer’s son.
“I realized that my desire to preserve what we have naturally was greater than studying people,” Goymer said.
She spent Thanksgiving break last year in Germany, learning to care for the geckos. By then, she’d also worked in the Grismers’ lab and gone on herpetological expeditions, the La Sierra release states.
“They’re so good at what they do,” Grismer said, referring to Goymer and Amanda Kaatz, a member of the lab.
“I’m going to sleep well at night, knowing that Sarah’s got it.”
Getting the geckos into the U.S. involved a long trail of paperwork.
“I felt like I was a spider in the center of a web, trying to connect everybody in communication,” Goymer said.
During the process, she connected with a customs broker, wildlife officials and zoos in the U.S. with experience importing animals, in addition to the team in Germany.
The geckos will wait out a six-week quarantine. Meanwhile, the biologists will travel to Vietnam next week to further research the geckos’ natural habitat.
“It’ll inform us a lot better on how to take care of these things in captivity,” Grismer said.
Habitat loss and the commercial pet trade are both threats to the survival of animals such as the five tiger gecko species sent to La Sierra.
Grismer recalled a paper he published about 1999 about two new gecko species that included information about their habitats’ locations, which he said must be done when describing new species.
“Within six months, no one could find them anymore,” he said.
He said that they petitioned to change that standard for particular species, so that “commercial collectors can’t use our papers as a roadmap.”
Once a species’ population falls below a certain threshold, it can’t recover, a phenomenon Grismer called the “extinction vortex.”
He said the biologists weren’t sure if the tiger geckos had reached that point or not, but fortunately, “there are still little pockets where they’re quite common.”
He said the team will travel to some of those locations on its trip, and when it has enough geckos, they’ll be released back into the original locations, now that some have protections.
Grismer estimates that the program will first release captive-bred geckos in 2025. Their breeding season isn’t until next year, he said, and they’ll raise the geckos until they’re juveniles, at which point, “we’ll probably take half of those back and let them go,” keeping the rest to continue the breeding program.
“The question that a lot of people ask is, ‘Big deal — what if these things go extinct? How is that going to affect us?’” Grismer said.
“Fact of the matter is, it probably isn’t,” he said. “These things can blink out of existence, and it isn’t going to affect humanity. The problem is, if we knowingly let a species go extinct, then where do we draw the line?”
“This is why my lab does what it does.”
