DOI: 10.5061/dryad.jh9w0vtmc
title: Interactions between reptiles and people: A perspective from wildlife rehabilitation records

description: As urbanisation expands globally, human–wildlife interactions will
 inevitably increase. Here, we analysed 10 years of wildlife rehabilitation
 records of squamate (snake and lizard) reptiles (n = 37,075) from the
 Greater Sydney region, New South Wales, Australia to explore their value
 to address management and conservation issues. Rescues were highly
 non-random regarding taxonomic focus, spatial occurrences and temporal
 trends due to the combined influence of (a) reptile phenology and
 behaviour, and (b) human perceptions of reptiles. Seasonal peaks in
 rescues reflect reptile, and to a lesser extent, human activity. Spatial
 patterns of rescues were informative about distributions and presence of
 easily identified taxa but were primarily driven by human presence. Larger
 squamate species were rescued more frequently, potentially reflecting a
 perception of greater danger or rescue priority. While uncommon species
 were often misidentified, accurate reports of these taxa may guide
 targeted surveys. The value of these data for conservation and management
 could be enhanced by emphasising reptile identification training of
 volunteers and use of applications for informed species identification.
 Wildlife rehabilitation data offer a cost-effective means of quantifying
 thousands of human–reptile interactions, identifying foci (in both time
 and space) of human–wildlife conflict, such as snakebite risk and
 roadkill-related reptile mortality.
description: The data associated with this manuscript are reptile
 rehabilitation records collected by 17 wildlife rehabilitation providers
 opperating in Greater Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Data were
 provided to Prof. Rick Shine and Dr. Chris Jolly by NSW National Parks and
 Wildlife Service via a research agreement provided by the NSW Department
 of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. The orginal data
 were over 100,000 records collected in state of NSW between 2011–2021. We
 filtered these data for only recorded in the Greater Sydney region. We
 then filtered them for only records of terrestrial squamate records
 identified to species-level. We also filtered out species not local to the
 region (either misidentification or escaped pets). 
description: # Interactions between reptiles and people: A perspective from wildlife
 rehabilitation records
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jh9w0vtmc](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jh9w0vtmc) ## Description of the data and file structure These data are derived from reptile rehabilitation records collected by wildlife rehabilitation providers operating in Greater Sydney, NSW, Australia. Records for the Greater Sydney region were extracted from a larger NSW-wide dataset assembled by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, covering a period from 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2021. From a total of 60,398 callout records, data were filtered to remove records with incomplete information (e.g., no species name). We removed marine and non-squamate reptiles (e.g., sea turtles, freshwater turtles, and crocodiles). We also removed records for species not found in the Greater Sydney region. Taxa were classified to species level. Following this data filtering, we retained 37,075 records. As a measure of body size for our analyses, we used information on snout-vent lengths (SVL) for species from Shine 1992 and Wilson and Swan 2021. ### Files and variables #### File: Payne\_et\_al\_fig\_3\_RSOS.csv **Description:** Frequency distributions for mean body sizes (snout-vent lengths, = SVLs) of lizard species (a) found naturally within the Greater Sydney region [“Greater Sydney species”, black bars], (b) represented in the rescue dataset (i.e., recorded at least once; “NPWS rescues”, dark grey bars), and (c) belonging to the 10 most commonly rescued species [“Most commonly rescued (NPWS)”, light grey bars]. ##### Variables * SVL: Snout–vent length in mm * Source: grouping the data were derived from (species native to Greater Sydney, species rescued by NPWS and the 10 most commonly rescued species) * Percentage: of records composed of this size class by source #### File: Payne\_et\_al\_fig\_2\_RSOS.csv **Description:** Full dataset of squamate rescue records following filtering as described in methods. Cells where data are unavailable are scored as "null". ##### Variables * rescue_organisation: Wildlife rehabilitation provider * rescue_date: Date of rescue * rescue_month: Month of rescue * rescue_month_num: Month of rescue (number) * snake_vs_lizard: Whether the record was a snake or lizard * common_name: Species common name * scientific_name: Species scientific name * rescue_suburb: Suburb of rescue * rescue_postcode: postcode of rescue * rescue_lga: local government area (LGA) of rescue * syd_vs_other: Whether the species naturally occurs in Sydney or not * rescue_lat: latitude of rescue  * rescue_long: longitude of rescue * rescue_reason: reason for rescue * animal_fate: fate of rescued animal * family: family of rescued species #### File: Payne\_et\_al\_fig\_4\_RSOS.csv **Description:** Frequency distributions for mean body sizes (snout-vent lengths, = SVLs) of snake species (a) found naturally within the Greater Sydney region [“Greater Sydney species”, black bars], (b) represented in the rescue dataset (i.e., recorded at least once; “NPWS rescues”, dark grey bars), and (c) belonging to the 10 most commonly rescued species [“Most commonly rescued (NPWS)”, light grey bars]. ##### Variables * SVL: Snout–vent length in mm * Source: grouping the data were derived from (species native to Greater Sydney, species rescued by NPWS and the 10 most commonly rescued species) * Percentage: of records composed of this size class by source #### File: Payne\_et\_al\_fig\_5\_RSOS.csv **Description:** A comparison between the numbers of reptiles rescues by wildlife rehabilitation providers in Greater Sydney between 1989–98 (Shine and Koenig 2001) and number of those species in the present study. * Type: Whether the species is a lizard or a snake * Species: Species of squamate * Shine_Koenig_2001: Count of species rescue records between 1989–98 (Shine and Koenig 2001) * Preset_study: Count of species rescue records between 2011–2021 (present study) #### File: Payne\_et\_al\_fig\_6\_RSOS.csv **Description:** Histogram showing (a) the total number of rescues of snakes and lizards per month between 2011 and 2021; and (b) mean maximum daily air temperatures per month over the same period, as taken from a Bureau of Meteorology weather station in Parramatta, close to the centre of the area from which reptile-rescue records were obtained. ##### Variables * Month: Month of the year * Count: Number of rescues (by month) * Temp: Average temperature in celcius (by month) * SE: Standard error around monthly average temperature #### File: Payne\_et\_al\_lizard\_size\_RSOS.csv **Description:** Data used in Spearman’s rank correlation assessing the relationship between maximum SVL for the species of lizards that were rescued and the number of times they were rescued. ##### Variables * Scientific name: lizard species scientific name * SVL_mm: maximum snout-vent length (mm) * Count: number of rescues #### File: Payne\_et\_al\_snake\_size\_RSOS.csv **Description:** Data used in Spearman’s rank correlation assessing the relationship between maximum SVL for the species of snakes  that were rescued and the number of times they were rescued. ##### Variables * Scientific name: lnake species scientific name * SVL_mm: maximum snout-vent length (mm) * Count: number of rescues ## Code/software Data is available as .csv  No software required to view it.