![Joe McLeod, Gambelia](https://stewartecology.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/DSC_4675_crop-300x281.jpg)
Master lizard-catcher Joe McLeod catches a blunt-nosed leopard lizard at its burrow entrance. Photo by Eliot Schoenig.
As part of research to support the conservation of blunt-nosed leopard lizards, starting in 2014, we resumed a capture-mark-recapture study on the Elkhorn Plain. The study plots were worked previously for 17 years by Dave Germano and ESRP.
One of the effects of drought we’ve found—in the mark-recapture data and in geographically extensive surveys—is that when precipitation levels are below a threshold the lizards fail to reproduce. That’s what we found in 2014 on the Elkhorn Plain: drought caused complete reproductive failure. Read more about the recruitment patterns we found here.
![Gambelia sila](https://stewartecology.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/DSC_4698-1024x685.jpg)
Leopard lizard under an Ephedra shrub. Photo by Elliot Schoenig.