Monitor Care & Natural History; Zoo & Pet Experiences

[Little Wise Owl]

Originally Posted by bronxzoofrank

While I applaud everyone's enthusiasm, I simply do not have the time to contact colleagues and do the follow-up research that would be required to properly respond to some of the comments, nor to wade through the barbs, veiled insults and "pet trade vs zoo" comparisons that are becoming increasingly frequent. I'm going to ask the moderators to remove the article/thread. Good luck to all, Frank

That's a shame. This thread was very informative and interesting to read.

[infernalis]

Originally Posted by bronxzoofrank

While I applaud everyone's enthusiasm, I simply do not have the time to contact colleagues and do the follow-up research that would be required to properly respond to some of the comments, nor to wade through the barbs, veiled insults and "pet trade vs zoo" comparisons that are becoming increasingly frequent. I'm going to ask the moderators to remove the article/thread. Good luck to all, Frank

We do not remove threads here Frank.

I am the lead administrator of the forum, and I do not make it a practice to remove threads just because the author disagrees with replies.

It clearly states in the forum contract that each member agrees to upon registration that all content becomes the property of ssnakess.com immediately after posting.

Thanks for your understanding.

[Sam Sweet]

"I'm going to ask the moderators to remove the article/thread. Good luck to all, Frank"

Do you have any idea what that makes you look like? You have been giving antiquated advice, and nothing but excuses as to why you are so far behind. Adding that you haven't time to do follow-up research cements it.

That's exactly what the forum needs -- remove the evidence that you're a clown, and let captives continue to suffer because of your ego.

A forum worth the name would thank the other respondents for exposing the inadequacy of your advice.

Sam Sweet
Professor, UC Santa Barbara

[crocdoc]

Proper keeping is about making adjustments as more is learned about the care of our charges.

I'm going to ask this question again: Why the emotional attachment to basking temperatures which have been shown, time and time again, to be inadequate?

I no longer question that the attachment is emotional, for in the face of comments from many people (and, if you were to do some research of your own outside of this forum, you'd get the same answer over and over) you insist on sticking with superseded, antiquated husbandry techniques.

Removing this thread wouldn't have removed your care sheet from the internet, anyway, and that is the main issue here. We (all of us) have a responsibility to ensure that new keepers are given the correct advice. Your are not holding your end of the bargain in that regard. As I said, I don't care if you want to stick to antiquated husbandry techniques, but presenting them as advice to others is just downright wrong.

[Little Wise Owl]

Someone on here should do a temporary experiment. Keep one monitor of the same species, age and body condition at recommended lower zoo temperatures, and one at the higher newly recommended one and regularly document the outcomes i.e. feeding responses, physical activity, bowel movements, water intake (or lack thereof), body condition, etc.

[infernalis]

Originally Posted by Little Wise Owl

Someone on here should do a temporary experiment. Keep one monitor of the same species, age and body condition at recommended lower zoo temperatures, and one at the higher newly recommended one and regularly document the outcomes i.e. feeding responses, physical activity, bowel movements, water intake (or lack thereof), body condition, etc.

I already did that, Chomper died from it.

The behavioral differences were night and day as well.

In both cases, I started with a newly hatched Varanus Exanthematicus in perfect health at the onset.

Chomper became lethargic, overweight and developed gout and then died in excruciating pain.

Littlefoot & Cera are being kept at temperatures that match the weather report data from the Togo, Ghana weather station and they eat twice as much food, yet weigh half as much, activity levels are off the charts.

I could never in good conscience recommend another monitor lizard be kept in sub par conditions, as the outcome is always the same.. a dead lizard.

[Vegasarah]

Originally Posted by Little Wise Owl

Someone on here should do a temporary experiment. Keep one monitor of the same species, age and body condition at recommended lower zoo temperatures, and one at the higher newly recommended one and regularly document the outcomes i.e. feeding responses, physical activity, bowel movements, water intake (or lack thereof), body condition, etc.

A university should take up this task. It wouldn't be terribly expensive, just very time intensive. I wonder if anything like this is already in the works. I guess that the experiment wouldn't really been done until the one(s) kept in lower temperatures died. Although I am guessing things like gout would show up in blood work.

A private keeper could do the same, but their findings would probably not be held to the same standards. Those findings could easily be lied about, etc. Though photo evidence and careful record keeping would be enough for a private keeper such as myself, I'm sure a zoo would quickly dismiss it.

Hopefully more studies are done in the near future.

[infernalis]

Originally Posted by Vegasarah

A university should take up this task. It wouldn't be terribly expensive, just very time intensive. I wonder if anything like this is already in the works. I guess that the experiment wouldn't really been done until the one(s) kept in lower temperatures died. Although I am guessing things like gout would show up in blood work.

A private keeper could do the same, but their findings would probably not be held to the same standards. Those findings could easily be lied about, etc. Though photo evidence and careful record keeping would be enough for a private keeper such as myself, I'm sure a zoo would quickly dismiss it.

Hopefully more studies are done in the near future.

Peer review fixes that Sarah.

The hardest photo I have ever had to take...



I hope I never have to witness this misery again as long as I live.

[crocdoc]

The 'experiment' has been done, in zoos and private collections around the world, for many years, now. It's simply a matter of matching conditions with end results.

[Vegasarah]

You've made a believer out of me, Wayne. But even your story is not enough to sway the decisions that zoos are making, clearly. It's a sad state, and it makes me wonder how many other zoos are doing the wrong thing. I guess that I just can't see what is so taxing about installing some extra flood lights at a zoo... it kind of boggles my mind to be honest. Of course, I don't know much about the way that zoos are run. I wonder if there would be a good way of contacting local zoos and presenting a great packet of research on more proper care. I could see a 'print pack' that could be set up here or on your site that we could distribute to mostly zoos, but also private keepers.

[bodiddleyitis]

Originally Posted by crocdoc

The 'experiment' has been done, in zoos and private collections around the world, for many years, now. It's simply a matter of matching conditions with end results.

Indeed it has, and this is the first "serious" opposition to the ideas that I have heard since the very early 21st Century. In the mid 1990s the husbandry techniques that Frank recommends were de rigueur, today they are obsolete, or so I hoped. I wonder what thermal gradients monitor lizards at the Bronx Zoo are provided with today?

[varanus_mad]

Originally Posted by Little Wise Owl

Someone on here should do a temporary experiment. Keep one monitor of the same species, age and body condition at recommended lower zoo temperatures, and one at the higher newly recommended one and regularly document the outcomes i.e. feeding responses, physical activity, bowel movements, water intake (or lack thereof), body condition, etc.

its been done and is still being done I killed my first bosc that way.

After that ive been trying to make a difference instead i find myself dispairing after seeing case after case of people repeating the same mistakes

[Robyn@SYR]

Plenty of smart and successful lizard keepers in this thread. And I am certainly a believer in proper (high) basking temps, temp gradients and moisture gradients with a good substrate, but some of you guys are lacking in the tact department : )

Frank seems enthusiastic about his animals, and his job. That's great to see. But I think you guys are blowing a chance to have a productive discussion with him. He was set on the defensive within moments of his first post.

For most of the posters in the thread, it should come as no surprise that zoo folks keep their monitors differently than most private monitor breeders.

The same goes for most veterinarians. Take a sick monitor to a vet and most of the time the "remedy" is going to be in the direction of low basking temps and some fancy pants light bulb. Ugh.

Tens of thousands of bearded dragons die each year from simple ignorance of lizard husbandry and needs, and instead a die hard adherence to some incredibly out of date books and "accepted" setups.

I have long wondered about the right path to bringing zoo keepers AND vets up to speed on current lizard husbandry. There is a real need there, an opportunity.

And I don't know the solution to it. But as an outside observer, you guys have been unnecessarily harsh on Frank when he reached out to you first.

You know, the whole honey vs. vinegar thing : )

Frank is sure to meet and talk with other zoo keepers. The Bronx Zoo is a very respected facility in the AZA community. At this point, he is likely to say "I tried to share some info on one of those dumb forums, and instead I got called an idiot by a bunch of know-it-alls".

And their response? "Tell me about it. Internet jerks."

(we are ALL internet jerks to folks that don't use the internet. Unfair, but a very common label)

There is an opportunity here to INSTEAD have the conversation go this way-

"I posted on an internet forum, and some of the guys started talking about basking temps. The difference between air temps and surface temps, temperature gradients, metabolism and stuff. It was really interesting, I pulled out my temp gun and started making some changes..."

That is the conversation I would like to see happen : )

Hopefully Frank returns, and we can get a discussion going amongst peers- a group of folks that love to keep and learn about monitors and lizards : )

[crocdoc]

Well, Robyn, as the first person that responded to Frank's post I thought I was being reasonably tactful by starting with 'may I make a recommendation?' If you think there was a more tactful way I could have approached this (and I mean this with sincerity), I'd be happy to hear it. I initially wasn't going to say anything, as I knew exactly how this thread would go.

I think I speak for most people that later posts by almost all of us started getting crankier out of frustration at his refusal to budge on his ideas. We started off explaining why high basking temperatures are important, but it didn't really seem to be sinking in.

Originally Posted by Vegasarah

I guess that I just can't see what is so taxing about installing some extra flood lights at a zoo... it kind of boggles my mind to be honest. Of course, I don't know much about the way that zoos are run.

Having worked in a few zoos and zoo type facilities, the three main issues (listed in order of greatest to least influence) are:

1. Display. Most reptile displays have a large window in the front, with basking lights installed above the window so that they are out of the public's view. It is very hard to maintain high basking temperatures at those sorts of distances, so trying to keep an attractive, naturalist display while meeting the needs of the animals is not always easy. I have worked in one facility that managed this, but only with massive metal halide lights and tissue heaters above the display window.

2. Red tape. In most zoos, for a keeper to make a change it usually must first get approved by several other people, from senior keepers up to the curator and often the vet. Given the status quo, trying to convince everyone that a really hot basking spot is the way to go is often trickier than it would seem.

3. An (for lack of a better word) inertia based on the 'but we've always done it this way' principle. Monitors seem to do okay with low basking spot temperatures because they can linger in sub-optimal conditions for a long time. It may take years for the effects to become obvious and even then the connection between the basking temperature (mainly because they'd always been the same) and the untimely death is not made (as per this thread). Unless one has had experience with monitors living with hot basking temperatures, in which case the behaviour differences are immediately visible.

[_Varanidae_]

Since it seems as though this thread has shifted a bit towards bashing zoos, which I feel partly responsible for, I feel it is important to point out that monitor husbandry in general is in dire straits.

Considering the total number of monitors kept in the private sector, husbandry among private monitor keepers as a whole is no better, and is probably far worse than that in zoos. Remember that the online monitor community- those of us who participate in forums like this one is but a tiny fraction of the total number of people keeping monitors in captivity, so do not assume that most hobbyists fall under the same category as ourselves. Most abide by pet store husbandry recommendations or online care sheets they come across after a 1 second Google search. Few keepers actually read real information on monitor biology and husbandry, and even fewer exchange their ideas and actually seek to improve on their current practices. The status quo is an even tougher habit to break in the private sector- solidified, in part, by decades of terrible, yet influential husbandry books aimed at pet store distribution.

However, there is a major distinction between zoos and the private sector, which I feel is unacceptable when talking about herpetological husbandry. Zoos, especially the larger, more established ones are academic institutions. Many are directly involved in academic research and in-situ and ex-situ conservation efforts. Many have herpetology departments with impressive operating budgets and abundant resources available to them (i.e., their own exhibit and machine shops that can build cages, nest boxes, make modifications, etc.). Many have extensive research libraries and remote access to a near-unlimited supply of research journals, and most have their own in-house veterinary and pathology departments.

As academic institutions with these near-unlimited resources and abundant funding, why aren't zoos, at least in the case of monitor lizards, leaders at the forefront of husbandry- pioneering new techniques and approaches based on sound science? Don't get me wrong, there are some zoos and many zoo keepers that are doing fantastic work with varanids here in North America and abroad; however, many, as I've pointed out are still practicing antiquated husbandry that is 15 or 20 years old. There is no reason why Joe Schmoe should be experiencing more success in keeping and breeding monitor lizards in his basement or tiny one car garage, than well-funded zoos with all of the resources and amenities one could ever ask for in herpetological husbandry available to them.

I can accept this deficiency in awareness of current husbandry practices from hobbyists that don't know any better or are unfamiliar with scientific research and literature, but for academic institutions to wane far behind current keeping standards, I find this highly unacceptable. It is the reason why I have been vocal on this subject, and is why I have embarked on trying to initiate change from within through these studies.