"Since you mentioned it yes I felt the same way about DK's post, as he keeps and breeds lacies. But seemed appauled at Steeves post about importing monitors for personal use."

First of all, there is a huge difference between conservation and animal liberation. I am a conservationist, not an animal liberationist. Animal liberationists are against animals being kept in captivity. Conservationists are for the protection of wild populations.

How does this apply to monitors? Clearly I am not against keeping monitors in captivity - as you pointed out I keep lace monitors at home. It just so happens that I keep captive bred animals from a widespread, protected species which is safe from exploitation and whose wild numbers are healthy. I also further encourage the keeping of captive bred animals by breeding them myself and selling the offspring to other keepers.

SteeveB wants wildcaught monitors of new, undescribed species, whose status in the wild is still unknown. Many of these species come from islands and their populations could potentially become depleted once the pet trade discovers them and they become popular.

Have I made myself clearer? Please let me know if I haven't.

All that aside, I do have a bit of the animal liberationist in me in that I hate seeing wildcaught adult monitors being brought into captivity. That's something personal that I don't expect anyone on this forum to agree with (so there's no point starting an argument about this), but it's also something that has come from seeing many adult monitors roaming free in the wild and knowing how much they would hate to be put in a box.

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