>I don't like it personally, but that's really not the point.

>I've handled and worked with maybe a thousand individual
>monitors myself (mostly in the wild), and I've killed one.
>A gravid female glebopalma ran under my truck on a dirt track
>and I got her with the back wheel -- I felt badly about that.

I respect that.

I do see your points, but you must understand you are in a captive monitor forum. While you may be repulsed by 24/7 lights, there are many advantages and reasons to do it. By the same token, a biologist (not necessarily you) offing a monitor so all we see is a dead lizard, can be repulsive here.

I have no real problem with people killing animals, but I do think that perhaps at some point we should evolve beyond the kill anything new and throw it in a museum as a trophy. While there may be good things about doing that, it does seem wasteful and a touch barbaric. Just because there are risks, does not mean the easy way is the right way.

There is a huge difference between putting a hammer to a monitor's head and a wc one in a cage. Perhaps in certain cases the hammer would be the better option, but if it really was the same thing, you wouldn't have any monitors at all, would you? Those ancestors of your crocs and gouldis would've gotten the hammer. That was my point, sometimes a live monitor can give alot more than a dead monitor.

I don't necessarily think new species should be immediately shipped off to breeders, nor do I like what the pet trade is. The shady deals were exactly that. I'd prefer monitors to be valued more in their country of origin. There is little I can do to change this. It is not a simple thing, and it is not a biological problem (conservation), it is an economic/resource problem, which there is no real or easy solution for.

About money, it costs money to keep monitors, and it costs money to care for them. It is cheap to keep them pickled in a jar in the basement.

--Robert

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