I think this should be understood before you actually keep reptiles.

Reptiles are wild animals, therefore do not go by our rules and expectations.

To understand reptiles, you must understand, that in nature there is no expectations for a long life. It can happen, but its very very rare. There is no expectations of reaching adulthood(sexual maturity) there is only attempts to do so.

The reality of what this means is simple, most all that are born, die before they become adults. And the adult population is not stable on its own. It is under constant attack by predators, disease and habitat change/destruction.

I imagine its one of the reasons reptiles can and do reproduce at one half their normal adult size. I also imagine its why even large monitors can reproduce at one year of age. I could go on and on, the point is, the average lifespan is very very short. They(an individual) have a 99% change on not ever reaching adulthood.(varies with the type of year, but very accurate)

What amazes me is, somehow people on these forums(keepers) want to compare this and that with nature, you know, what they think the monitors need and use, and eat and conditions, etc. But they never think about how many die and how often.(the real nature)

How this applies to captivity is, you as humans have expectations, you have that with all sort of things. You personally have all sorts of expectations about your own life. You want to do this and that, travel, see things, take vacations, go places, learn stuff that has nothing to do with supporting your life. You expect to live a long time, have a family, make a kid or ten. Have a life mate or ten. But you expect to life a long life.

What do monitors expect out of life? what is their goals. As far as I can tell, wild reptiles only hope to live to the next day. Their entire life purpose is to make a baby or more(as many as they can). Everything they do is in that direction. To survive and reproduce. Sounds sad hey.

Humans take joy in doing stuff, you know doing stuff away from work, like build model railroads, model planes, hiking, watching animals(and not eating them)(or shooting them and sometimes eating them) They particapate in all sort of hobbies. They also work to support their lifes and attempt to make a family and sustain the population(doing this too well)

Monitors seem to enjoy stuff too. They seem to enjoy being successful at daily goals, finding food, making a shelter, etc. They seem to take joy in pairing up and enjoy a successful nesting, etc. They seem to enjoy doing the things that are included in their drive to recruit and recruiting. They enjoy doing the things that allow them to exsist.

But a long life is not understood as its not common, its so very rare in nature.

The reason I bring this up is, you talk like you have failed because you only measure success with longevity. With wild reptiles longevity is not important, whats important is, day to day successful events. Their joy, their importance is succeeding in day to day tasks, they have no expectation of a long life. They hope to have a productive life. And the only thing they do productively is reproduce.

What I am saying is, you should not worry about how long they live(thats a human thing) but worry about day to day successful events.

Where you have been hoodwinked, you have been taught that longevity is important, its not. Science and zoos promote longevity. Think about that, a long life of doing nothing, is not a life, its torture. Specially to animals who value lifes events more then life. They are not people who seem to be much the opposite. We tend to value long life over life events.

Think about a captive elephant living 35 years on a half an acre. Think about a 50 year old ball python that never grew up, never reproduced, and was kept in a tiny cage with no stimulation, and no life events. Are these good things????? I really question these as goals for keeping animals.

Well we cannot give them all of lifes joys, but we can give them the oppertunity to achieve basic life events, we can allow them an attempt to recruit, and we can support them enough to do that often. Consider, a female reptile or bird, exposes its life to extreme danger to accomplish nesting. (and nesting is a side thought with you and zoos and science)(how sad)

So Brg, don't take shorter then "expected" lifespans as a failure, take failure to allow successful life events during the time they were alive as your failure. As simple as these thoughts are, people do not understand that its normal and a major life event for a male monitor to fight with another male monitor. Its what they do(they seek to do this). Yet, you all will ruin their lifes trying to prevent something so natural. Just some goofy thoughts from the goofy thought gallery. Cheers

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