Posted by: FR at Wed Aug 2 12:27:34 2006



"They do live in organized comumities. The adult breeder pair up, the non breeders do not, the young live in groups and grow up together. They organize and gather for reasons other then copulation."



While myself and many others would love to accept this, such a statement lacks any evidence. If what you claim is true, where is your proof? Such a claim is a rather bold statement, which defies all of what is presently known about wild monitor lizards. Such a statement warrants evidence in order for people to accept it as truth and abandon the present understanding that we have about wild monitors (this is the scientific method). Where is the proof?



Posted by: FR at Wed Aug 2 12:27:34 2006

You do not allow then to make choices in captivity. My guess is, you understand so little about them, you are to busy barely keeping them alive(meeting basic husbandry).



Frank, what you are failing to understand is that you yourself are failing to offer your own captives one of the most basic, yet significant choices that wild monitors are always allowed to make- the option to stay away from one another. Is this not a choice? Does captivity allow for this choice?



Posted by: FR at Wed Aug 2 12:27:34 2006

"These varanids do organize, they do group and segregate. They preform many of the events that are included in being soical. They also display many of these social appearing abilities.



Again, another claim which I would love to see be true about wild monitors, but we are faced with the same problem. No proof. Where is your proof which supports this claim, if you are so sure that this is how monitors occur in the wild?



Anybody can make statements and claims about wild monitors, however until those claims are supported with evidence, proving the validity of such claims, they are nothing but heresay. The scientific method prevents radical claims which lack evidence from becoming accepted as fact.



One thing which I often question.. In your extensive travels and 'research' in Australia with wild monitors, and of all the social behaviors you have allegedly "seen" in wild monitors, why do you not have any photographs of such social behavior to support your claims? You have posted numerous wild photos of individual monitors, monitors you have captured by hand, various different habitats, landscape scenery, and other Australian wildlife (Kangaroos, Crocodile nests, etc.) during your travels in Australia, yet no photos which support your claims of the sociality you have seen out bush.



Again, this is why you see opposition to your claims. They are nothing more than claims- unsubstantiated heresay. Many people take offense to, or are willing to refute claims stated to be fact, which lack any supporting evidence. You will continue to be refuted until the day you are able to shut such opposition up by supplying evidence proving your sociality in WILD monitors.

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