AZA is constantly attempting to keep all exotic animals out of private hands. Its kind of their policy.



Also having attended several Ethics meetings. It was sad to hear the distrust all levels of zoo personal had towards the public. Or at least what they voiced.



I think the Texas zoos were the most liberal, hence why I like them the best and always considered them to be amoung the best reptile zoos. Most of my zoo connections were with personal who either worked at these zoos, or did in the past.



Please understand, I have often used Dallas zoo as a competitor, because they were so good amoung the zoos and sadly one of the few worth competition.



Unfortunately with varanids, I have lost competition. But not respect. So keep that in mind.



Recently Tom C. hit the nail on the head, and hit it smartly. The problem with you and your efforts are simple and easy to fix. You seem to treat monitors like colubrids or some other species. You seem to treat them as to academics call them. You seem to miss the entire boat as to what they are.



Without going back, let me try to say what Tom did, until you learn that varanids are, "highly complex social reptiles" you will forever wallow in intermitten failure. When treated for what they are, they reproduce like frogs or insects(explosive) They will throw eggs at you in a way that you cannot fathom. All of them, from tree monitors to caudos to KD's.



That you seem to look at any species thats had success, If FR did it, its an easy species is not naive, but stupid. I have successfully bred varanids from africa, indo-Pacific, Australia. From tree dwellers, to extreme desert types, to aquatic types. And all the same. I treat them as complex social animals. Yet academics out of extreme ignorace call them solitary.



To me, its totally funny, an extreme solitary genius/species that functions long term and throught many generations in a highly successful way. Hmmmmmmmm how funny. I think your problems are from prejudice, you believe monitors are what you read, not what they are. That is sad for a liberal zoo employee.



Its actually as plain as day. Monitors have special abilities, keen eye sight, super snakelike sense of smell, and strong legs. and a body that can still enter the underworld(cracks, crevices, holes). Not only that, but are expert in making those holes, Hmmmmmmmmmmm They've got all the gifts of the reptile world. And yet you think they are limited to the same as simple reptiles. Not very sensible if you ask me.



Monitors do live in dense colonies(hubs, as I call them) much like many normal reptiles. I had no problem finding them. But science, sits in pubs and wonders why they cannot find them. But its in science. One can trap study done north of Alice, can trapped 118 brevicada in a week(aprox on both) hmmmmmmm how did that happen for a seemingly rare varanid. I also found a population of brevis or a close relative(the same but larger) where there were so many we sat and laughted our bums off. There were literally herds of them crossing the road. We sat on the land cruizer and watched them crossing in both directions, while being smashed by on coming cars. Just one example of many many.



I used that example because its actually a rare one. Most hubs I had to exercise to find. I worked at it. I am afraid, my folks do not understand what work is.



Now, about education. Lets use another example close to your heart, Greys monitors. In the early days of Daniels field work. I had lots of conversations with him and offered to help. But sadly he did what you all do. You do stuff the hard way.



Daniel knows zip about wild varanids. Nothing against Daniel, hes from a place sans reptiles, no base education. He wrote a book by gathering information. Some good, some bad, some totally wrong. And mixed it all together as if they were of equal value. Which as any cook will tell you, that indeeds ruins the cake.



I suggested to Daniel, try learning about monitors. Daniel has no touch with captives at all and no place to do that if he did. So he must learn in the field, a very hard and time consuming thing to do. I suggested, learn from a species or two, which are easy to see and a bit more bold, then say, Greys which are extremely wary and shy and have the advantage of trees and foliage to stay hidden. Once you learn the basic steps monitors take, THEY ALL TAKE THE SAME BASIC STEPS. You can then look for those steps with a hidden species. You have something to base your rare minimum observations on. So Daniel will spent the rest of his life not seeing the trees from the forest. So Daniel compares his rare limited observations to literature with as we all know is very very weak and limited. He has no base to work from.



Sirs, GET A BASE. LEARN FROM SOMETHING EASY TO LEARN FROM. Then apply it to what YOU THINK is not so easy. Guezz, this really has nothing to do with monitors, or academics, or education, its has to do with ignorance. YOU DO NOT LEARN ANYTHING FROM THE TOP DOWN.



As a comparison, YOU SHOULD HAVE LARGE CAGES full of V.gilleni, and aboreal small monitor. YOU have the ability to house them in large cages that will allow a complex social system. You should be expert at some aspect of varanids that are easy to do, before you attempt to flounder around for years and years with a complex social species that requires lots of space in order to include aspects of its complex system.



It comes to this, look at a big picture(many meanings here) Then take a few pixels and look at them. What do you see? Or take the whole or at least half the picture and look at it, what do you see? Dude, its not about monitors, its about common sense.



You need to learn the whole picture before you look at pieces. Once you see the big picture, the little pieces have more meaning.



So Daniel is sitting staring at trees and you are doing the same. Use common sense, take a intro class and work with something workable, BEFORE you attempt to work or something you do not understand.



A colony of ackies or brevis or kings, use a few acres, oh maybe three. A species of hundreds of times the mass will use what????????????????? A simple math problem. Begining algebra hey?



In reality, its not directly related. But close, a colony of large monitors will use a couple miles squared. If you fill that with trees, you are not going to see much without already knowing whats going on.



Lets look at it another way, you can house 5, 10, 15, larger adult monitors, or 100, 200, 300 small monitors. Which will you learn from the fastest?



IF you ask Daniel what I built here, he should tell you, a machine that produces numbers. All I do is shovel in the coal and the machine goes. I have to learn or this train will stop. But as long as I shovel in coal, the train keeps going. My train produces data about monitors. Its not about me, its about the machine. Build the machine.



So I sit here(successfully) and watch you guys bend over and run your heads into walls and then when the pain subsides, wonder why your having problems. Why does it take so long, you wonder? FR does not seem to have these problems. He doesn't. But then he learned from something easy to learn from. Cheers and sorry for the mourning rant. While this example is not exactly on this thread, its exactly what these threads circle around.

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