But that is preciesly the point, using screened cages cannot be called either "right" or "wrong" in terms of the ease of providing good conditions without context. If I were keeping and breeding F. pardalis in south Florida I'd use outdoor screen cages during the warmer months and either move them to a greenhouse or make some other accomodations during the cooler months. On the other hand, if I were trying to maintain and breed Ch. deremensis or Ch. quardricornis in south Florida I'd probably keep them indoors or in a greenhouse with air conditioning. A free-air habitat makes sense for F. ousteleti in southern California, but it doesn't make much sense for C. parsonii, for example. In Michigan, where I used to live, most hotter climate adapted chameleons would have done well outdoors or with screening a few months a year, but not more than that. Beyond that and they really would do better in a more climate controlled area. Chameleons from higher elevations would be about the same--doing well outside or in screened cages during early and late summer (a bit too hot for them during mid-summer) but would need other accomodations during the rest of the year.



Screen cages allow the ambient environment to greatly and directly dictate the envrionment inside the cages. If the chameleons are being kept in a climate similar to their own (or close enough) then this is fine and I see no problem at all. If, however, the chameleons need different environmental conditions from what occurs in the ambient, then screen becomes and obstacle to providing the proper conditions, not a boon.



The problem is that most of us (myself included for many years) blindly recommend X, Y and Z (X being the use of screen cages) as the "proper" way to maintain these animals when really this my not always be the best way, and may be a decidely bad way to do it much of the time. It seems to me as though the hobby is still reeling from the effects of advice 20 years old. The proponents of that advice, so long ago, were convinced that the screen cages they used somehow allowed them to do things that other types of caging did not--that there was some special requirement the chameleons had for screened cages--when in reality they only requiement the chameleons had was for proper care and environmental conditions which just so happened to be coupled with screening. This never happened in Europe, and hence folks there have no compulsion to use screen cages with chameleons.



If this didn't make a big difference to the success of people trying to keep chameleons, I don't think I'd really care one way or the other, but as I've mentioned, I've seen people killing chameleons more times than I care to BECAUSE they thought that screen was the only way to go. I've seen dehydrated little chameleons (despite a constant drip) housed at the same places that were keeping and breeding dart frogs and Uroplatus spp. geckos. Some chameleons would do so, so much better and be so much easier to maintain if their husbandry were approached in much the same way as dart frogs or Uroplatus spp. geckos or so many other species. It doesn't make sense to approach animal husbandry with the methods already decided and hope to reach the goal environmental conditions. It makes much more sense to have the goals clearly in mind and adopt the methods that make it easiest to reach those goals.



Chris

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