I've been into herps since I was a kid, and I've got a typical story of growing up with them. Keeping native species against moms wishes, field herping near my home as a kid. I'm in college now and majoring in Zoology, and I've been reading the monitor forums since middle school (paying close attention to FR), and I've also read a fair chunk of decent books and articles on them. I've been considering ackies for many years, and will very likely get a pair after I graduate. My family adopted a big male green ig from a rescue about 2 years ago, and he recently died of old age and complications from the horrible husbandry he endured for many years. Living with a big lizard was an amazing experience, and one that I would love to pursue again. I also had a short-lived baby savannah as a kid, which I quickly killed in about a month - the typical impulse buy, and something I've always felt terrible about. It also made me feel like I've owed something to monitors, and also added to my immense respect for them. I'm hoping to do some of my undergrad research with them, but that's a bit of a longshot.



Anyway, I've always said I'd stay away from the big monitors unless I ended up working in zoos (currently I'm working at the Virginia Living Museum as a herp intern - close enough), but a recent encounter at a local pet store is making me consider otherwise. It's a passable store, they take good care of their fish section but the reptiles are so-so. They had just received a shipment of 'vicious' baby niles, and having never actually encountered one in the flesh besides half-dead ones at herp shows, I thought I'd play around with them. They opened the cage and said something along the lines of "have fun...". They were pretty spunky, having yet to suffer from the mediocre husbandry, and they all promptly flipped a s**t and started hissing, gaping, and whipping me. I remembered old forum posts about monitor taming, so instead of harassing them, I calmly sat in front of the cage and watched them, and they watched me back. It took not even 2 minutes for these 'vicious' baby niles, all 3 of them, to come up to the front of the cage and poke their heads out, tongues sniffing and calm as can be. Two of them climbed out of the cage and into my lap on their own, and one of them went as far as to jump onto my shoulder and lick my ear. I was blown away at how quickly this happened. I put them back in the cage and the more adventurous pair again came out to see me, but I was drawing uncomfortable attention from the employees, so I closed the door and left.



I didn't want to make too much of this, as I've read some nasty stuff about niles (there were some awful-sounding descriptions I read on the ProExotics website on their articles). However, I have gotten to interact with water monitors both big and small, and did not get the same goose-bumpy feeling I got from these guys. It would be AT LEAST 10 years before I am able to settle down with a job and save enough money to seriously consider a big lizard again by myself, but I'm asking your opinions on weather or not I seem mentally prepared for such a task. I am seeking to build a strong (and long), trusting relationship with a living dinosaur that I respect, nothing shallow about it. On the other hand, I would never force an innocent and beautiful animal into my care without being absolutely sure I am up to the task. In the meantime until I could potentially get one, I will research my butt off and hopefully seek more experiences with these guys in person so I can learn all I can.



I apologize for the long post, but I'm still in awe of that short pet store encounter, and it's hard not to rant about it! Let me know what you guys think, I look forward to reading your responses.



Here's to hoping for a good first post,

Ryan Collister

[ Show Entire Thread ]