Hi...we're new here, but we feel that this is important to bring up. Did anyone else attend the Louisiana Reptile Expo in Mandeville last weekend? We consider ourselves to be somewhat knowledgable novices, with a lot left to learn. Yet what we know is about 100 times more than what most of the vendors knew, even about herps that we had never owned. Is it really too much to expect someone who's selling monitors to be able tell us whether monitors are carnivores or omnivores, or how big one might grow to be? At any rate, we do research on the Web and buy care manuals for every new herp we obtain, so we did not allow the lack of knowledge to dissuade us. We bought a total of ten lizards, of four different species. The guy who sold us five iguanas did not allow us to handle or check the iguanas, or decide which ones we wanted!! Isn't a basic visual inspection of the reptile critical? We probably would have said no right then, but the guy already had our money. So five iguanas came out of the cage and into a cloth bag, and the first time we got to see them was in the car on the way home. 24 hours later, two were dead, and the other three remain on a strict regimen of force feeding and rehydration. We bought two Tiger Ameivas, and found one dead in his cage today. The Savannah and Nile monitors, and Chinese Water Dragon seem healthy so far, although we had to argue with the monitor vendor to get her to provide plastic bowls for transporting -- she tried to put them in a paper lunch sack for the trip back to New Orleans!!

We have never had a problem like this before...all of our previously purchased herps have thrived. Of course, this was our first experience with an expo...our prior purchases were from pet stores who send their herps to the vet prior to putting them out for sale. We do take all new acquisitions to a reptile vet, but we have never found it to be critical to do so in the first 24 hours. Should we stick to the pet stores from now on, or try to find breeders? While a very few vendors seemed to be making an effort to sell healthy animals, most seemed like wholesalers just trying to keep 'em alive until sale. A very sad representation of the herp world to the general public, who seemed to think the place was like going to the zoo anyway. Any thoughts, comments, or opinions appreciated.

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