Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Monitors in the wild or captives? What is the percentage of monitors that make it to adulthood? Type of monitor shouldn't matter, just a general question. Something I was wondering about.
Thanks.....

While both have very high mortality rates. Nature has no problem reproducing(recruiting). So a guess would be, over 90% mortality rate before recruitment in nature. And much higher then that in captivity. I bet less then one percent in captivity ever successfully reproduce, 99% mortality rate.

Now the real problem is, in nature the deaths feed and support an ecosystem. So deaths are needed. In captivity, its needless deaths, they are for no reason other then ignorance(not knowing better) or negleck.

In nature theres predators, and pathogens and parasites, with no doctors. In captivity, there should be plenty of everything and doctors. No excuses here. Cheers or in this case, lack of cheers

1% seems rather optimistic. I'd be surprised if many more than 20% survive between capture and retail sale overall. Even 1% after retail sale seems impossibly high to me. It's got to be less than 1 in 10,000 for savannah monitors and Nile monitors (unless you count the ones that escape in Florida!). I doubt it is much higher for the more expensive rare island endemics. 0.02% is on the optimistic side of reality, don't you think??
-----
Mampam Conservation

When I first wrote it, I actually put 1% of 1%, but then I thought people would think I am crazy(more then normal). So I put 1%. Yup very optimistic.

But then so is 90% failure rate for wild monitors. Don't you think? Cheers