Hi Daniel,
I think this is a great subject. Specially with your experience.
It appears our governments do not want conservation of any wild animals, muchless monitors.
If we leave this type of regulation to the governments, they will band(make illegal) everything. They have no idea what is better for the world and the people in the world or how to do it.
They will take everything people have a passion for and leave us standing on street corners with no instrument to play.
Daniel you have seen many sides to this subject, and you know, some of the answers, YET you let ego and academics stand in the way.
There are people who are good at breeding these animals and have the ability(facilities) to breed these animals. There are people who study these animals(you and your peers) and there are people who regulate these animals(governments) Yet all fight against eachother, tooth and claw. All the while the animals lose ground in nature. Daniel you know this, yet you take part in the confusion. You are actually contributing to the mass collecting of wild monitors. You are by supporting the confusion between academics, private breeders and zoos.
The parts are in place to lower the demand for wildcaught varanids. There are folks like me who have the KNOWLEDGE and facilities to captive produce these animals. There are zoos that could produce the founder stock for private industry. There are academics that could gather information to sustain these animals in captivity so that the need to TAKE wild caughts is so low that it would not impact dwindling populations.
Yet all these parts work against eachother and the ANIMALS SUFFER. All these parts BLAME the governments, REALLY Daniel, do you think we take no responsibility in this??????????
The little Battle we play is part of this. Your peers(academics) are so worried that I may know MORE then them, they fight tooth and claw against me and my "puppy mill". These arguements, have caused you/them, to lose track of the goal.
If you want to lower the demand for wild caughts, you know there MUST be a value to humans to keep them intact in nature. Its the percieved VARANID PUPPY MILLS that have the ability to lower the demand for wild caughts. Its also these private breeders that could benefit from a place to obtain founder stock.
Zoos could also benefit and actually take part in conservation, if they could excess animals into the captive breeding industry. Yet now they do not because of stupid reasons like industry is commercial. Sir, zoos are commercial, all they do is promote GATE. Their function, their design, and their intent is commercial. Even conservation is used as a advertising tool to promote GATE. Without GATE, zoos Close up. They are the same. I know, I built the dang things.
I had this arguement with the folks at a Texas zoo. They would say, we are a conservation institute. Then I would say, how many animals of a species of concern do you house? We have 2.3. but if we had room we would have more. And we do not produce them because we do not have the space. Hmmmmmmmmmmm is that conservation? I would call a zoo a conservation institute if the whole zoo was devoted to one species. That is, if they had hundreds even thousands of a species of concern. That would be conservation. Not 2.3 static animals on display.
So Daniel, academics like you lay claim to being educated and smart, so please Daniel put that college education to use, You folks should Bring all these estranged parts together into a working unit and build a conservation tool that benefits the animals in nature and the public and support economy.
I am picking on you because we have had conservations in the past, You stated that in order to preserve these animals in nature, they must have a VALUE to the local people, and they must have a value to national and international economy. If they do not, they will disappear. The need to take wild animals, IS THE TOOL THAT WILL PRESERVE WILD ANIMALS. Its up to you SMART guys to figure that out.
The REALITY is, the different parts of a system do not have to think alike, or understand the animals in the same way. All they have to do is work together, each doing what they are "SMART" enough to do.
So Daniel, as a educated academic, why don't you take the bull by the horns and MANAGE the different parts needed to make a benefitual system work. If you did, we could all do what we DO BEST. Again with reality, its not about who knows what or whos smarter, its ALL ABOUT DOING SOMETHING. Daniel "do" something.
We private breeders KNOW how to work these animals in captivity, many of us have the facilities to do so. Yet all we get is grief and opposition from Academics, zoos, and universities. So what were you saying Daniel? Why did you come here with your post??????Cheers
