Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, i have never kept any giant hognose before, i have an opportunity to get some wild caught adults, anyone have any experience with this species ? if so any tips would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Martin.

I'm a little green with keeping these guys my self but here is what I can share. I have a male and a female. The male came from a shop and before that(captive bred or wild caught)I dont know. Easy to take care of, tamed down realy quick, bottomless pitt as far as feeding. Someone obviously took very good care of him before he made it to that shop IMOP. The female is wild caught and I just got her about a week ago. She is realy skitish and nervous but hasent shown any aggression yet so I hope all will go well. It is stressfull trying to get her to eat with out sterssing her out and I havent had any luck yet. As for my sugestions do a lot of research and and make an educated desision. I recomend C/B whenever posible. Wild caught will certainly be more dificult to deal with. Whatever you decide I wish you the best of luck and it would be realy great to see more people keeping leioheterodon out there. Well happy herping.
Cameron

I hope that helped, and if any body has any feeding sugestions for wild caught madagascans I'm all ears. Thanks everyone.
Cameron

I strongly discourage almost anyone from purchasing wild caught fauna from Madagascar. The reasons are simple, overcollecting. I would hope that anybody with an inkling of conscience would understand what overcollecting does to a species.

To support my position, I am including an email I got off of the PARC listserve concerning Madagascar fauna. Although he specifically mentions chelonians, it doesn't take a PhD to apply directly to the hognoses.

I recently spoke to a Chelonian biologist who just returned from Madagascar.
His overall assessment of the political situation there was more positive,
at least concerning the current President of the country and the stability
of the government.

According to him, the lack of political control over the last several
months has resulted in a breakdown in basic services such as fire and
rescue, utilities, humanitarian services and law enforcement. Moreover, the
availability of fuel oil and electricity has declined to the point where the
indigenous personnel are cutting down large tracts of forest for wood to
burn in their homes. There is no game enforcement per se in the region
which has resulted in increased poaching of native flora and fauna.

His observations on the chelonian front were less than positive. Although
the native tribes do not necessarily consider small tortoises usable for
food, historically African immigrants to Madagascar take both large
tortoises and small tortoises. The greatest threat to the tortoises,
however, comes not from Africans or Malagasy, but from the Japanese and
Taiwanese.

Whereas the Japanese poachers, who moor their ships off the coast of
Madagascar, wholesale collect for the burgeoning Japanese pet trade, the
Taiwanese are interested only in parts. Reportedly, the Taiwanese fisherman
and poachers come ashore, mass collect small species such as Pyxis, and then
cut out the livers for sale on Chinese markets overseas. The rest of the
tortoises are merely thrown overboard.

Malagasy tribes respect the smaller species of tortoise and typically do not
harvest them both due to cultural mores and inaccessible habitat areas.
Therefore, historically, it has only been tortoises such as radiateds and
their kin that were vulnerable to harvesting for food.

In monitoring Japanese pet trade sites, one can see that the pet market
there is increasing drastically. Yet, sales to Japanese pet collectors are
not the only threat to Malagasy species. It is likely that species imported
into Japan illegally, are now making their way into U.S. markets with
captive born paperwork "created" there to support a legal importation and
pet trade within the United States. I suspect that this type of collection
for pets or food occurs not only in the politically unstable areas such as
Madagascar, but in other areas as well where coastal protection (e.g. coast
guard) and customs units have been pulled for anti terrorism duties rather
than illegal fishing and wildlife enforcement.

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Wildlife dies without a sound, the only voice it has is yours.

...the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes (Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink', 1991)