Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Not wanting to argue. Curious as to how they came to that conclusion.Longevity,behaviour, blood tests, observations of sorts?

Bob.

np

I have to admit to wondering the same thing. I have had manuscripts peer reviewed for publication in medical journals and the process is humbling. I am not sure that a DVM editing a book endures the same process. The quotes seemed kind of dubious to me (or is that me, me, me? lol). To be fair though, this is not for Matt to explain or defend.
Jim

True Jim,

It's not for Matt to defend etc. He's a decent guy who has readily helped folks on this forum on many occassions. I did not mean this as a personal attack.

I guess as a person I am a bit cycnical, suspicious and hesitant to go along with the crowd.

I seem to be going in the reverse direction. I had stayed away from racks and instead had gone with large cages with some choices until only the last few years. I still have reservations about big animals in little boxes like many of us but I see that some animals seem to thrive in them and the cleanliness factor is very attractive to me.

I think there are a lot of good things about the "third wave" of herping and the European style. My Austrian friends' cellar is full of amazing naturalistic cages built in to walls, their own plumbing, waterfalls and outside access for animals. He's an amzing guy in his 70's so I am a little familiar with that style and respect it. He told me years ago that European herpers looked down on Amel. animals.

Before we beat up all our nasty American herper ways though I think we need to see the good too. I see now that Europeans are working with morphs,I've noticed interest in racks and I've read articles about their expos and while they have a history of breeding many things I think the divesity,quantity and ingenuity displayed at OUR big expos is very impressive. I think this is a passionate subject because we love our charges and want the best for them. My 2 cents.

Bob

My comment was simply to mean that since the observations were cited, we should look them up ourselves if interested. No big deal.
Jim

>I guess as a person I am a bit cycnical, suspicious and hesitant to go along with the crowd.<

These are the qualities of a scientist.

>I think this is a passionate subject because we love our charges and want the best for them.<

And maybe why we don't treat them like laboratory rats by "experimenting" on them.

Jim

>>Not wanting to argue. Curious as to how they came to that conclusion.Longevity,behaviour, blood tests, observations of sorts?

Bob,

'We observed reptiles in 13 research establishments throughout Europe to look for normal behaviours and also abnormal and problematic behaviours, and evaluated general facilities and husbandry practices. Current perspectives regarding reptile husbandry were assessed via interviews and questionnaire responses from the managers and researchers within these collections.'

And just so you know what these guys' qualifications are:
Clifford Warwick
Director of the Institute of Herpetology Worcester, UK

Frederic L. Frye
Director of the Fund for Clinical Research
Davis, California USA

James B. Murphy
Curator of the Department of Herpetology
Dallas Zoo, Texas USA
-----
Matt Campbell
25 years herp keeping experience
Full-time zookeeper
Personal collection - 21 snakes (9 genera), 20 lizards (4 genera), 6 chelonians (2 genera)

np