The Cape Coral Nile Monitor population is having a definite impact on the feral cat population. Additionally, they are a threat to the burrowing owl and many other species (including the alligators) in the area, according to what I read in the St. Pete Times on Friday (http://www.sptimes.com/2003/09/26/Floridian/Enter_the_dragons.shtml).

Brian is right; the family cat’s demise will cause a furor. We see this happening here in Pinellas County right now as a result of a growing coyote population. My cat is not at issue; he lives indoors. Likewise, my geriatric dog is not left outside unattended. So, if I and mine are not at risk, why should I care?

Anyone who does not think that this will negatively impact the reptile hobby in Florida (and become a precedent for action in other states) has his or her head in the sand. It will eventually be a legislated issue, if we do not police ourselves.

These feral monitors are much less popular than their feline counterparts. John Q. Public is, generally speaking, not a reptile fancier. He'd infinitely prefer to see a feral Fluffy stalking the birds in his backyard and leaving his little presents in the flowerbeds than a five-foot Nile monitor. The monitor is going to eat Fluffy and Fido, the birds and their eggs, after which he will scarf down the collector-quality koi out of the water feature on which John Q. spent a small fortune to add to his landscape. Not being able to let John Q. Junior roam the yard unattended and/or unarmed after the neighborhood dinosaur threatens him (regardless of what Junior did or did not do to provoke it) is an imposition that John Q. Senior is simply not going to tolerate.

We as hobbyists have got to exert positive peer pressure upon each other to not purchase animals that we cannot commit to providing for appropriately.

Those of us who breed animals must realize our responsibility to place those lives that we create in responsible homes. I wonder if animals are being dumped, is that not an indicator that more animals are being bred than can be absorbed into homes? I personally would rather see an animal that I produced euthanized or used as a feeder before seeing it neglected, abused or abandoned.

In Florida, we have 47 exotic species of reptile, and four amphibians, not to mention the mammals, birds, and arthropods, fish and plants that don't belong here. I don't begrudge the lives of the exotics except as they exert pressure on the natives, like the Eastern Indigo snake, which is already threatened.

BTW, the Florida FWC website below is a little out of date; we now know that the Nile Monitor is reproducing by the 145 recorded sitings of animals of various stages of maturity since the first recorded in 1990.

BFN

Florida's Exotic Wildlife

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