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Well ya near streams is what Madcham said too. However I think how close to the stream is the real question.
If the chams wanted to be feet away from the water, in riparian zones they would, they dont according to madcham, and putting it in the cage creates a riparian zone so not really the same thing.
As to the 15ft cages. I wouldn't be against that one bit for species that would appreciate it.
I have seen images of Mellers up high like that. I am not sure about parsonii parsonii. cristifers from all accounts I have seen, are found head height, or a tad more.
I have seen panthers high up in florida, but the Malagasy footage has them always at head height as well.
Carpets and Minors, are found below 5 ft usually in shrubs, more so than trees.
So all species I keep or intend to keep, are not really found at 15ft, so for me a 6ft cage top would be fine. Thats not to say they don't or can't go higher. Just that from what I have seen those species don't much.
For people that do keep 15ft high most times species thats not very practical.
At the end of the day, I don't think the waterfall serves purpose, does add danger, isn't very natural to be that close.
Waterfalls are cool, I agree to that. We like waterfalls, so setup a large cage between the chams cage. With a large waterfall, and fill it with frogs that do live in that riparian zone.
The rivers that parsons are near will be littered with Reed Frogs. So wanting a waterfall justify making a huge reed frog viv next to the parsons viv lol.
If there is only 1 piece of screen separating the 2. The chameleon will get all the hunidity and cool breeze from the waterfall, without being able to interact with the water. The frogs will be another cool pet, and will utilize the water.
I'm not disagreeing with much of what you're saying other than it is unnatural. Sure it's not necessary, but if someone really wants to put in the work, why not? There are tons of other unnatural things do like foam walls(our chams don't live in caves lol). A lot of what we do is for good aesthetics and as long as it's safe I see no issue with it. Infact, Id love to see someone do it the way I mentioned, would be sweet! And if we scale it down, like we do with most stuff in our enclosure, it wouldn't be that much different than a cham being 10/20? feet away from a large stream in the wild. Think about it, a tiny 1g or so volume water feature vs uhh hundreds of gallons in a large stream? It would be ridiculous to say it's unnatural for a cham to be near water, especially a rainforest species. I'm sure madcham isnt counting puddles that are probably the size of what our water feature would be, and I bet there are puddles everywhere. Especially during rainy season.