Parsons questions

nick barta

nick barta

Chameleon Enthusiast
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Since January, I have seen posts on Parsons Chams, from Pams Chams, CleanLine Cameleons, and Europe. Are there any controls, documentation, or protections to ensure these are not wild caught which would violate the CITES ruling?

Are these juviniles Captive Hatched in Madagascar?

If they are Captive Bred, why is there suddenly an instant availability? Where are the breeders who have been successful in Captive Born Parson generations beyond F1 (F1 is first generation, F2 is second generation)?

Is Ken Kalish still breeding Parsons, or Cammerflauge Creations?

It is a fantastic species, it would be amazing if Parsons could be successfully be raised to breed past F1. I will never forget when an adult Parsons took a cricket from my figers at 36 inches away.....Now thats what I call a good long REACH!!!:D
 
Nick,

Any C. parsonii legally brought into the country will have to have CITES permits which indicate whether they are Captive Bred, Farm Raised or Wild Caught. Since it is illegal to export specimens from Madagascar, only CB specimens are given CITES permits (with the exception of reexport permits for WC specimens that have original CITES permits from before the ban) which are required before they can be legally shipped internationally. There is a lot of concern about whether these CB C. parsonii are truly CB or whether they are CH (which is technically illegal). Unfortunately if people can show CITES documents from C. parsonii that were legally exported from Madagascar prior to the ban and then they claim that they bred and hatched the clutch they have, there is no way of knowing for sure and the CITES authority has to issue CB CITES permits.

I've not spoken to Ken Kalisch in a couple years but last time I spoke with him he was considering selling his last C. parsonii. The Kammers have actually never bred and hatched parsonii. The clutch they had available a few years back was an imported clutch from Europe.

There have been a few verified F2 clutches but most have not been actually verified F2.

Chris
 
Are these juveniles Captive Hatched in Madagascar?
Click to expand...

The primary route is from Indonesia. They pick up "legal" documentation there. Whether they had it before then is quite doubtful :rolleyes:. But once they have it, they are "legal". CITES is only as good in any member country as that member country makes it. Many member countries simply do not have the resources to make an effort as needed.

I think that among those who know Parson's, the thought of F-2 is at the end of the rainbow ;), along with a bridge I am selling. Anyone working with breeding parsonii for profit is up against the smuggling of eggs, gravid females, and hatched juveniles from Madagascar into Indonesia. Some actual breeding of adult animals may occur in Indonesia, but all from ill-gotten stock. To try to compete against that would seem to be a fool's pursuit. Of course, what do I know.
 
Let's not forget that Parson's are a very slow growing species. From the experts...how old would you say the larger animals really are? And how many breeders (of any species) keep animals that rare, with that much demand, around until they're that old, just to send them to a foreign market?

By the way, I've been thinking about going to China to steal a couple pandas. Then, when I breed them at home in the US, I can sell "legal" captive bred babies, right? What do you think would happen once I started advertising baby pandas for sale? :rolleyes:
 
By the way, I've been thinking about going to China to steal a couple pandas. Then, when I breed them at home in the US, I can sell "legal" captive bred babies, right? What do you think would happen once I started advertising baby pandas for sale?
Click to expand...

"lucky" you ;)
 
Kent67 said:
Let's not forget that Parson's are a very slow growing species. From the experts...how old would you say the larger animals really are? And how many breeders (of any species) keep animals that rare, with that much demand, around until they're that old, just to send them to a foreign market?

By the way, I've been thinking about going to China to steal a couple pandas. Then, when I breed them at home in the US, I can sell "legal" captive bred babies, right? What do you think would happen once I started advertising baby pandas for sale? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

So, the consensus here is that even people claim they are legal, there is no way knowing that it's true, right?
I saw the video of chameleon in Madagascar, and I am not exactly thrilled seeing those boxes filled with bagged chameleons :(
 
Chris,
Thanks for the info, you confirm my thoughts on the "legality" of these Parsons.

Jim,
I agree with thoughts how someone can obtain these Parsons with "papers" and still be operating illegally.

Do we have an ethical responsibility to not purchase Parsons that have a high chance of being Black Market stock?:confused:

I mean no offence to Pam or Clean Line Chams, but this ethical question of bringing in a species that has a dismal reproductive history, and that it (probably) is Black Market, is very debatable!

Nick Barta
 
The paperwork says they are "legal". They need only cross the bridge from illegal to legal once.

The legal export of parsonii from Madagascar has been on hold for over 12 years now. By my math, and knowledge of the species, that makes them just about extinct outside Madagascar. In my estimate, for every one animal that possibly contributed to a successful breeding and hatching, there's been 100 or more animals that were the end of their branch of the family tree. That's a whole lot of corners to be painted into, and yet still manage to be start-to-finish legally available.

Nick, to each his own on the ethics of it. I am kind of with P.T Barnum on this one anyway.
 
All I have to say is that I spoken with the breeder many times...the breeder has photos and documentation for all the animals and their parents that all coincide with the ages of each chameleon...I opened the box...the animals are pristine. I have seen a few different shipments of Parsons before (which I questioned) and many, many shipments of Panthers. I know what wc animals look like, these are not them. Even ones that have once been in the wild have small scars or nicks on their tails...not these guys. These are by far the healthiest, cleanest Parsons chameleons I have ever seen.

Anyone keeping Parsons knows the head caps on a Parsons are much smaller than a panther and deflate very quickly. These guys all have full head caps and not a scratch on them.

If breeding and hatching Parsons were easy than everyone would be doing it, its not. But there are people that have done it and a couple that do know how to do it. I know a person right now who has successfully gotten eggs the last two years and has some down right now. Hopefully we will all hear about him soon. But my point is, it isn't impossible, there are people out there that can do it and have done it successfully many times. Just because the people that feel they know everything haven't heard their names don't mean they don't exist.

Anyways, anyone who knows me and has spoken about Parsons knows that I am very skeptical about the success of breeding Parsons, just like many who have already posted on this, but if anyone of these skeptics opened the box and saw what I saw, they would not be so skeptical. Its something that words won't make you believe, but if you saw the breeding facility and how every single one looked in person, you would know.

I am the one got this shipment together, not to make any money, but because they are so rarely available and I wanted more for my own experience and learning (selfish reasons :rolleyes: ). And like I said, anyone that has ever spoken with me about Parsons knows that I believe that about 99% of all Parson's in the US are illegally smuggled (kent I even told you that), but after seeing what I have seen (in the breeders facility and in the shipment) I don't doubt that this breeders is legitimately breeding these animals successfully, I guess these fall into that 1% range. Needless to say, I am going to continue to pick the breeders brain because IMHO he is definitely the most knowledgeable person I have spoken with about Parsons (sorry Andersonii, but you have him with some of the other species :)

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Kind regards,

Chris
 
You said the breeder has pictures, can you share them? I think a lot of people would be interested to see them.
 
jhappe - As one of the biggest a-holes you'll meet about copyright laws, I'll tell you that as much as anyone here wants to see those photos, it'd be a violation of copyright law for Chris to post them.

Nick - Its ultimately up to you and every other buyer to decide what you want to boycott and for what reason. While we may have our suspicions about the origin of some of these animals, ultimately, if they have CITES documents and were accepted into the US by the US FWS, they are considered legal animals, regardless of where they may have originated, etc.

Kent - Obviously that would depend on if you couple provide documents from previously acquired legal specimens you owned which you could claim were the ancestors of your baby pandas.

Chris - Thats alright, it happens. While it doesn't seem like many of the people I got information from when I started keeping are around still, a few of them are and are still doing well. I can't know everything ;)

Chris
 
I know what wc animals look like, these are not them. Even ones that have once been in the wild have small scars or nicks on their tails...not these guys.
Click to expand...

Not to impugn your animals, as you have the word of the entity that you bought them from, and only the Shadow knows in the end. To clarify about the origins of juvenile parsonii that are originally of illegal origins. They are not WC. They are usually CH in Indonesia from WC females smuggled to Indo. They are not scarred as WC, thin as WC, etc., because they are not WC. They may or may not receive good husbandry en route. They may spend time with an intermediary seller, being beefed up a bit if needed, then flipped for a profit.

As a model, we have sellers of pardalis here in the U.S. that import juvie pardalis from Indo, have pictures of their own sires past or present, and then flip those juvies as their own offspring. Frankly, outside of a lack of ethics, there's nothing to it, and the profit margin is considerable. They have nice pictures of animals and caging, answer emails, etc. And then what they sell (pardalis) grows up having filarial worms that could only have been acquired in Indo or Mada.

Point is that the appearance of the animal, appearance of the seller, pictures of cages, etc., doesn't make anything one bit more legal. As Chris A notes, only the paperwork does.
 
its really somthing to sit and read the masters go back and forth with so much info and facts this is the reason i come to this forum thanks guys. its so refreshing to actually learn about chameleons rather then read posts about weird foods and stolen cars(no offense). I for one am glad you guys are here!!!!!!!
 
Chris Anderson said:
jhappe - As one of the biggest a-holes you'll meet about copyright laws, I'll tell you that as much as anyone here wants to see those photos, it'd be a violation of copyright law for Chris to post them.
Chris
Click to expand...

Why is it violating copyright laws? Can he not get permission from the breeder? You would think that for breeding Parsons to be such an incredible feat in the chameleon world people would eager to show proof of their success, if they are really experiencing it.
 
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