Releasing chams into the wild.

You could still do something semi wild outdoors with a little more planning and care.

Have you ever seen Bert Langerwerf's outdoor tegu enclosures? He made a few really large 30'x30' pens. The walls were made of galvanized steel roofing, blind riveted together. The walls were buried a couple of feet into the earth and were 30" high above the earth. All he had to do was keep the vegetation cleared near the walls. The roofing is slick so the lizards could not climb out. It comes in different colors too.

you can see a video of one of the terrariums here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7F8CFs6-68

There are many videos his son put up after Bert's death to show the outdoor terraria he built on you tube and they are worth a watch if people are unfamiliar with them. He kept and bred a few species of chameleon in some of the enclosures now housing other lizards in the videos.

With chameleons I think the worry would be birds carrying them out and a lucky few chameleons escaping the birds once they are out of the pen and establishing in the surrounding area. I mean aside from the sad fate of the poor lizards. But you could prevent this with bird netting.

Just a thought. But for sure do not let any get out and released. Florida importers loosing their stock has already caused enough problems nationally for the hobby, we don't need to give any more ammo to people who do not believe people should keep lizards at all...
 
Years ago I had a rather weird phone conversation with (I think Steve Davidson...long time ago) the founder of Sticky Tongue Farms about his plan to create a wild colony of panther chams on an island off the coast of Taiwan. His scheme was to release a bunch of his favorite locale and let them take over. He wouldn't have to care for them, just go harvest them once in a while. Regardless what native critters might happen to be there already of course and all for profit.

Oh yeaah I forgot about that. He told me about that too. LOL
 
To whoever it was who said that "they just can't let this country be free, what a bunch of crooks" you do realize that if there were no laws there would be nothing left at all. The human race is a sick and twisted race. You may think that no laws would mean that we could all live in harmony but it doesn't, at all. If there were no laws people could just walk around and vandalize anything they wanted, rape young children, kill people! All of this with no guilt at all because there is that makes it morally wrong. Laws are the support beams of America. Plus releasing chameleons in the wild could create all types of problems! Just look at all the ball python and snake problems Florida is having because of people releasing their pets into the wild!!

Note::
I'm sorry to get off topic but sometimes s*** needs to be said!
 
I agree. Very bad idea. Part of being a responsible reptile owner means ensuring that the animals we keep are properly cared for. If you didn't have the resources to care for the animals you let breed than why the heck did you let it happen?

One of the reasons the pet industry is in such turmoil these days is because of irresponsible owners doing thing without thinking about long-tern consequences.

Also, If the area you release them isn't the proper environment they will just die or suffer needlessly.

Come on people. I know it can be rewarding to breed your captive animals but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Just my honest opinion.
 
Why are people still posting on this thread it ended like a year ago and the OP said he would never do that it was just a thought.
 
To whoever it was who said that "they just can't let this country be free, what a bunch of crooks" you do realize that if there were no laws there would be nothing left at all. The human race is a sick and twisted race. You may think that no laws would mean that we could all live in harmony but it doesn't, at all. If there were no laws people could just walk around and vandalize anything they wanted, rape young children, kill people! All of this with no guilt at all because there is that makes it morally wrong. Laws are the support beams of America.

They could do all those terrible things. But strangely where laws haven't existed or where laws have been very loose they generally haven't done so. At least, no more so than places where laws have existed. People tend to live by their own morality, regardless of a few individuals declaring something a law.

Maybe fear of needing something necessary for survival at some point in the future from a neighbor when the neighbor isn't forced to give it to you under threat of law has a certain "civilizing effect" on people after living like that for a while.

Chaos usually insues in the absense of law after law has been lived under, rather than before. Which of course is our situation now. If the only morality is fear of the law, when the law leaves, say from natural disaster, morality leaves with it and chaos insues.

On the other hand, stealing, vandalizing, raping, killing people- Governments of the world under laws and policies "officials" have created have done all kinds of that stuff. So the law doesn't always equate to morality. Prominant founding americans spoke of civil disobedience in the face of such laws.

Consider the American Indian for a moment and what happened to them under the law. And then consider this statement by George Caitlin regarding them and laws-

8397694690_0e2dd66114.jpg


Of course this has nothing whatsoever to do with the laws being discussed here. Wanting to keep chameleons from establishing feral populations in America is a good thing. I only bring it up because you were also speaking in global sweeping generalities about america and the law and society behavior and wanted to give you another side of the coin to think about.

Plus releasing chameleons in the wild could create all types of problems! Just look at all the ball python and snake problems Florida is having because of people releasing their pets into the wild!!

I definately agree with you that chameleons should not be released from terraria into American habitat.
 
Why are people still posting on this thread it ended like a year ago and the OP said he would never do that it was just a thought.

cause I didn't notice it was from a year ago. LOL

Seriously- who digs up these things from waaaaaay back and then puts the first recent comment on them bringing them back to life. How in the world do they find them? LOL
 
maybe you could set up a sanctuary or something with that wire they use for chicken fences because then nothing can get in to hurt your babes and you could control their diet to a certain extent. then in the winter you could have a way of heating them or just bring them all back inside to your house. :D
 
If you think it is neat to view chameleons in the wild it is. However chameleon viewing should be done in their natural/native habitat. Book a flight and make reservations and view chameleons in Madagascar or Africa. There are many tour groups of herpers that go to Madagascar, and Eastern and Southern African has great wildlife viewing groups as well. Many long time herpers have stated time and time again that chameleons are best viewed in there natural habitat and if you want to view something exotic this is the way to go.
 
I am shocked at the stupidity displayed in many of these posts in the name of 'freedom.' What I hear is 'I want my freedom to be an ignorant dumbass.'

Yes that is an attack on you personally, you're an idiot. Kudos for asking first, but shame especially on the few people supporting the idea. It's that thinking that gives us all these problems and of course America is one of the worst for invasive species. All it takes is one person.

If you are too stupid to govern your own actions responsibly because you 'own the land', you need to be governed with laws.

The land owns you. You don't own it. Respect it.

I am all for the ban on pythons. Banning them in Florida only would be ridiculous, it would be so easy to get them into Florida from any other State. Same as all these mass shootings you guys have happening in areas with strict gun laws....the entire country needs to adopt the laws for them to be effective.

There's a LOT that needs to be banned.

Someone asked for evidence for chameleons being destructive specifically, well this problem was caused by ONE idiot on Hawaii who released chameleons on to 'his' property in 1972:

http://pacificscience.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/pac-sci-early-view-66-3-10.pdf

http://www.researchgate.net/publica...cksonii)_predation_on_native_Hawaiian_species

And it's dumb hobbyists who have now released veileds onto Hawaii, which are worse than Jackson's because they have a higher metabolism and bigger appetite:

http://www.hawaiiinvasivespecies.org/pests/veiledchameleon.html





I will grant you a lot of the species on Hawaii was introduced by humans over the centuries, but the effects chameleons are having there doesn't change how they would affect your region.




Stupid.
 
While the ecosystem has been severely impacted by the transfer of plants and animals to places that they would not have normally been able to get to by humans, and the whole planet is on the downhill anyhow with unatural polution and such. It would still be a good idea to try to keep these "incidents" to a minimum. You never know how much of an impact it may have. The new population may survive and flurish for 5 years, then grow to big, eat all the available food, and starve to death, the the spiders they were eating are now gone, the spiders dont keep the grasshoppers and masquitos in check, and then your covered in grasshoppers and mesquitos, you cant eat your pizza when your covered in mesquitos and grasshoppers, so you dont buy pizza, papa johns goes out of business, then the pepperoni farm they get pepperoni from in siberia goes out of business, they lay everyone off, and so the entire population of siberia dies of starvation and heartburn, because all they have is an exccess of pepperonis to eat, so you wind up killing off all of siberia because you released a gravid veiled chameleon in your backyard.

Thats why its not a good idea...

This made me laugh
 
As someone who has spent their 30 year career dealing with the ecologic aftermath of the actions of so-called "free Americans" I just throw up my hands hearing this. Do you really think I am a crook? I've never deceived or cheated anyone and resent your baseless insult. I have never taken a government job for the money but to try to protect the very land YOU depend on from harm. Why do you think all those laws, bans, gov't regulations are needed anyway? To undo the idiotic acts of the ignorant, profit-driven, and the arrogant among us.

Scattering species around the globe for our own pleasure, profit, amusement, bizarre attempts to establish all the birds listed in Shakespeare everywhere, or to have yet another dumb animal to shoot at is the most short sighted, arrogant, disrespectful, and plain stupid act humans can take. The US spends millions every year to fight invasive plants and animals all introduced by careless gardeners, dumb pet owners, clueless state game agencies, and criminals. Who pays for all this? YOU DO! I DO! Why does the AR movement
even get the ear of some gov't agencies? Because of carelessness and irresponsibility. And, we also spend millions attempting to protect the more desirable endangered native species that are preyed upon, pushed out, poisoned, or damaged by invasives.

Just in case you've forgotten, here are a few "pests" introduced to the US by human action:

Norway rat
Cane toad
Starling
English sparrow
rock doves (aka city pigeons that spread disease to native falcons)
feral cats
feral dogs
feral pigs
Chytrid fungus (wiping out amphibians worldwide)
White-nosed syndrome fungi (wiping out bats by the millions)
Water hyacinth
cheat grass
reed canarygrass
Bermuda grass
purple loosestrife
Russian thistle
Nutria
kudzu vine
avian malaria
brown tree snake
mongoose
waterborne parasites and diseases
zebra mussel
mitten crab

The list is huge and we have only our own stupidity to blame. Just release those chams to a habitat they don't belong to, sit back and wait. Just because you don't happen to understand the workings of the habitat they'll join does not absolve you. Someone else gets to clean up the mess.


I get what your saying... But honestly, you took his post way to seriously and you need to lighten up a bit.
 
I have been told, but not actually seen it, that there is a wild population of Jackson's Chameleons living and thriving in Laguna Canyon, Ca. A classmate of mine said that he and a herpetologist friend collect specimens that are ill, get them patched up and return them to the canyon. Like I said, I've never seen one there, but I have never been looking either.
 
I had a thought and am wondering what your opinions are. I have about 50 veiled eggs incubating and thought what if I released them when they are born? There is literally a forest in my backyard where they can live. However the summer is pretty hot and the winters are sometimes freezing cold at night. Could they survive and continue to breed on their own? I have no plans on doing this but it does sound awesome. What are your thoughts?

It would be not whatsoever awesome
and not whatsoever funny
 
Neonschams, this is a grave issue. There is absolutely no speck of this to take lightly.

Invasive species are here to stay and destroy entire ecosystems, look at the Cain Toad in Australia which is wiping out species left and right.

Chytrid fungus which was introduced around the world by the pharmaceutical industry and has been a major cause of its spread to international amphibinan populations, and can potentially wipe out virtually all amphibian life on the planet.

How can anyone expect any reasonable person who cares about anything to take that lightly? Chameleons are adaptive, apex predators.

EVERYONE should be heated up about this. This should spark a policy in the forum moderators to have a 'Responsible Owner's Guide' which outlines some of these problems which is mandatory to read when you sign up to the forum.

chascarpenter1 if your friend's herpetologist friend is a real disappointment....any caring & responsible professional who SHOULD know the effects of invasive animals would take those animals and destroy them or keep them captive.
 
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