WC dead in 2days

[reyesjoshuacruz]

For those with experience, I was wondering what the frequency of occurance was for WC's dying after just 2days of captivity .

Im talking pulled off the tree, put in a cage, 2days later dead.

Aside from sick, injured chams.

I spoke to someone who advised their WC montane died after 2days in captivity. " Claiming sometimes chameleons just stress themselves to death "

 

[TylerStewart]

Im talking pulled off the tree, put in a cage, 2days later dead.

The difference is, they aren't pulled off a tree and put in a cage the same day. There's a long process between the tree and a cage in California. Besides parasites, they are probably very healthy in the tree, but in the time spent in importation, lost of stressful things can and do happen.

 

[Eric Adrignola]

Any animal will die quickly if it is stressed enough. Stress it with head trauma, dehydration, overgrowth of parasites, malnutrition, temperature extremes, fighting, infection, or all of the above, and it's a wonder any survive.

Nature itself isnt' gentle on them - lots of them just die from environmental stresses all the time - not only predation.

WC animals are not going to be always in the peak of health to begin with. You take a chance, and often, they will "just die". Saying it's due to "stress" is a good way to avoid trying to figure out exactly what happened between the Acacia tree, Dar Es Saleem, Miami and the pet store. With WC animals, it could be ANYTHING.

 

[Lancecham]

As Tyler stated the process is long. Many times, collectors get hundreds of chams and are put into cages designed for a fraction of that. Who knows how long they are there. With males and females being in such close proximity and most likely not getting enough water or food, you sort of expect problems. When they are finally shipped out, many are not in good shape and need rehab before they are sold. Most pet stores are not going to get them better before they sell them.
I once saw a picture of where these chams were kept before they were shipped and it wasn't pretty. Sick, dehydrated and dead chams in the cage along with some that seemed to marginally ok.

 

[eisentrauti]

I've imported directly animals from Countries. The problem is that's nearly impossible to have influence on how the animals are kept in their original country. They were often transported from catcher to catcher to seller to seller till they arrive at the guy who handle the shippment details
Cheap animals (most of the import animals just cost a few $) were very bad handled the guys in those countries didn't care well for such animals.

It's just too much stress, dehydration and all those other points which kill the animals so fast

 

[reyesjoshuacruz]

thanks for all the replies guys. I should have been more clear.

I'm specifically referring to the first stage timeline, before export.

I guess no one here can really answer it because no one here collects WC themselves. Outside of feral pops in the US.

Anyways i shot an email to a herpetologist friend who is a cal poly biology professor about the female jax she collected from a feral population in SLO. She free ranged her in a large ficus indoors.

when i emailed to she how she was doing, she replied

"The one I found died just two days later, sometimes as you probably know adult chameleons react very negatively to being captured, they literally stress themselves to death."

any thoughts? for some reason i dont believe it...call me crazy but i first talked to her a few months after she collected the girl, and not once did she mention her passing. we talked about care ect.....

she looked good to me.

 

[AJA]

SLO? Same Large Ogre?

Perhaps she handled the chameleon too much? Paparazzi overload?

 

[Ryan Jarosek]

SLO = San Luis Obispo



A stressed animal is, almost by definition, immunologically compromised and organisms that had been benign can become problematic after the stress of shipping and adaptation to a new environment.

I would think that to be true no matter what the distance traveled.

 

[reyesjoshuacruz]

SLO, if you dont live in california, it is of no consequence and i didnt feel like typing the whole thing out.

sorry, there are only a handful of feral pops of chameleons in the USA, but the location really doesnt matter even if you did live in CA.

and look me being lazy caused me to type even more than i would have if i just spelled it out.

San luis obispo

 

[AJA]

It could be possible, given the following:

1. Animal was 'older' as opposed to a juvenile who wouldn't know better and
therefore a little more flexible with strange situations.
2. Animal had a parasite load - strees caused the parasites to get an upper
hand.
3. Animal was put indoors to free range in a ficus tree in a very 'hostile'
environment (as far as the animal was concerned)
- was there a lot of traffic where the tree was
- how much handling did it get?
- how many photos were taken?
- how was the 'ailen' food presented?
4. Dehydration - was the animal misted enough?

Perhaps the animal would have done better if it was kept in an outdoor enclosure.


I would think if you brought in a WC you would want to keep it semi dark and quiet with no outside stimuli.

Could be me, but I am getting the impression you think perhaps something is amiss with the initial care of this animal?

Out of curiosity do you have to have a permit to take WC like you do in HI?

-two cents from the peanut gallery.

 

[Kent67]

Healthy to dead in 2 days? Heat stroke. That's about the only thing I could imagine unless it really wasn't healthy to begin with.

Stress can kill, but it takes a lot longer to depress the immune system than 2 days. Now, I could see it just being a case of bad timing in that it's possible something catastrophic to the animal was going to happen with or without being captured. Maybe a worm/parasite damaged the heart, etc.

 

[reyesjoshuacruz]

thanks for your reply aja. No permit is required but the population has dwindled as of recently. Most residents in the neighborhood haven seen one in a while.

Kent,

well said, thats what i was thinking, had to be heat related in some way. I was imagining heat stress, prego, and or a vital organ had been damaged by worm/parasites.

she was a looker though.

 

[reyesjoshuacruz]

i didnt notice this until now, but i see white residue on the leaves, it looks like dirt/dusk but almost looks like dried chemicals. Maybe the ficus was treated with something, and the chameleon took that in while drinking off the leaves?

 

[jojackson]

worth a read

http://www.skypoint.com/members/mikefry/wildcaughthealth.html

 

[reyesjoshuacruz]

worth a read

http://www.skypoint.com/members/mikefry/wildcaughthealth.html

i saw an article that had some of the same pictures, i want to say it was a few years back, it showed way more chams in holding conditions melleri, parsons ect... but i havent been able to find it.

anyways, its clear that im talking about the initial 2 day period from when a chameleon is collected and held right guys?

 

[jojackson]

2 days, would likely be stress, overheating or an existing disease/infection. Stress can wildly accellerate infection, likewise heating/increase in metabolism. Not your fault anyway, thats the thing bugging you?
Chemicals on a plant are a possibility, pesticides in particular, still not your fault.

 

[reyesjoshuacruz]

wasnt my cham. Whats bothering me is i dont beleive it. I was just wondering if anyone knew how often just collected WC die after the first two days of captivity. But i guess since no one here is there during the first 2 days of captivity after being collected i shouldnt have expected anything.

The person is a biology prof at a cal poly. Ive just never heard of a personal account of a newly collected cham looking pretty good dying like that.

 

[chameleonneeds]

thanks for all the replies guys. I should have been more clear.

I'm specifically referring to the first stage timeline, before export.

I guess no one here can really answer it because no one here collects WC themselves. Outside of feral pops in the US.

Anyways i shot an email to a herpetologist friend who is a cal poly biology professor about the female jax she collected from a feral population in SLO. She free ranged her in a large ficus indoors.

I have collected WC animals before, they were B. pumilum.
I had none of them die.
They stressed for about a day then started eating crickets and drinking water and they kept to their usual colours (green and orange).

I had alot of different aged specimens from them

Most looking sub adult and 1 gravid female which was not stressed.
I had 2 newly borns which did not stress much, they were even eating and drinking.
And I had 1 giant old female which was the most chilled of them all very placid.

I kept them all at my grans house while I was staying in the area of where I found them.
I then released most of them, and 4 of us kept 1 chameleon each and they were the 2 newly borns, a juvenile male, and an adult male.
They all did great on the drive back to johannesburg it was about I think 1000+ kilometers drive.

Hope any of that info helps let me know if you have any more questions.

 

[reyesjoshuacruz]

thank you for your reply on this one, thats how i figured it would go. I appreciate you sharing your experience, you're the only one that replied with actual experience collecting and keeping the same animal.

so either the animal was sick or she lied