No disrespect intended in any way FE...but I am actually not to surprised that they are surviving down there. I am by no means an expert on animal populations and locations. But from the amount of research I have done I would not be surprised if there were as many, if not more possible predators to Chams in their natural habitats in Africa and Madagascar than in southern Florida. An animal that produces such large clutches of young in reproduction, is one that is equipped take losses, and still survive hostile environments.
As a cham keeper and "enthusiast" i guess you could say, I also found it intriguing to learn that they can and sometimes do survive in our local areas as wild populations. You can probably find a thread on here somewhere from a while back of me all excited about wild jax. I have since done more research into these kinds of cases.
For the sake of the local ecosystem and for the sake of our hobby... We should never purposely release our animals. As has been stated above... Introducing foreign species into an environment has and still is proving to be a bad idea. IMHO I really think that these populations should be gotten under control as soon as possible in some way... Before we start having threads on here about how the wildlife agencies are killing Florida Veileds, and banning trade and ownership. This is more than a possibility in cases like this... we should try to nip it in the butt.
We need to identify the locations they are inhabiting, and some may not agree... But I believe we should start removing as many as possible from the wild and try placing them in homes with the intent f at some point getting them all. It may not be possible to remove the entire wild breeding population and future generations right away, but if it was done consistently enough for a span of time.. I believe we may be able to fix "our bad" in the most humane way possible. Maybe I am a disgusting optimist, but I think it is worth a shot. If someone were able to start capturing some.. I would be willing to help in any way possible from the west coast as far as finding good homes for them to go to or whatever else.
Man! there is no body here to shut me up when I'm alone typing
...sorry
~Joe
This is quite old, but I just find the whole thing so very incredibly ridiculous and hypocritical. If you sell chameleons, chameleons lay eggs or give birth to live young, they will reproduce, and eventually, they will find their way into the wild, be it by accident or because their owners intentionally set them free so that they can reproduce more freely.
There is no grey line to this argument, if you are genuinely concerned about the introduction of a non-native species into the ecosystem, then you should not own any chameleons; and if you own one chameleon or more chameleons, then you really have no say in the matter, as far as I'm concerned.
People who buy chameleons are a minority, if one of you guys releases 30 chameleons into the wild, and then five years later you have a population of chameleons on the loose: what can you actually do about it without the assistance of an organization that you cannot afford? It is beyond obvious, that a minority of chameleons owners, cannot possibly stop nor even come close to reducing, the reproduction of a lizard.
The fact that chameleons are climbers and are difficult to spot when there's plenty of trees around, makes it all the more impossible. And the fact that a minority of people are responsible for these chameleon populations, means that nobody will pay you to go out to regulate and reduce and study the growth of these chameleon populations; the government doesn't even have enough money to actually regulate the big corporations, the threat of a chameleon population is out of the question and no big organization will invest any money on something that will cost much more than it produces. Of course, ideally, if corruption didn't existed, it could be done, but under the circumstances, it's out of the question, and in my opinion, it comes off as a condescending and ignorant notion.
Bottom line: it's a fact of life, you give human beings the right of owning a non-native animal, and at the very least one of those humans, will breed the non-native animal, and the non-native animal will eventually find its way into the wild. It's a fact of life, it's the same reason why the concept of government regulations that we have does not work in the long term, because nobody is watching them, and nobody is watching what a chameleon owner does with his property, as simple as that; if you are a chameleon owner, and you suspected that a chameleon could survive in Florida or California, you knew this would happen, why act surprised about it?
If people are genuinely concerned about the ecosystem, then reinventing the housing system, reducing the pollution that cars produce, more regulations on the corporations that throw toxic waste on rivers, is much more positive than going out and "catching" as many wild chameleons as you can catch.
The human species has killed more life than any other animal on this planet, talking about "non-native" chameleons in a land where "native" Americans are rarely seen because they were ruthlessly disposed of their land and then systematically killed off, is extremely hypocritical and condescending.
Chameleons might grow up to become a little problem, but we have global warming, we have farms throwing toxic in the water, we have much bigger problems than a "chameleon invasion". In my not so humble opinion, I think that any person that claims that,
Cool to know? How is the introduction of non-native species that can potentially and negatively affect local ecosystems be cool?
Unbelievable.
Needs a slap in the face, or better said, a reality check. The US Government steals our money in plain sight, and we can't do anything about it because we cannot afford a good lawyer; what makes you think that you can actually stop or even minimize the reproduction of a lizard?
At a time when we have global warming, at a time where most of the meat that we eat is filled with antibiotics and drugs, at a time when rivers are filled with toxic, you are worried about some chameleons killing off native lizards?
Unbelievable.
As far as I'm concerned, the fact that we have human beings wasting their time with the great dangers of a "chameleon invasion", is a much bigger threat to native species than chameleons are, and indeed a much bigger threat to the planet itself.
I welcome this potential chameleon pest, it's a massive improvement on the many non-native introductions we've had in the past, it's inevitable, and it is a very interesting animal, I see little or nothing to complain about: life isn't perfect, some species survive and some become extinct, that's life, there's nothing you can do about it, and at the end of the day, we -human beings- do not even know if we are indeed 100% native or if we are the result of a non-native mutation.....
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