NashansCamos
Chameleon Enthusiast
the short story: we lost jasper outside, and then after 19hrs we found him.
the long story:
It was a rare warm september day and while I was at school my dad took Jasper outside. He was on a work call and Jasper was on his 5ft schefflera. Apparently my dad got super into the work call and forgot to check jasper for like 5 mins. 5 MINS. thats all it took for him to escape. It had nothing to do with me so i dont want criticism. My dad checked on him at 2:30 and realised he was missing. He started frantically looking for him and didnt. about an hour later I came back from school and joined the hunt. I was really mad but didnt care at that moment because all I cared about was finding him. We searched until 7 and then took an hour break. It really was tough because there is so much shrubbery in our yard and almost everything had thorns or spiders.
But then nightfall came, and all of us felt a surge of hope. We have super powerful flashlights and jasper is bright orange and red when asleep. our neighbors let us into their yard to look as well. We also drew a map. We searched everwhere from about 8:30-11:30. nothing. we really thought we wouldve found him then. Another thought that was lingering was that a cat or bird got him. I actually came to that conclusion. There was one area that was the most logical place he would go. about 3 15ft tall trees clumped together. we shone our beam up wards, downwards, we looked through binoculars from the attic. we were 99% sure he was gone forever. In the morning we were all tired and sad. The sun came out and since the night was very cold (maybe 30's) we decided to have one more look.
Thats when we found him in the mamosa tree. the tree we had looked in nearly 10 times, the most logical place he would be, and he was there all that time (or maybe he moved around.) we needed the ladder and my dad got on the ladder and tried to get him out. we were all overwhelmed with shock and joy to even realise how stupid it was that we somehow didnt see him.
Then there was the wild caught inner spirit of jasper that i've never seen before. I've never seen him get mad at anyone EVER but this morning it was an exception. In fact he is sitting on my hand right now as I type this. I dont know why 18 hours in a tree made him think he was wild but he thought we were coming to kill him. As my dad approaches him, he shrinks back and hisses. my dad too was surprised at this behaviour. He made a grab for him and JASPER ON PURPOSELY FELL OUT OF THE TREE AS A DEFENSE MECHANISM. so luckily he landed on soft dirt and was fine. I managed to pick him up and he was like an ice block. a big angry ice block. hissing and orange I take him back to his cage.
after gradually warming him up for about an hour, he mellowed down.He was totally fine with me picking him up and ate 3 locusts.
It really was a close call and my dad was very apologetic but now he is officially retired as lizard supervisor. And now we have a rule that every cham needs constant CONSTANT supervision if its outside.
tomorrow i will show you photos of where he was and the trees andare we had to look in. now he is safe and sound, in his cozy cage and is acting totally normal and will definetly not be outside anytime soon.
the long story:
It was a rare warm september day and while I was at school my dad took Jasper outside. He was on a work call and Jasper was on his 5ft schefflera. Apparently my dad got super into the work call and forgot to check jasper for like 5 mins. 5 MINS. thats all it took for him to escape. It had nothing to do with me so i dont want criticism. My dad checked on him at 2:30 and realised he was missing. He started frantically looking for him and didnt. about an hour later I came back from school and joined the hunt. I was really mad but didnt care at that moment because all I cared about was finding him. We searched until 7 and then took an hour break. It really was tough because there is so much shrubbery in our yard and almost everything had thorns or spiders.
But then nightfall came, and all of us felt a surge of hope. We have super powerful flashlights and jasper is bright orange and red when asleep. our neighbors let us into their yard to look as well. We also drew a map. We searched everwhere from about 8:30-11:30. nothing. we really thought we wouldve found him then. Another thought that was lingering was that a cat or bird got him. I actually came to that conclusion. There was one area that was the most logical place he would go. about 3 15ft tall trees clumped together. we shone our beam up wards, downwards, we looked through binoculars from the attic. we were 99% sure he was gone forever. In the morning we were all tired and sad. The sun came out and since the night was very cold (maybe 30's) we decided to have one more look.
Thats when we found him in the mamosa tree. the tree we had looked in nearly 10 times, the most logical place he would be, and he was there all that time (or maybe he moved around.) we needed the ladder and my dad got on the ladder and tried to get him out. we were all overwhelmed with shock and joy to even realise how stupid it was that we somehow didnt see him.
Then there was the wild caught inner spirit of jasper that i've never seen before. I've never seen him get mad at anyone EVER but this morning it was an exception. In fact he is sitting on my hand right now as I type this. I dont know why 18 hours in a tree made him think he was wild but he thought we were coming to kill him. As my dad approaches him, he shrinks back and hisses. my dad too was surprised at this behaviour. He made a grab for him and JASPER ON PURPOSELY FELL OUT OF THE TREE AS A DEFENSE MECHANISM. so luckily he landed on soft dirt and was fine. I managed to pick him up and he was like an ice block. a big angry ice block. hissing and orange I take him back to his cage.
after gradually warming him up for about an hour, he mellowed down.He was totally fine with me picking him up and ate 3 locusts.
It really was a close call and my dad was very apologetic but now he is officially retired as lizard supervisor. And now we have a rule that every cham needs constant CONSTANT supervision if its outside.
tomorrow i will show you photos of where he was and the trees andare we had to look in. now he is safe and sound, in his cozy cage and is acting totally normal and will definetly not be outside anytime soon.
