battle of the chameleons??!?!!?!

[ph34r]

my take on this is , like i realize you should not pit animals against each other for sport and should be prevented if possible. with that being said im curious to if this was a one time thing or have you done this on multiple occasions, from my understanding it was just a coincedence that they locked eyes and bam its go time, they are after all about territory.

but on another note i see it as being in there nature i watched the video thourghly and they didnt seem to be going for any serious hits , who knows they could be dancing for all we know like who really knows what they thinking. what is it was just how they siad hello?

finally we are all civilized people on here theres no need to resort to put downs and making other feel like shit we all here as a family for the love of are animals we all have different take on how to raise our particular animal some may be different then yours, some people just need help cause they are doing things that are detrimental to thee animals and thats what we all here for to teach and learn the right way and wrong way to do things. i did some what contridict my self there but i hope what i wanted to mean got across

 

[Solid Snake]

I've successfully raised Jacksons for some time now...never had one die on my watch. So that's fine if you disapprove, but I know what I'm doing.

Some time now?

Thats VERY misleading. From your own statement in a previous thread, you have only been keeping around 8 months!!!

I know people from Hawaii, and I know you may have been around them, longer than you have kept them. That does not mean you "know what you are doing".

Please rethink your care.

I think it funny that many long term keepers disagree with you, yet you maintain your position?

I have only been keeping for a year or so, and the only thing that has kept my chameleons alive is listening to the more experienced keepers.

You could still make a good keeper.

Dont let your pride get in the way of how you keep your animals.

You have been "attacked" quite a bit here, and for a reason.

Just because they have horns, and use them to "wrestle" does not mean they cannot sustain injury.

Horns are NOT harmless!
Same as a BB gun is not harmless...
Horns could easily put an eye out!

Then were would you and your jacksons be?
Infected, and likely here asking for help.
(from the same people telling you not to do it in the first place)

Did you have some sort of issue getting them to mate?

Did you try simply holding them near each other, within eyesight?

If you did so, why on earth was it so absolutely necessary for them to breed?

Did this work? Do you now have other pregnant females, other than the one you received pregnant?

Have you ever actually had a pair mate?

You also state that you like to give them a sense of "victory". What of the loser?

Are you starting to see why you are getting "flack" from people on here?

Again, please rethink your care, and the way you keep your animals, and work towards being a better keeper.

I, and many others just want to help, and will help if you need it.

Please dont hesitate to ask. Friend request sent...

 

[sdheli420]

can you beat either one of them up? i'm kidding but not really they already sound like barbarians so accomodate their mentality

just me, but a punch in the face to idiots like that usually sets them straight..

 

[ph34r]

/\
/| \
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| bravo!!!!!

 

[CamiGirl89]

Nothing like an early morning "Christmas Story" reference to get my day started right! And well said advice, as well.

 

[DanSB]

The first thing I do in the morning is check on my Chameleon and make sure he is misted and happy before I go to work and the first thing I do when I get home is do the same. I love my chameleon and animals in general. I have a soft spot for animals.

With that said I think ChamBust is being treated unfairly by the experienced keepers here. (for whom I have much respect by the way)

I believe that if we intend to establish long term captive populations things like this will need to occur. We will need to establish ways to mimic natural mating, territorial, and rearing techniques. While it isn't likely Jackson's will go away anytime soon many others will. Just because an animal does breed doesn't mean it should, allowing a male to establish superior genetics in the way they have been doing it since before humans were using tools might not be a bad idea.

On the other side videotaping it with an eye towards entertainment is where the bad taste comes from. If it was a how to for breeding and selecting which male to allow access to females this would be a different story.

I appreciate all the intelligent replies on this thread and am saddened to see all the replies about violence to stop violence and of an utter dismissal of a behavior because it seems dangerous.

If we intend to improve husbandry and captive breeding techniques we may occasionally need to try things that might not be correct on the surface... Lets face it, who has gotten past a fifth generation without WC stock and kept healthy individuals?

 

[jaglon53]

The first thing I do in the morning is check on my Chameleon and make sure he is misted and happy before I go to work and the first thing I do when I get home is do the same. I love my chameleon and animals in general. I have a soft spot for animals.

With that said I think ChamBust is being treated unfairly by the experienced keepers here. (for whom I have much respect by the way)

I believe that if we intend to establish long term captive populations things like this will need to occur. We will need to establish ways to mimic natural mating, territorial, and rearing techniques. While it isn't likely Jackson's will go away anytime soon many others will. Just because an animal does breed doesn't mean it should, allowing a male to establish superior genetics in the way they have been doing it since before humans were using tools might not be a bad idea.

On the other side videotaping it with an eye towards entertainment is where the bad taste comes from. If it was a how to for breeding and selecting which male to allow access to females this would be a different story.

I appreciate all the intelligent replies on this thread and am saddened to see all the replies about violence to stop violence and of an utter dismissal of a behavior because it seems dangerous.

If we intend to improve husbandry and captive breeding techniques we may occasionally need to try things that might not be correct on the surface... Lets face it, who has gotten past a fifth generation without WC stock and kept healthy individuals?

Im sorry but fighting chams doesnt need to be done to improve things and that wasnt the intention of the member who did this. That just sounded like such nonsense I needed to comment. Fighting your chameleons isnt going to improve your breeding stock or your husbandry technique. Its just someone trying to entertain themselves at the possible cost of injuring an animal. Grow up

 

[AllFallDown]

I agree with you but it's a bit MORE than unorthodox husbandry , it's borderline irresponsible . btw I'll be a biologist by the end of this month

Well, I do think you have provided some good evidence of that

Congrats on the degree. You have a particular subfield? There is a big part of me that wishes I had majored in biology as an undergrad (botany in particular). I may apply to a botany or Ecology Ph.D. program this next application cycle.

 

[DanSB]

Im sorry but fighting chams doesnt need to be done to improve things and that wasnt the intention of the member who did this. That just sounded like such nonsense I needed to comment. Fighting your chameleons isnt going to improve your breeding stock or your husbandry technique. Its just someone trying to entertain themselves at the possible cost of injuring an animal. Grow up

It could very well improve your breeding stock if you are using it as a way to select who breeds and who doesn't. While ChamBust may not have done it for this purpose (I don't pretend to know a person's intentions) that doesn't immediately mean it is always a bad idea.

I fully agree that if it was done for the purpose of entertainment it is reprehensible in the worst way. I am disgusted by reality TV where people are put through pain for the purpose of entertainment.

If we keep this intellectual we can evaluate if it is possibly beneficial or only harmful and then weigh out the pluses and minuses of each. But if we choose to utilize only emotional response we will soon find no progress can happen in animal husbandry because to truly be successful in the way nature has intended we must occasionally allow nature to make the decision.

Please don't indicate I am being a child because I choose to be rational rather than emotional. It is intellectually dishonest and an emotional reaction. I feel this subject has a lot of rational merits to be discussed.

 

[jaglon53]

E

Wow, really classy, the people here on this forum. Fyi, all four of my jacksons are happy and in good health. Love how complete strangers feel justified to attack people that they think to be wrong...what I did is no different than what national geographic does, yet I don't see you all attacking them. By the way, cussing people out and calling them names is a real mature way to settle differences...bet that works wonders for you in real life.

You arent filming a territorial dispute for the discovery channel in the middle of the jungle where you stumbled across two jacksons chameleons in nature are you? So its not what national geographic does there actually in Kenya or wherever jacksons naturally occur and catch something like this on film. While we watch it at home and go WOW isnt mother nature beautiful. Its crazy your actually comparing yourself to national geographic now this is nuts! What your doing has no positives coming out of the situation and your just entertaining your self so that bs about you doing this for a benefit isnt even slightly sermisable. I wish you would just stop stating your case apologize for offending anyone and dont put your animals in situations where they could get hurt for no reason.

 

[AllFallDown]

Im sorry but fighting chams doesnt need to be done to improve things and that wasnt the intention of the member who did this. That just sounded like such nonsense I needed to comment. Fighting your chameleons isnt going to improve your breeding stock or your husbandry technique. Its just someone trying to entertain themselves at the possible cost of injuring an animal. Grow up

Well.... in all fairness, the video poster (forgor how to spell his name) did seem to indicate that his reason for doings this was along these general themes. I do not recall him indicating it was about natural selection per se, but he did seem to argue that it was in their I interests and for their psychological health at the very least.

Now, I think Dan has some interesting ideas on this (I don't think his post was nonsense at all, even though I disagree with it), but I will point out- lets assume that youare correct (Dan) that allowing chameleons to fight can lead to stronger breeding stock. If you are an individual with like 6 chameleons does it seem nessasary to battle them to establish which should be allowed to breed? Also, how would this improve breeding stock? It seems to me that such practices favor chameleons with greater physical strength which is only one metric to consider. Do people who are buying chameleons chose the strongest? No, most I think look at the coloation of the parents. If you want to breed chameleons to be stronger, then consider their build, I do not see how allowing them to battle for mating rights as they do in nature is in any way nessasary or beneficial.

A last thought, dogs are territorial and have dominance fights too. How many breeders do you know that allow their dogs to mate based on their ability to win fights? Some do I am sure, but I suspect most consider the bigger picture. Things like fur color, build, personality. Having them duke it out to sort out mating patterns is overly simplistic and unnessasary.

 

[AllFallDown]

It could very well improve your breeding stock if you are using it as a way to select who breeds and who doesn't. While ChamBust may not have done it for this purpose (I don't pretend to know a person's intentions) that doesn't immediately mean it is always a bad idea.

I fully agree that if it was done for the purpose of entertainment it is reprehensible in the worst way. I am disgusted by reality TV where people are put through pain for the purpose of entertainment.

If we keep this intellectual we can evaluate if it is possibly beneficial or only harmful and then weigh out the pluses and minuses of each. But if we choose to utilize only emotional response we will soon find no progress can happen in animal husbandry because to truly be successful in the way nature has intended we must occasionally allow nature to make the decision.

Please don't indicate I am being a child because I choose to be rational rather than emotional. It is intellectually dishonest and an emotional reaction. I feel this subject has a lot of rational merits to be discussed.

Excellent point.

 

[xeonic]

I made it to page 6 before I lost interest. How ever my thoughts on the topic is there are much worse things then Two Chameleons fighting. Whats done is done. Moving along boys.

 

[Solid Snake]

just me, but a punch in the face to idiots like that usually sets them straight..

True.

Proper verbiage can accomplish the same though, and I dont have the time or money to fly to Hawaii.

There is NO excuse for filming such a thing outside of nature...

End of story.



There is NO even half-decent argument to do such a thing.

"To promote breeding" has been the only argument so far by the way.

Out of all the breeding information here, and elsewhere, there is nothing that says anything remotely like this is necessary.
If there is, Id love to see it. ;/

This is an unnecessary risk to the animals, making it negligent behavior.

 

[italian chameleon]

End of story.
There is NO even half-decent argument to do such a thing.
"To promote breeding" has been the only argument so far by the way.
This is an unnecessary risk to the animals, making it negligent behavior.

totally agree

It could very well improve your breeding stock if you are using it as a way to select who breeds and who doesn't.

assuming that only equally sized chams would go into an actual fight how are going to determine who s the winner if you are not letting the chameleons injure each other? are you going to sit there with a stopwatch? divide the match into rounds? and after all the guy didn't say he's doing it for breeding purposes he says he's doing it in a (rather bizarre) attempt to encourage natural behavior (aka just for fun)

please every one stop making up stuff to defend the guy. according to most knowledgeable people here (NOT ME) fighting chams is wrong and shouldn't be encouraged. full stop.

PEACE

 

[DanSB]

There is NO even half-decent argument to do such a thing.

"To promote breeding" has been the only argument so far by the way.

Out of all the breeding information here, and elsewhere, there is nothing that says anything remotely like this is necessary.
If there is, Id love to see it. ;/

This is an unnecessary risk to the animals, making it negligent behavior.

So we know all there is to know about maintaining captive populations of Chameleons now?

Just because it hasn't been written doesn't mean it isn't viable or even healthy to a captive population. Filming it like some sort of show was distinctly in poor taste. But the behavior and practice might have positive applications to enhancing genetic fitness in captive populations.

One of the big problems professional biologist and Zoo breeders have is maintaining Genetic diversity and Genetic fitness in captive populations where introducing wild caught genetics is at present the best solution (at least that I have read about).

What if we had a way to improve the genetics of our captive stock wouldn't we be irresponsible to not at least try?

 

[Solid Snake]

So we know all there is to know about maintaining captive populations of Chameleons now?

No way to know. Its not likely though, no.

That statement is also putting words in others mouths.

Please pay attention to what I (and others) are saying, literally.

Just because it hasn't been written doesn't mean it isn't viable or even healthy to a captive population. Filming it like some sort of show was distinctly in poor taste. But the behavior and practice might have positive applications to enhancing genetic fitness in captive populations.
HOW???
One of the big problems professional biologist and Zoo breeders have is maintaining Genetic diversity and Genetic fitness in captive populations where introducing wild caught genetics is at present the best solution (at least that I have read about).

What if we had a way to improve the genetics of our captive stock wouldn't we be irresponsible to not at least try?

You just have the wrong idea here.

If a scientific community had a LARGE population of animals, and let them free in a large enclosed habitat, and let them do what they please, and this occurred, then fine.

We are talking about a hobbyist with 8 months experience, doing this for fun.

(which you acknowledged as wrong)

Do we need to do this? On ANY level? No. Time has shown that this is not critical to breeding by any means.

It has to do with ethics.

Its wrong, as it is an unnecessary risk to the animal.

Would feeding the animal small portions of pesticide eventually let it build up a tolerance to it? So you can feed any wc feeder you like? Maybe. If so, it would result in a animal that is more likely to survive. Why dont you and ChamBust do some experiments on that, and let me know how it goes?

 

[jaglon53]

totally agree



assuming that only equally sized chams would go into an actual fight how are going to determine who s the winner if you are not letting the chameleons injure each other? are you going to sit there with a stopwatch? divide the match into rounds? and after all the guy didn't say he's doing it for breeding purposes he says he's doing it in a (rather bizarre) attempt to encourage natural behavior (aka just for fun)

please every one stop making up stuff to defend the guy. according to most knowledgeable people here (NOT ME) fighting chams is wrong and shouldn't be encouraged. full stop.

PEACE

Score card: power head butts and knockdowns is how it would be scored. Just one joke cause this is such a stupid idea and I cant believe some members are supporting it. I think everyone who is thinking this could be a good experiment or supporting this and possibly trying to find some scientific reason it could be positive. Are clearly thinking about this with anything but there brain. I am going to stop looking at this thread cause all its doing is really pissing me off. Especially each time someone throws out theories on how to do a possible case study and are throwing out a bunch of what ifs. This is so dumb cause this situation is so wrong.

 

[italian chameleon]

One of the big problems professional biologist and Zoo breeders have is maintaining Genetic diversity and Genetic fitness in captive populations where introducing wild caught genetics is at present the best solution (at least that I have read about).
What if we had a way to improve the genetics of our captive stock wouldn't we be irresponsible to not at least try?

so to actually improve genetic diversity in captive environment, if you have two healthy males you make them fight so that only one could mate?? is that how you improve diversity in captivty? you sure?

it's completely unnecessary (and dangerous)to make them fight! if you have 2 healthy unrelated males they should be able to mate as much as they like in order to improve diversity!
if for whatever reason you have to pick one, you choose the fittest or the one who has the traits you want to pass over to the next generation (e.g brighter colors, bigger horns etc).

nature= natural selection=fight. captivity=human selection= no need to fight.

and btw what's the problem with taking some Hawaiian jackson's from the wild??? they're considered as invasive pests over there!!! they should take like a lot of them and ship them back to tanzania where they're originally from!!!!

I am going to stop looking at this thread cause all its doing is really pissing me off. Especially each time someone throws out theories on how to do a possible case study and are throwing out a bunch of what ifs. This is so dumb cause this situation is so wrong.

agree

 

[DanSB]

Snake:

I understand I am coming off as callous and one of the reasons I like you so much is that you are obviously compassionate and care about the animals well being.

I am not a full on biologist specializing in genetic diversity and fitness among captive populations and it does't sound like ChamBust is either nor is ANYONE who has posted here thus far to my knowledge.

We know how to breed most chameleon species in captivity but we don't know how to maintain fitness without introducing wild caught stock. All I am saying is we can't say there is no reason to ever do this.

I take exception only with saying allowing natural behavior should never be done. But you are absolutely right in that if they are being made to spar for kicks that is just plain stupid and cruel.

Determining a person's intent is difficult though and I am not qualified to do so. As such I can only comment on how I feel the behavior could possibly be beneficial. (Enough people already pointed out why it is bad I didn't feel the need to chime in on that).


The way this behavior could be beneficial is as follows:

Male A and Male B are both adults who are able to mate and create viable offspring. In the wild where there is competition of females or territory they will meet and go through a dominance contest that has driven the species evolution and continual survival for a long time. The winner who has more traits allowing for fitness will win and get the territory and breed where the weaker will wander off and breeds less if at all.

In captivity both breed as much as their keeper allows or wants. You won't know which cham is stronger just by looking, nature has devised a way to determine this. If done carefully you won't hurt an animal and get more fit offspring.

This is how it could be beneficial to captive populations.