@gotwqqd: it sounds that you do not think that there is a problem in the chameleon community with improper care, health issues, etc. Is that true? If so, I would like to exchange my experiences for yours: I've seen too many very sad cases to personally believe this is true.
You have zero idea about how studies should be done and how/why to remove misleading data and the erroneous conclusions based on them.
I think you are blinded by your passion for chameleons and possibly all animals.
The conclusions are not scientifically based at all.
Wanna talk science? Talk science with me. I literally work in the reptile scientific field. I rely on scientific herpetocultural studies
for a living. That being said...
The study is valid. I'm not saying that it's without bias, representational issues, sample size problems, etc, but it is still valid if taken as a piece of the whole picture. An entire study or review of studies is not invalidated just because of a few issues with it's methodology: if that were so, almost no studies would ever be taken as evidence for anything. You just take the study and filter the information through the issues you fond therein.
I found this study interesting as something that supports a hypothesis on chameleon average longevity in captivity, and not as an entire and whole truth. Just like any other study. No one piece of evidence should be taken in the exclusion of all others, but all pieces have their place as well. In honesty, it backs up my own anecdotal experiences which certainly doesn't hurt, though that is really neither here nor there.
Comparing captive lifespans to wild lifespans is a difficult proposition, as accurately determining wild lifespans is pretty close to impossible in most cases. Best guesses usually give us a idea of what we are dealing with. Some anecdotal reports show that some species of chameleons all but disappear yearly, and rely on the eggs they laid to repopulate the species. Should this be good enough for our captive chameleons? Are we happy with keeping to the wild lifespan, without going for more? Let me take off my science hat for a second and I would say no; that if we are arrogant enough to remove a wild creature from the wild and keep it for no other reason than our own pleasure and gratification, then it's our duty to ensure that their lives are in some way "better" (an objective concept, to be sure) than whatever they would have had previously.
A feral cat's average lifespan is only 1 year. Should then we expect our indoor pampered cats to keel over dead at 12 months of age? No, obviously not. The average "wild" lifespan is important information, absolutely, but captive life takes away much of the uncertainty of lifespan-determining factors: resource scarcity, predation, intraspecifc competition, etc. In captivity, damage to one eye may not be an insurmountable problem for a chameleon; but in the wild it almost certainly would be. And yet, even with all this, there still seems to be a real issue with chameleon long-term survivability in captivity. I think the real issue I take with this study, beyond the obvious problems of self-reported studies, is the lack of information on cause of death. Anecdotally I have my own opinions about why the short lifespans of chameleons should be (owner ignorance, lack of funds, etc) but i would be interested in seeing a follow-up study.
This study is not all-encompassing nor is it without fault, but it is still a valuable resource and one piece of information in an important puzzle.
Take your last comment about the mortality rate. What if it was found that the majority of the polled in the study were seasoned veterans in raising chameleons and you further found out that the death rate in the wild for chameleons that lived past 3 months was 60% before they got to 15 months old? What are your conclusions then?
"What If" arguments are just hypotheses contrary to the facts:
"What if every singe one of the survey participants had never owned a chameleon before and kept them with their leopard geckos?"
"What if chameleons only
want to live one year?"
"What if we were all space monsters on the planet XQ48J and wore our pet chameleons like a hat?"
Heh. Don't complain about someone else's scientific acumen if you're going to use logistical fallacies yourself to try and make them feel small. Additionally, science should never be the end-all/be-all. That paves a very dangerous path. Ethics and the human-animal connection are vital factors in both human and captive animal lives, and shoving that aside in favour of "pure science" is a grave mistake... and there is science to back that up if you happen to peruse veterinary journals
) I think they have only been allowed in this state for maybe 4-5 years? At the time there wasn't really any information about chameleon husbandry.
