Panther Crosses... Why is it a Touchy Subject?

[A1forall]

Unless your business is breeding and you are trying to breed and market one specific LOOK aren't they all the same?

There is another thread going "What Happened To The REPTILE HOBBY",
this idea of a specific locale MASTER RACE is what has turned it from an HOBBY to a Business.

In the thread "What Happened To The Reptile Hobby", The individual goes to a reptile show and sees nothing but ball python morphs, crested gecko morphs, and beardies as far as the eye can see. Now on the one had you have all these morphs with pythons, geckos, & beardies some will say "this is why WE have to PRESERVE THE SACRED, Territory/Locale of these lizards/chameleons so it doesn't become like the pythons,geckos". The difference is the time frame it takes to incubate, house, feed, then market panther chameleons. Not to mention these guys and girls are fragile, in my experience with other reptiles.

Just Look at the Faly situation, you have some that are high white
(that demand a HIGHER premium) than say others that may look closer to a Nosy Be but are still being sold as a Faly. We are in the golden age for panthers right but could be on the brink if people don't stop being so greedy.

If history has taught us anything it should be taken from the Veild chameleons. Fifteen years ago these guys, if you could find one was anywhere up to 300 plus dollars. Look what happened, today they could be had for 40 even 20 bucks. Then everyone wines about corporates Petxx, and Pet Mxxx having these chams in deplorable conditions. Game over

Getting back to the hobby and not the business is directly tied to the Master
Locale. They are living Masterpieces not Master Locales.
Is this more a race issue?
Look in the mirror What locale are you?

 

[Mike Fisher]

Breeders are never going to be asked to turn over their collections to repopulate the wild.

That is the most profound thing in this thread. Many hobby breeders actually have the ego to believe that they are going to be the one to repopulate the earth. Not gonna happen.

 

[fluxlizard]

Reptoman, I agree with that. I think that we are the future of chameleons, in an environmental sense, because at the rate of habitat destruction we are their best survival chance.

Ehh, for some chameleons this is kinda sorta maybe longshot chance true.

For panther chameleons- probably not so much. Panthers actually do better with "habitat" destruction- by habitat I am really meaning untouched by man forest by nature.

Because for panther chameleons, when man touches nature, he creates more habitat for panther chameleons than was there before. Panthers and carpets are sun-lovers who prefer habitat a couple meters off the ground. And they don't mind living near human habitation. So when gardens and bushes and small yard trees go in, panthers and carpets actually increase in numbers compared to untouched forest.

So, probably panther chameleons are never going to be in any great danger from habitat destruction. The chameleon species that get displaced when this occurs and the panthers move in, however, are probably another story. But they made those illegal to keep anyway, so there's no saving them in captivity.

And that's just one side of it, the other side is that once they are kept in captivity for a few generations, they are forever changed anyway- natural selection is no longer selecting and breeders tend to select for things that get natural lizards killed. Things like tameness, brilliant coloration, genetic anomalies of other sorts too like the trans gene. And instead of 90+% getting culled off by natural selection before breeding age, you end up with 90% potentially breeding and passing on their unsuitable for nature genes.

 

[fluxlizard]

If history has taught us anything it should be taken from the Veild chameleons. Fifteen years ago these guys, if you could find one was anywhere up to 300 plus dollars. Look what happened, today they could be had for 40 even 20 bucks. Then everyone wines about corporates Petxx, and Pet Mxxx having these chams in deplorable conditions. Game over

It will probably happen with panthers too. There isn't any stopping it.

I've lived through several lizards (bearded dragons, veiled chameleons, leopard geckos, crested geckos) that have gone that way and I didn't pay attention to snakes but there are many many more that went that way.

I call the ones responsible "the horde of trendy breeders". They jump into something, overproduce it, and then bail and dump their breeders and invest in the next big thing once the market won't pay much for the offspring. They really don't care long term over many many generations about what they are producing- it's just a business decision and when it is time to move on, they move on regardless of whatever they have been working on developing up to that point.

Meanwhile those of us who breed what we breed because we love the species, end up moving forward without making much if anything because the price never recovers after it reaches a certain tipping point- the species become popular enough that the "horde of bedroom breeders" that is in place at that point will keep it low forever, even though these sort of breeders move in and out constantly- breeding a pair for a year or two and then doing something else.

No offense to you guys who are bedroom breeders, but this practice isn't the greatest for the long haul either because it is usually just 2 relatively random pets selected, often siblings- just whatever the breeder has been lucky enough to acquire in one try, and then the offspring go on to the next bedroom breeder with the same relative conditions with little thought of total population health and a few generations down the road and no ability for careful selection from hundreds or thousands for beeding stock generation to generation.

It kind of sucks, but if you are thinking you are into panthers for life, might as well face the truth of the situation.

I have no doubt that the horde of trendy breeders will be along soon and they will pick ambilobes first which is a shame because they are my favorite and I'm not giving them up even 4 years from now or so when they are selling to distributors for $30. Other locales will follow shortly almost certainly once they have their recipe for breeding panthers down.

That's my prediction...

 

[sandrachameleon]

hobby keepers will NOT be re-populating the wild. Ever.
Specialists and zoos, maybe, but certainly NOT the normal hobby breeder joe on this forum.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Currently privately owned bison are the stock targeted for use to repopulate wild parks populations. Most bison stock is contaminated with cattle genes from cross breeding long ago, so most zoological institutions do not have pure bison as originally thought despite that they look like pure bison. Only genetic testing can determine that. So private collectors are the only ones with pure bison enough to create genetic diversity. It is definitely uncommon to call on hobbyists or private collectors, but not completely unheard of. Just interesting info.

 

[Kent67]

Here's the way I look at it, at least for the "regional color morphs" from the mainland: I've been saying it here for five years; the term "locale" is being misused unless one collected the animals him or herself. The males' colors may conform to a certain look but don't necessarily come FROM that town or village. A perfect case would be the Ambilobe morph. Can anyone really tell the difference between them or animals from Sirama or anywhere in between? That's what, maybe a 400 square mile area, at least? It's only 70 miles on the windy highway from Ambilobe to Ambanja and there aren't any barriers between them. Heck, they could walk in the bushes and trees along the side of the highway if it wasn't shorter "as the crow flies." But yet, over that distance the two regional morphs become distinct. And there are intergrades along the way, for sure. Ever see those occasional "Ambilobe" imports that are a bit darker in color and look a little too much like "Ambanjas?"

I'm not aware of anything between Antsiranana in the north to Djangoa in the south that would really be a barrier to gene flow. Panthers will live in undisturbed habitat, gardens and yards, or agriculture fields and thus their range is pretty much continuous along the coast on that side. The river just north of Ankaramy doesn't even seem that impossible to be crossed at least occasionally.

That being said, the only thing we're really trying to keep pure is our constructed opinions or beliefs of what the morphs are supposed to look like in captivity. From the get-go the true geographic collection data has not, is not, and probably won't ever be available to the average breeder or hobbyist.

 

[ridgebax1]

As a new comer to the chameleon hobby, I know I will never breed my chams so I am going to speak as a consumer. I don't think mixing the locales to create fantastic looking chams is bad. However someone referred to dogs and dog breeding. One does not have to look too far to see the negative impact of human intervention on some breeds, English bulldogs, Cocker Spaniels, and German Shepherds come to mind. There are serious problems with each of these breeds as a result of trying to breed conformation characteristics the humans thought of as desirable. And there are breeds that would not exist without cross breeding for specific traits. I am a fan of the Rhodesian Ridgeback which was crossed with a native ridged dog and a variety of other dogs to create a fantastic animal.

From what I have read, the keeping of chameleons in the past was very difficult and captive breeding was rare. Now with advances in knowledge and husbandry breeding is much more doable. Since there is no governing body analogous to the AKC in the dog world, breeders must take this responsibility seriously and take great care to breed healthy animals. As long as the animal is physically sound and accurate records (as accurate as possible) are kept I don't see a problem.

Who knows what the future holds? One can do DNA testing on their "mutt" and learn all the different breeds that contributed genetic material to their animal. Perhaps that may be in the future for chameleons and all the lovely crosses can know their true genetic ancestry.

 

[chameleonowner32]

I have a REALLY hard time with this. With the close proximity of these locales, I find it unreasonable to think that one locale would magically stop walking when he reaches that imaginary line separating two areas.

Or, would it be unreasonable to think that a local person, tourist or guide could pick up a Cham from one area and release him/her when they get to their next destination?

I'm not going to pretend to know the geographical layout of Madagascar, but it would seem to me that a Cham from one locale could end up in another, either naturally or by human intervention.

Have any of you ever picked up a stray animal and brought it home? Gone hunting or hiking and find something you thought was cool and transport it to another area. I'm just saying.

NHenn, I'm not directing this towards you. I've mentioned this before and your post just happened to be handy. Nothing personal towards you.

Anywho, carry on...

Exactly. whos to say or prove panthers didnt start with just 1 locale and ended up cross breeding? Heck all of the locales could be crosses.

 

[DakotaB]

I have a REALLY hard time with this. With the close proximity of these locales, I find it unreasonable to think that one locale would magically stop walking when he reaches that imaginary line separating two areas.

Or, would it be unreasonable to think that a local person, tourist or guide could pick up a Cham from one area and release him/her when they get to their next destination?

I'm not going to pretend to know the geographical layout of Madagascar, but it would seem to me that a Cham from one locale could end up in another, either naturally or by human intervention.

X2

I mean it has to happen in the wild. Ambilobe and Ambanja are only 50 miles apart. Theres no way these two locals have never came in contact with each other.

On a second note "hybrids" are common in the wild. Coyote x fox, Grizzly x Polar, and Burmese x Rock. Now these are what would constitute as an extreme cross. Where as with Panthers (technically) there all the same species. And only color separates them.

Honestly it's like saying someone from Texas can not have a child with some one from Mexico. (Not trying to stir something up with this last one)

 

[Carlton]

So, getting back to the OP's question about why this can be a touchy subject...that is really due to strong opinions and personal beliefs about breeding, what crosses are, why they are important biologically, and the motivation behind doing it.

Some of us may feel that a human breeder is just facilitating a cross that could also happen in nature (at least within some range of F. pardalis) so it isn't really a genetic crime.

Others may feel that preservation of a particular locale or bloodline is the ultimate genetic goal.

Others may see the whole issue as artificial and commerce driven...it is only ethical to sell offspring with the correct tag on them so buyers are not mislead.

And still others feel that the effects on the individual offspring's health is most important. Both inbreeding, line breeding, or crossing have their good and bad results so it needs to be done with care.

 

[maxttu]

So, getting back to the OP's question about why this can be a touchy subject...that is really due to strong opinions and personal beliefs about breeding, what crosses are, why they are important biologically, and the motivation behind doing it.

Some of us may feel that a human breeder is just facilitating a cross that could also happen in nature (at least within some range of F. pardalis) so it isn't really a genetic crime.

Others may feel that preservation of a particular locale or bloodline is the ultimate genetic goal.

Others may see the whole issue as artificial and commerce driven...it is only ethical to sell offspring with the correct tag on them so buyers are not mislead.

And still others feel that the effects on the individual offspring's health is most important. Both inbreeding, line breeding, or crossing have their good and bad results so it needs to be done with care.

What a great response. Nicely done, ma'am.