A VERY Sick Person

[Rell18]

I was just browsing around on youtube looking at Leopard Gecko setups, morphs, feeding videos, etc and then I came across this. Words cannot describe how angry I am after I watched this. I feel so bad for this Leo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQG7O8WM_-A

 

[sunshinegeckos]

I cant see it

 

[Rell18]

Try this one. It's the link to the guys youtube profile.

http://www.youtube.com/user/bigfatpyxie

 

[animeavatar]

I'd keep the chameleon as a pet( they're not always cheap ya know). Who does that?

 

[M_surinamensis]

There are two distinct topics at play here. Prey selection is one of them. Public presentation is the other.

When it comes to the topic of prey selection, using a species some people keep as a pet is not inherently inappropriate. We keep hundreds of different reptiles and amphibians as our pets. Those animals each have their own ecological niche, have evolved to make use of a diet consisting of the other species found in their native habitat. We frequently make use of analogous food items, something that is close to what they have evolved to eat. Nutritionally, some of the animals we keep have needs that are best fulfilled by a diet that consists, in whole or part, of other reptiles and amphibians. Some others can be easily transitioned over to a carefully selected diet of rodents or insects with a little manipulation of portions and supplements. The point being; once we have accepted the responsibility for the care and well being of an animal as a pet, sometimes we find ourselves needing to provide for that pet a diet which we might otherwise find distasteful. Large pyxie frogs, especially large males, have nutritional needs that can be difficult to balance using only insects, rodents should be used sparingly or not at all, and some portion of their caloric intake should consist of other reptiles and amphibians. I personally tended to make use of snake and lizard hatchlings that would otherwise be culled whenever possible, but I also maintained feeder colonies of gray tree frogs and house geckos specifically for that purpose. I have, in the past, used leopard geckos, corn and king snake hatchlings, other frogs, anoles, dekays and even a few pitouphis as prey items for a pyxie frog. It was a necessary, albeit relatively small, portion of the frog's diet.

However, it should be stressed that this nutritional need is something that develops in older, larger pyxie frogs, as they simply grow into a niche where their available prey in the wild includes a percentage of other, smaller, herps. Young pyxie frogs are opportunistic, even in the wild, but can be quite easily maintained on a diet consisting entirely of insects. The relative size of all prey items is also a concern. While the frogs will instinctively grab and consume some surprisingly large prey, they will receive far more, nutritionally, from prey items of an appropriately selected size. Which is to say that small pyxies should not be fed comparatively large prey items, given the range of available feeders. The leopard gecko and chameleon in those videos were larger than was ideal, although they were small enough to be possible. The appropriateness of the selection is highly questionable, though not completely unacceptable. The pyxie(s?) in the videos would have been perfectly fine with worms and roaches, it was not large enough to require vertebrate prey.

The public presentation however...

Feeding videos can really go one of two ways. They can either be educational and informative, or they can be an outlet for socially unacceptable asshattery.

With great care being taken to predict the reception of the audience, and with the proper kinds of caveats, warnings and explanations, a feeding video can be a positive and interesting finished product. With information given, detailing what is being seen and why everything filmed was chosen, they have the potential to result in something worthwhile.

Far more often however, youtube is filled with the other kind. The misinformation, the videos that are devoid of context, or where the context is completely wrong. They alienate and disgust the audience, they are used for shock value by socially maladjusted individuals who revel in the violence of predatory behaviors. These are a detriment to the public perception of herpetoculture. They're often a detriment to the animals depicted, with the predator being manipulated into the act not because it has nutritional needs, or to inform, but simply in a fashion where their instincts are used as a tool for cruelty. The good videos are about an animal eating, the poor ones are about an animal being eaten. The distinction may seem minute, but the nuance is of enormous importance.

In this case, the videos fall into the second category. There's no need to give those frogs those prey items, there's no information given about the nutritional demands of a pyxie frog, or the predatory adaptations, they do not show an animal owner doing what is practical or needed. The high pitched giggling gives it away as the juvenile stupidity that it is, if nothing else.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

As someone who cannot even feed a live pinkie to a skinny gecko, it might seem easy for me to make judgements on anybody who feeds live animals to other animals. I could also take a holier-than-thou attitude for people who hunt and kill animals for sport (I can't even fish, but I'll eat them!). But that is just my own problem, and I will certainly not stuff my own values down somebody else's throat or pass judgement on those who do. I know plenty of reptile breeders and keepers that feed live prey to their animals for many of the reasons Seamus stated in his post. I feed my geckos live insects, so does this make me a hypocrite? Maybe.

What I do take issue with is finding entertainment in torturing and killing. Isn't it well-known that Jeffery Dahmer exhibited this behavior with animals before he switched to humans? Sick.