Rare Green Anoles

[FLgeckos]

While on the field caught three beautiful green anoles. Rare in Florida we sadly missed a few and one escaped. Oh well at least these guys are breed able.

 

[fuzzylogix]

you should visit south texas. go to any old barn or building and you can catch them by the dozens in just a few minutes.

 

[im faster]

wow I have never heard rare and green anoles together.. lol...

in hawaii you could hardly keep then out of your house

hahah

 

[WulfSC]

Like Shawn said, come to SC/NC and you can catch them by the dozen. I currently live in the mountains of the upstate, and still find them. They're cool little guys... which almost every summer I have several that find their way indoors... I usually catch them and release them in the garden (back yard).

 

[FLgeckos]

In Florida they are become rarer due to brown anole expansion but I defiantly should take a trip to texas sometime.

 

[MiamiLeos]

They're all over the place here in South Miami... them and green iguanas.. EVERYWHERE lol

 

[FLgeckos]

I seem to have the luck of sailing to Anoless areas

 

[M_surinamensis]

While on the field caught three beautiful green anoles. Rare in Florida we sadly missed a few and one escaped. Oh well at least these guys are breed able.

You live in an area where they are rare, the population being pushed out by an invasive species and where every green anole represents valuable genetic material required to give the rightful native species even a slim hope of re-establishing themselves... so you decided to collect as many of them as you could? You think this was a smart decision? Something to be proud of?

 

[MiamiLeos]

You live in an area where they are rare, the population being pushed out by an invasive species and where every green anole represents valuable genetic material required to give the rightful native species even a slim hope of re-establishing themselves... so you decided to collect as many of them as you could? You think this was a smart decision? Something to be proud of?

I thought this was all for reintroduction purposes?

 

[M_surinamensis]

I thought this was all for reintroduction purposes?

If it was, that's even worse. The release of captive animals is something that should only be done by professionals under very specific circumstances, meeting very exacting standards. As negative as it is to snatch members of a population that is waning due to competition with an introduced species, at least it's a quantifiable loss... the idea of poorly implemented reintroduction is much, much more of a risk given the likelihood of introducing non-native pathogens with the release of animals that have been fed farm raised feeder insects and exposed to other human-introduced disease vectors.

I have no objections to responsible wild collection of animals for the pet trade or private ownership. I also fully support the efforts of professional reintroduction projects. This is neither of those things.

 

[FLgeckos]

No I saw a more but I just took a few

 

[FLgeckos]

I have done a lot more research now and feel pretty stupid. But oh well beginner mistake.

 

[UnicornSpirit]

I wish we had them in Maryland, I love those little lizards <3

 

[FLgeckos]

They are really awesome, but I like Saba Anoles the best.

 

[crevalle]

If it was, that's even worse. The release of captive animals is something that should only be done by professionals under very specific circumstances, meeting very exacting standards. As negative as it is to snatch members of a population that is waning due to competition with an introduced species, at least it's a quantifiable loss... the idea of poorly implemented reintroduction is much, much more of a risk given the likelihood of introducing non-native pathogens with the release of animals that have been fed farm raised feeder insects and exposed to other human-introduced disease vectors.

I have no objections to responsible wild collection of animals for the pet trade or private ownership. I also fully support the efforts of professional reintroduction projects. This is neither of those things.

When I was a kid, I used to catch Brown anoles on vacation to Florida, bring them back to my home state of Minnesota, enjoy them and keep them alive until the following year's vacation when I'd bring them back down and re-release them back into the wild. And yet, the species survived.

 

[M_surinamensis]

When I was a kid, I used to catch Brown anoles on vacation to Florida, bring them back to my home state of Minnesota, enjoy them and keep them alive until the following year's vacation when I'd bring them back down and re-release them back into the wild. And yet, the species survived.

Yes... you did that and the invasive species of brown anole managed to survive. Astounding.

Similar approaches have worked out so well for other species.

Some of the common practices that can be found to exist in the herpetocultural community introduce disease vectors and risks that are way beyond anything that would normally be encountered by wild animals. The way we (a general we, "we the industry" not we you and I) treat quarantine, the densities we stock animals at, the contact and proximity of animals from diverse areas, the use of farm raised feeder insects (and the way those insects are raised)- these factors represent risks. There are very real epidemics that have ripped through captive populations, as well as rare but extremely virulent and deadly pathogens that we still don't know that much about. The recent viral infections spread through cricket feeders, adenovirus and yellow fungus infections coming out of some of the bigger farming operations, foreign strains of common illnesses like pseudomonas and aeromonas that can cause a lot of damage to immune systems that haven't been inoculated against them, hundreds of species of gut fauna and mystery illnesses like inclusion body disease... these are things that can be spread, easily in some cases, to an animal that is brought into captivity. The re-release of that animal can introduce it to wild populations with devastating effects.

Desert tortoises are one of the most notorious examples. Native to areas where human development is comparatively sparse (restricted to specific locations, with enormous tracts of undeveloped land between cities), they should be a species that is still thriving. Except that some of them were collected as pets brought into contact with captive red foot tortoises and then re-released. Re-released while carrying bacterial and viral diseases that they never should have come into contact with. Now they're critically endangered and may well be extinct in our lifetimes. About the only thing that helped mitigate the aggressive spread of the diseases was the way the population had been so thinned out that individual tortoises which were infected are likely to die before ever coming into contact with another member of their own species.

Once something has been collected, made captive, it should not be released by anyone except a highly qualified professional engaged in legal rehabilitation projects.

 

[KrakenQueen]

Thankfully we have Green Anoles in Savannah, GA by the ton. I have yet to see hardly any brown anoles up here and I hope I never do. I almost rarely see them in Jacksonville FL where they are overrun by browns :C

 

[FLgeckos]

Yes, there are a few areas I have mapped out that I clear out the Brown Anoles for the Green Anoles. Still even with that I only find a few and the Brown Anoles just keep coming.

 

[Kotori]

Well if you want to have a pet green anole, many petstores have them...

If you captured it to take care of it, I would suggest no longer than a week. I did that once with a snake- feed it wild caught cricks (It was rather small) and didn't touch it at all, just observed. It was kept outside with a cover...

But if you're keeping it as a pet...that's a bad idea, since you'll have to get a parasite check, and have to acclimate him to your touch, and thats hard to do with bred babies.