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Posted by JoeM on October 30, 2001 at 08:16:58:
In Reply to: Re:I apologize for typos and my english.....(np) posted by Ingo on October 30, 2001 at 05:40:19:
First of all, I have kept these animals alive AND happy for the last four years. Second, they are NOT stressed out. Third, I do feed them live animals - both fish and insects. But that is not their staple diet. The mix I described is their staple diet. Fourth, I suppose I AM being as anthromorphic as anyone else who has a PET reptile, whether that pet is an iguana or a water dragon. Basilisks are first cousins to iguanas. Iguanas can and have adapted to a "human" environment. I have used simple desensitizing techniques to accomplish the same thing with the basilisks. Fifth, they are not being tortured. They are hardly listless, forsaken, or miserable. Fin and Beta mate. Their enclosure is warm (minimum 70 degrees on a rellly cold night, maximum 90 degrees on a really hot summer afternoon). They have both UVa and UVb lights, a water tray, basking areas, and, thanks to Ingo's instructions, an 8" deep, warmed-from-the-top sand and potting soil tub to lay their eggs in. They have silk plants and limbs to climb on. I keep their cage clean and their physical needs met. However, their cage is not designed to keep them in forever, like an aquirum for fish. These are pets. They go outside with me - I have taken them camping, they go with us on vacation, they do everything a 6-foot long pet iguana would do -- except they are much, much smaller, smarter, more active, more curious, and more interesting. The wild ancestors of domestic cats are extinct. I am hardly doing Fin, Beta, or Spock a disservice by teaching them to live and adapt to civilized North America. What "kindness" would I be doing for them by locking them in a plastic and plaster pseudo-jungle and limiting their potential? Fin is not afraid of any human. Neither is Spock or Beta. I don't want an orniment for a "living segment of wild Central America." These guys don't live in wild Central America. They live in homo Saphiens-dominated, "civilized" North America. NOT promoting these animals' abilities to adapt to a different environment IS cruel. They were never meant to be orniments. I will make a point of posting photos of my "poor, mistreated, living-in-baslisk-hell" animals on this forum by tomorrow.
