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Posted by Bloodbat on May 01, 2003 at 20:15:41:
This was mentioned a few days ago, and I am only now getting around to responding to it.
I have done my part in the past to focus on the negative aspects of owning nile monitors. I make no apologies for this, nor do I feel I overstated any part of nile monitors. They have a bad reputation, and it is deserved. I have been raising niles for a long time and have weathered many nile seasons on the internet and at shows. I've raised them from hatchlings and larger rescues. And they make a terrible choice for most people, and are terrible animals to keep for most people.
One of my biggest frustrations is when people defend nile monitors and downplay their difficulty and unpleasant temperment. I do not subscribe to the "every individual is different" ideology the way some people do. While that may be true, there are TENDENCIES among the different species. Timors tend to be skittish and nervous, savannahs/wt/bt tend to be laid back, arguses tend to be high strung, and niles tend to be nasty unpleasant animals. Unfortunately, everyone knows a person who knows a person who... who has a calm, tame, people loving nile monitor. That's wonderful, and there have been a few: Nessie readily comes to mind. But for every Nessie nile monitor, there are dozens or hundreds that fit the general nile tendency of being unpleasant. More unfortunate is that everyone wants to point to the few exceptions as proof that the nasty nile monitor rule does not apply as a tendency, forgetting that there are many more niles out there that are unpleasant. I hear things like, "when kept properly, they turn out tame" (actual quotation from a recent email). Nothing could be further from the truth. When kept properly, most niles demonstrate the tendency to be unpleasant. If you actually own a calmer or more tolerant nile, consider yourself lucky as regardless of what you think most of them are not that way.
To get a calm, tolerant nile monitor requires a lot of things. First, you have to actually get lucky and have one that is predisposed to become that way (which probably means that had this one been in the wild longer, it would have been someone's dinner). Then you have to interact with it in a way that encourages such calmness and tolerance. Critical to having a calm and tolerant nile is regular interaction - daily or almost daily. I will not define proper interactions because I have come to accept that there is more than one interaction style that will result in calmer animals (in general). Niles seem strongly inclined to return to their tendency of being unpleasant if interactions are infrequent or discontinued. Niles also seem to remember transgressions against their expectations a lot longer than say a water monitor or a savannah. Where a savannah will "forgive" you for startling it after a day or two, a nile remembers that you did something bad for a long time. The rebuilding of trust takes a lot longer for a nile when you screw up.
These factors make niles deserving of the bad reputation they have. That does not mean they are bad animals, only that they make bad animals for most people to keep. Another thing that frustrates me is the people who get them in order to prove their "mastery" over animals. I know people who have gotten them precisely because they are so difficult and want to prove that they can tame the beast. These animals are often the first offered up as future rescue animals.
In the end, many more niles remain unpleasant than become calm and tolerant. Ah well, the cycle will go on.
