Crisis of Conscience
I was just wanting to get some opinions here...
So perhaps "majority rule" can help with a decision I'm likely to have to make soon.
Ok, here's how it is...
I work at a plant nursery and when we got in a truck shipment of tropical plants all the way from Florida, we found a little lizard on one of the trees. Everyone was saying "I bet it's a tropical lizard" and I, (I guess because of being the vegan?) was singled out by my fellow employees to take it home. I was already considering doing so to begin with, just long enough to research online what kind of lizard it was in hopes of finding out if it could survive in Missouri's climate.
Turns out the lizard is a female Brown Anole, and their natural habitat range goes no further north than Georgia and that there was little to no chance she'd survive into fall and winter here - weather and temperature wise.
SO, my Fiance and I did much more research on anole care and invested a lot of money into things needed to keep her properly. We rescued her essentially, especially since that very night I brought her home it got nearly below 40 degrees and she probably would not have lived through that... especially since who knows how long it had been since she had even been able to eat anything.
I've got family in Florida and so sometime when going southwards for a visit we could rerelease her into her native land and she could be a free lizard again.
We've had her for 48 days now... and just yesterday we saw something moving super fast and crazy in the cage. We thought it surely couldn't be one of the crickets she has to eat for food. So what was it?
A baby lizard!
Ok,ok, a surprise sure. It sure is super cute. We can handle the two of them in the fairly decent sized terrariam they are in... they are small lizards after all, and the baby looks to be another female.
BUT...
With further research online we learned that when Anoles mate they store sperm inside them for the whole spring and summer season and so they can just randomly create fertilized eggs throughout that period of time after mating. Meaning, she might just have this one baby, or she could end up with as many as 12!!! We don't have the space in or apartment, nor a steady financial outlet to spend so much on so many little lizzards, especially if she had any more and they were male. Each individual male would require it's own cage. An anole care website suggested if you can't handle the babies just try to locate the eggs and get rid of them before the baby is even hatched... problem is, the eggs are the size of little peas and they are hidden well because the mother buries them.
So, what to do if she has any more?
To me the choices seemed to be 3 things.
1. Kill them as eggs or as they're born (But I'd not have the heart to do that myself)
2. Give them away to other people as pets
3. Release the babies into the wild here
I'm thinking option 3 would be most humane
Because even though they probably could not survive this climate in another few months, at least they'd get to experience the great outdoors and wild for a short time in their life. Why release them if I was unwilling to release the mother you might wonder? Well... the mother had a heck of a trip getting on a mini tree, on a truck, bound from florida to missouri, riding for who knows how long without food or water or sunlight... etc...etc...
I think if anything, she's earned the protection.
Plus since she's been wild before, she could certianly be rereleased in her native territory
We're not "taming" them by any means...
Anoles are not 'handlable' lizards.
And we do not think of them as "pets".
I guess we are going to keep this first single little female baby as long as it stays healthy and living so that maybe one day she could go free with her mom... But if the mother were to have any more babies we can't handled all of them.
Giving them away as "pets" worries me because I don't trust most other people to properly care for such a tiny, 'wild' kind of little lizard. And I don't like people thinking in terms of things like wild lizards and birds and so forth as "pets". That just seems to foster too much of a "I'm the owner/master, I OWN YOU, I can do what I want with you, and you're going to do what I want you to do!" kind of mentality... which is always usually entirely unfair to what the animal might feel is best for itself.
And Anoles need very specialized care to the point I think most people wouldn't want the responsbility, or they wouldn't keep up with it correctly. Few would have done as much for this lizard as we have. Already my coworkers are amazed at how much money I bothered to spend on her to make sure she has a good, comfortable life in the mean time that she is not in the wild.
So, back to the babies....
Assuming she has any more over the next month or two
And assuming they are healthy and do not die from birth or in the cage right away...
I'm thinking the most fair thing to them would be to just put the few we can't serve as gaurdians to, into the wild here... so they will just become part of th natural life cycle and food chain here, and get to live a real lizard life for a bit of time, before whatever happens to them by will of nature, happens. If they all died... well at least the main mother and her first little daughter will be protected until which time they can be released proper. So at least a couple of this little lizard family will be surviving... Whereas if i'd left her alone in the first place she and all the potential little babies would have been goners by now for sure.
What does everyone else think?
p.s.
If any of you wonderful vegans live nearby to Saint Louis, and are planning a trip southwards towards georgia and florida later this year, and would like to help in lizard transportation to freedom, that would be nice.
~e.
So perhaps "majority rule" can help with a decision I'm likely to have to make soon.
Ok, here's how it is...
I work at a plant nursery and when we got in a truck shipment of tropical plants all the way from Florida, we found a little lizard on one of the trees. Everyone was saying "I bet it's a tropical lizard" and I, (I guess because of being the vegan?) was singled out by my fellow employees to take it home. I was already considering doing so to begin with, just long enough to research online what kind of lizard it was in hopes of finding out if it could survive in Missouri's climate.
Turns out the lizard is a female Brown Anole, and their natural habitat range goes no further north than Georgia and that there was little to no chance she'd survive into fall and winter here - weather and temperature wise.
SO, my Fiance and I did much more research on anole care and invested a lot of money into things needed to keep her properly. We rescued her essentially, especially since that very night I brought her home it got nearly below 40 degrees and she probably would not have lived through that... especially since who knows how long it had been since she had even been able to eat anything.
I've got family in Florida and so sometime when going southwards for a visit we could rerelease her into her native land and she could be a free lizard again.
We've had her for 48 days now... and just yesterday we saw something moving super fast and crazy in the cage. We thought it surely couldn't be one of the crickets she has to eat for food. So what was it?
A baby lizard!
Ok,ok, a surprise sure. It sure is super cute. We can handle the two of them in the fairly decent sized terrariam they are in... they are small lizards after all, and the baby looks to be another female.
BUT...
With further research online we learned that when Anoles mate they store sperm inside them for the whole spring and summer season and so they can just randomly create fertilized eggs throughout that period of time after mating. Meaning, she might just have this one baby, or she could end up with as many as 12!!! We don't have the space in or apartment, nor a steady financial outlet to spend so much on so many little lizzards, especially if she had any more and they were male. Each individual male would require it's own cage. An anole care website suggested if you can't handle the babies just try to locate the eggs and get rid of them before the baby is even hatched... problem is, the eggs are the size of little peas and they are hidden well because the mother buries them.
So, what to do if she has any more?
To me the choices seemed to be 3 things.
1. Kill them as eggs or as they're born (But I'd not have the heart to do that myself)
2. Give them away to other people as pets
3. Release the babies into the wild here
I'm thinking option 3 would be most humane
Because even though they probably could not survive this climate in another few months, at least they'd get to experience the great outdoors and wild for a short time in their life. Why release them if I was unwilling to release the mother you might wonder? Well... the mother had a heck of a trip getting on a mini tree, on a truck, bound from florida to missouri, riding for who knows how long without food or water or sunlight... etc...etc...
I think if anything, she's earned the protection.
Plus since she's been wild before, she could certianly be rereleased in her native territory
We're not "taming" them by any means...
Anoles are not 'handlable' lizards.
And we do not think of them as "pets".
I guess we are going to keep this first single little female baby as long as it stays healthy and living so that maybe one day she could go free with her mom... But if the mother were to have any more babies we can't handled all of them.
Giving them away as "pets" worries me because I don't trust most other people to properly care for such a tiny, 'wild' kind of little lizard. And I don't like people thinking in terms of things like wild lizards and birds and so forth as "pets". That just seems to foster too much of a "I'm the owner/master, I OWN YOU, I can do what I want with you, and you're going to do what I want you to do!" kind of mentality... which is always usually entirely unfair to what the animal might feel is best for itself.
And Anoles need very specialized care to the point I think most people wouldn't want the responsbility, or they wouldn't keep up with it correctly. Few would have done as much for this lizard as we have. Already my coworkers are amazed at how much money I bothered to spend on her to make sure she has a good, comfortable life in the mean time that she is not in the wild.
So, back to the babies....
Assuming she has any more over the next month or two
And assuming they are healthy and do not die from birth or in the cage right away...
I'm thinking the most fair thing to them would be to just put the few we can't serve as gaurdians to, into the wild here... so they will just become part of th natural life cycle and food chain here, and get to live a real lizard life for a bit of time, before whatever happens to them by will of nature, happens. If they all died... well at least the main mother and her first little daughter will be protected until which time they can be released proper. So at least a couple of this little lizard family will be surviving... Whereas if i'd left her alone in the first place she and all the potential little babies would have been goners by now for sure.
What does everyone else think?
p.s.
If any of you wonderful vegans live nearby to Saint Louis, and are planning a trip southwards towards georgia and florida later this year, and would like to help in lizard transportation to freedom, that would be nice.
~e.