- Joined
- Nov 7, 2012
- Messages
- 5,173
- Location (City and/or State)
- South of Southern California, but not Mexico
Thanks much to AMMG for bringing this here to ruminate over. I just heard of this study recently, and had not yet sourced it. It makes me wonder if the whole point of this kind of study is to create dialogue (here and elsewhere) to push the overall inquiry of pyramiding and tortoise husbandry forward.
There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence that 'belly' heat is not so desirable, but it is difficult to tease apart this heating method from other potentially poor husbandry practices or even if moderate belly heat is okay, versus heat that is not moderated with a thermostat.
I often had hoped when I was at the zoos I worked at to sort some of these kinds of things out and get the info out there so the mighty number of private breeders could get a unequivocal positive benefit from the zoo community, not hand picked buddies here and there. It seems the Behler Center, The TSA facility (as two examples) and elsewhere need to do this more controlled testing to move the whole of the idea of 'assurance colonies' forward, and then freely share the sorted out practice. There is risk of poor study quality resulting in a cohort of bad husbandry effort by the private breeders, or private breeders poorly implementing the message of the study.
On the other hand the whole idea of UV lighting came out of a zoo collection and was widely shared and now is a big part of what indoor keepers rely on for husbandry. Although the CFL seemed to be a miss-step.
Many great successes out there with the semi-private collections or amalgamation of collections with breeding expensive animals and showing them off as a discrete sales platform. Good job. If you have an interest in the preservation of the species, a bit of the "how I did this would be good".
To that end many folks here are TFO are exemplary, thank you. I'll give @Tom the TFO Citizen Scientists award for sharing openly what he does.
There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence that 'belly' heat is not so desirable, but it is difficult to tease apart this heating method from other potentially poor husbandry practices or even if moderate belly heat is okay, versus heat that is not moderated with a thermostat.
I often had hoped when I was at the zoos I worked at to sort some of these kinds of things out and get the info out there so the mighty number of private breeders could get a unequivocal positive benefit from the zoo community, not hand picked buddies here and there. It seems the Behler Center, The TSA facility (as two examples) and elsewhere need to do this more controlled testing to move the whole of the idea of 'assurance colonies' forward, and then freely share the sorted out practice. There is risk of poor study quality resulting in a cohort of bad husbandry effort by the private breeders, or private breeders poorly implementing the message of the study.
On the other hand the whole idea of UV lighting came out of a zoo collection and was widely shared and now is a big part of what indoor keepers rely on for husbandry. Although the CFL seemed to be a miss-step.
Many great successes out there with the semi-private collections or amalgamation of collections with breeding expensive animals and showing them off as a discrete sales platform. Good job. If you have an interest in the preservation of the species, a bit of the "how I did this would be good".
To that end many folks here are TFO are exemplary, thank you. I'll give @Tom the TFO Citizen Scientists award for sharing openly what he does.