Actually, I did take the time to make sure this citation existed. I do that often to ensure someone isn't just tossing out random info. So far to date, I have found Michael to be a very reliable source of information.


I didn't bother reposting your cite because you failed to include the entire abstract. I will:

I will do you one even better though. If anyone wishes to read these pages, here you go:

http://www.bio.usyd.edu.au/Shinelab/...wthtodeath.pdf

What do you mean obviously? You do realize that the majority of all studies done on any oranism are done in a controlled environment (laboratory) where they can monitor the changes? As the abstract states, these studies FIRST began on humans and rodents, IN a laboratory. The only "obvious" conclusion one would aquire from reading the article is that there IS a link between the rapid growth rate and death. Certainly it is not the contrary as you are attempting to depict. If you want to argue this study, you would need to setup a controlled environment and mimic the study to see if it also occurs in captivity.

I don't want to sound harsh, but from this thread I have seen you have owned 3 and currently have one (unconfirmed). That would mean you have a mortality rate of 66% and a survival rate of 33% (unconfirmed). You are claiming that it is safe yet 2/3 in your care have died. Those numbers certainly don't back your aguement even if their deaths were unrelated.

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so good of you to 'take the time to make sure the citation existed' - to bad you didn't read or understand a single bit of it, eh?
very nice of you to provide the link, too- i was hoping to get mr cota to carry on into the twilight zone in its absence before producing it, but since you have, let us now read some of it together!
the reason we are obliged to make an assumption about the cause of death- and i'm sure you are capable of understanding that cause of death has a lot to do with longevity- is because this paper NEVER DETERMINED THE CAUSE OF DEATH. If they couldn't catch it again, they assumed it was dead and didn't bother to specify any cause of death because the very death is assumed. now You tell Me how that applies to a captive, please.

how can you claim something is informative if you never bother to read it, rich? how come you hold forth as if you have only to oblige somebody else to read the contents for you?

now have I explained completely and fully what I mean by 'obviously'?
the rest of your post is baloney and off topic. i am not discussing 'the majority of research papers'. we have only one under discussion and it's been presented to support a character assassination campaign. we will address the validity of what is presented. please try to keep on topic. i can always leave if you pollute the thread beyond my tolerance, and will.

I'm confused, because after reading the article, I'm getting a very clear indication that this study is proving the a high growth rate *may* lead to an early death due to compromised immune system. I'm not seeing anything to negate that, nor the flaws you were speaking of. In fact it says it verbatim:

"However, the underlying mechanism explaining
our results is less clear. High growth rate may lead to reduced
immune capacity and reduced capacity to respond to environmental
stress (Arendt 1997)."

After reading that report, it seemed like they had a pretty good basis for that conclusion. I didn't get the indication that they'd lost a bunch and just declared them dead. In fact they were tracking the ones that they didn't recapture because it says:

"Lizards
that were never recaptured grew at a rate that was about
three times as fast as those that survived, regardless of the
elevation at which they had been kept as hatchlings (Wald
chi-square 5 9.62, P 5 0.002; Fig. 2)."

I admit I'm at work, and I don't have time, here, to read this as thoroughly as I'd like, but what I did get from it seemed pretty clear. They also have a good amount of information to back their claim.

I really would be interested in seeing a study that disproves this, though, Danceswithsavs. Do you have any links to those?

__________________
"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.

Be advised that the next time you attempt to insult someone on this site again, you will be banned. Your previous post has already been edited for the childish name calling and insinuations. This is your last warning.

If you knew where to find it, you would have posted it. I added it so everyone could read the article you were quoting the partial abstract from.

How does it not pertain to a captive? You state that there is no conclusive evidence that they have died, which means that there is no conclusive evidence that they didn't! The studies that predated this one (though done with humans and rodents) , in a controlled environment, have displayed that there is a link to the rate of growth and longevity. If you were going to speculate at all, you would speculate that the finding may hold some merit. not the contrary.

Following your quote, they also go on to state:

That states that they traversed an area that was substantially larger than that in which these animals were known to travel. Since the probability of recapture is high, the liklihood of death, even if cause unknown, is also high when the subjects are missing. This doesn't make your "obvious" statement above any more justified than prior to you making the quote. You are still in the same boat. How is it obvious that the results would not be the same for captives?

I read the article. I wouldn't have wasted my time locating it if not to read it.

As stated above, I have read the article. The link was added so others that wish to participate in this discussion would have been able to read the article in which is being referenced. Truthfully, I think you came across the exact same page I did when you first responded about the study Michael listed. The only tidbit on the page was the abstract, which subsequently was all you quoted (partially I might add) when you responded. prior to me posting the link, I have little doubt that you had even read the article yourself.

Not even remotely close to explaining anything. You started this post with an insult, then attempted to sway the minds of everyone with your filler post about inconclusive evidence of death, some more insinuating insults, and then state that you have explained your previous statement? Nothing has changed. Your obvious statement is no more justified than it was before you responded to it.

.

Off topic? Did you review the charts that were depicted on the study? The mortality rate of your animals, which is 2 dead and 1 alive (unconfirmed), is almost spot on with the results of those that went missing and those found alive. With that in mind, its hard to even consider taking your perspective seriously when you have managed to kill 2 of these animals already. If everything you argue were so true, one would expect your animals to be in prestine condition. Instead, you have 2 deceased and one that was i'll at some point. (you stated above that it had been seen by a real doctor.)

No one is trying to character assassinate you. You post, insulting people, and expect everyone to subside to you? The fact that we are debating this with you has nothing to do with character assassination. It has to do with the literature and the known knowledge that 2 of these animals have died in your care, yet you choose to argue how your care is subsequent to how people should be caring for theirs.

If you were, say Merlin, and threatened to leave, I would be concerned. Unfortunantly for you though, you aren't, and I am not. You do nothing on this site beyond spreading controversey. You aren't an active and progressive member. If you feel that threat would incline me to not post, I suggest you exit now.

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No research whatsoever huh? Now that you've been presented with research, You call it balogna and character assasination. I'm with typhanie, It seems we(You and me) are both reading the same text, But I for the life of me can't figure out how you are coming to the conclusions that you get!
From your tone, It at the very least SEEMS that you think you know more than any of the rest of us. Let me assure you that that is not the case.

So Superman1986, What size enclosure did you decide on.

Ron

Danceswithsavs has been banned and is not able to respond to this thread any longer. He did make an attempt to respond, and subsequently his post was the reasoning for his banning. He did not walk away from this debate, so I don't want anyone to believe he "gave up".

No comments need to be made about his banning, though I know some of you are relatively happy right now.

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My apologies for not defending my posts and reference during all the commotion earlier, but I was not aware of it until today, after returning from two weeks in the field. As I see, the reference appeared to be clear to everyone (except one .... often believes something different than everyone else, despite evidence). This topic of excessively fast growth rates in squamates with an association to health problems and mortality goes back to the early 1980s, at least it came to my attention as well as many others long before the cited study was published. This is not the first time that I brought this subject up on an internet forum; I brought it up at least two years ago. As far as conducting experiments myself, no, I have not; I am quite content learning from other people’s mistakes and do not want to be the cause of one of my own animal’s early demise.

It appears that Danceswithsavs has not lost their gift of the use of invective. From what I have learned, they (use of plural because there are two of them) are already blaming me for being banned from here, yet another forum (so many, I have lost count) even though I was in the field. I see they insulted the work of yet another world renowned herpetologist, Rick Shine. If not the greatest in Australia, he is certainly near the very top. In the past, they have insulted the work of Wolfgang Böhme and Thomas Ziegler, two of the greats of herpetology in Germany. Even Daniel Bennett, who can be considered Great Britain's leading authority on monitors has been criticised by them. Of course, they know better than these aforementioned people, just as they know better than everyone on this forum and all the other fora .

On the subject of published peer reviewed scientific papers, they are not published easily. They are required to go through a board of peer review, who question any information that is not substantiated. It is quite easy for someone like Danceswithsavs to criticise peer reviewed scientific papers, because they have no idea of what the peer review and publishing processes of scientific papers require. Papers with questionable content are torn up and heavily criticised. Those that are published and somehow got by the review process end up being bashed professionally and the reputation of the author greatly suffers. In the cases of Rick Shine, Wolfgang Böhme, Thomas Ziegler and Daniel Bennett, I can guarantee that all of these herpetologists (along with others criticised by the Danceswithsavs duo) have great professional reputations in regards to what they have published.

Back to the subject of excessively rapid growth rates, it was first seen as a problem in the early days of commercial and private US python breeding, where people were 'power feeding' in order to have their pythons produce progeny as rapidly as possible. Although they produced earlier, they started dying much earlier also. Even though this is now common knowledge, the only reference concerning it that I know of is the one I gave. Unfortunately for the herpetoculture community, what happens in captivity is not usually important to herpetology and most of the herpetological references that you will find concerning animals in captivity are about captive breeding. This is especially true concerning monitor lizards.

In summary, Rick Shine studied what has been suspected for a long time in lizards, as already had been shown in snakes, but he is the first one to actually dedicate a study to this specific topic, that I know of.

Cheers,
Michael

We really appreciate your input here at Herp Center Michael. Really you didn't need to defend yourself but it's always great to hear from you.

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa

I agree. We can tell you have a lot of knowledge about this subject and I think we all really appreciate that you're willing to share that with us.

I think it's great to have a difference of opinion in science - after all that is what leads us to finding out new answers to questions like these - but I greatly appreciate when the opinions are backed up by facts. Knowing where to find studies done, or articles written from reliable sources is a real benefit. In cases like this it can really help to prove a point politely, and maybe save a life of the animal of someone reading this.

__________________
"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.