Save Your Monitor Lizards!

Hello I'd be grateful for any opinions about this, thanks.

Save Your Monitors!
Monitor lizards are heavily exploited for their meat and leather and for the international wildlife trade. There have been very few investigations into the ecology and conservation status of monitor lizards, and, as far as I am aware, no funds from the trade in monitor lizards has ever been used to fund research.

This project aims to improve this situation in the following way.
1. People who keep monitor lizards donate their dead animals to a national Save Your Monitors group.
2. Members of the national group make products from the dead monitor lizards (e.g. leather goods, skeletal preparations) and sell them on ebay
3. The profits generated are distributed as small grants to students in countries where monitor lizards live, allowing them to make basic investigations into local monitor lizard populations.

If the project worked it might a) generate indirect funding of monitor lizard research from the monitor lizard trade b) generate the first captive bred monitor lizard products ever available.

The project will require i) People with facilities to receive and process donated animals in different countries, ii) people who are able to make desirable objects from the donated animals in different countries, iii) a team that can solicit advertise and screen applications for funding.
Anybody with relevant skills who is interested in the project please get in touch.

I have to postulate that animals that have died of natural causes have a tendency to have thinner skin than others, generally because relative vitamin and mineral intake decreases toward death, and because skin thins with age. That said, wouldn't products made of captive kept dead monitors actually be inferior, thus strengthening the wild caught market as it produces higher quality skins? Furthermore, while I am not arguing with a harm problem, I do have to question: if captive bred monitors were effective for creating leather goods, wouldn't the producers farm them at some point? It seems as though it would be significantly more efficient, and I have to wonder that someone willing to make profit on an animal is not willing to maximize profit. Do you have any research on these points?

Hopefully this is a moot point for me for a few decades, but I like the idea and I will spread the word. My only hesitation is similiar to what CentriRitanni voiced, what impact would this have on captive Savannah Monitors if this venture proved profitable? Seeing how about 1% of these lizards make it through their first year I think that more research is absolutely required, specifically in habitat regions that you did not get a chance to focus on.

Originally Posted by diehardislanders

Hopefully this is a moot point for me for a few decades, but I like the idea and I will spread the word. My only hesitation is similiar to what CentriRitanni voiced, what impact would this have on captive Savannah Monitors if this venture proved profitable? Seeing how about 1% of these lizards make it through their first year I think that more research is absolutely required, specifically in habitat regions that you did not get a chance to focus on.

No I don't think it would have any impact there, simply because the costs of breeding the animals in captivity massively outweigh the costs of getting people in Chad, Mali and Sudan to catch them for the skin trade. Also I don't imagine this project would get more than 50 animals a year at most, whereas the trade is certainly at least a five figure number.

Hi BoDiddleyitis, as we know, the vast majority of captive Varanids die at a very early stage (all species), meaning in many (most?) cases relatively small individuals die, would they be of much use? If they were, surely more than 50 animals per year could probably become available (it depends entirely if keepers would bother to pay the cost of sending the carcass).
Personally, I think it would be a great idea, rather than the dead animals just being "dumped", as they probably are.

While I think it is a good cause I don't think it would stop those harvesting them from collecting as many as they could still. I fear it would have to be through informing those purchasing the goods and them having a heart to care about a reptile.

I personally don't wear any reptile skins.

I do believe every little bit counts. I cremated Sullivan but I surely would have sent him off for a good cause.

What really upsets me is that people don't realize that we are animals too. I mean, what if someone killed the people harvesting animal skins just for human skin? That would be "inhumane"... So how not the same for killing another animal? Just because they aren't humans doesn't mean that they don't feel pain.

Originally Posted by Ely

What really upsets me is that people don't realize that we are animals too. I mean, what if someone killed the people harvesting animal skins just for human skin? That would be "inhumane"... So how not the same for killing another animal? Just because they aren't humans doesn't mean that they don't feel pain.

What if somebody took you to the other side of the world and put you in a cage forever? Would that be "inhumane"? There's quite a strong argument that a lizard in the leather trade has a much quicker death that a lizard in the wildlife trade.

Um, not to be rude, but you kind of just glanced over some legitimate concerns... Is there any actual research on those points? All I saw was assumptive reasoning. And being someone who regularly works with dead animals, the skin issue is a major one, especially if it has to be shipped (and it really doesn't matter how you pack it). I'm really not trying to bash your cause or anything, but I think it is a delicate sort of situation and research would help tremendously.

Um, not to be rude, but you kind of just glanced over some legitimate concerns...

Who are you responding too?