Three Big Sources of Herpetoculture Misinformation

Uncategorized

These are not the best places to find information about your reptile or amphibian pets —

There are 2 themes that run thru advice I give to beginning reptile and amphibian keepers: One is to look deeply into the animal’s natural history – let nature be your guide. The second is to be very careful about who you listen to when looking for this information.

The first one is easy. The species you are interested in providing a home for has been interacting in an intimate dance with the natural world for a million years. Every nuance of your captive design should be informed by the result of those million years. Not “mimicked”. Thats a mistake keepers often make. But “informed by”, or guided by. More on this later.

The second point is a little more subtle. And is often resisted for a number of reasons. In the 50 years Ive been keeping all manner of herps there has never been such an abundance of information on their captive care. And there has never been such an abundance of nonsense the well intentioned keeper has to wade through.

The three biggest sources of misinformation comes from the 3 sources most often accessed by new keepers: 1.) Pet supply manufacturers and retailers, 2.) Social media “influencers”, 3.) Other keepers and breeders in the hobby.

This point is complicated by the fact that you can get good information from all three of these sources. But much of the time – indeed most of the time – you wont be getting good information from any of them.

Pet manufacturers and retailers online or brick and mortar, exist to sell stuff. Everything they do is designed to fulfill a single goal: increasing profits. And because of this they commit two herpetoculture sins: 1.) Manufacturing unhelpful (and in many cases, downright dangerous) products, and 2.) Employing often uninformed non-experts whose job is to push these products on unsuspecting hobbyists regardless of the negative consequences for the pets involved.

One thing you will never see: A well seasoned herpetoculturist pushing a cart full of reptile supplies thru PetCo. The longer any of us are in the hobby, and the bigger our collections get, the less we shop at pet stores or buy pet branded products. Through many years of experience we have learned that most of what’s sold by the pet industry is either unnecessary, overpriced or even dangerous. More on this later too.

The copious quantity of nonsense the social media influencers produce can be more of a challenge for the new keepers to wade thru. After all, these folks are influencers because they are likable, amusing, friendly and superficially well informed – relative to the beginners they are talking at. But they too have one job: to sell themselves or their products, or their sponsors’ products. Everything they do is done to improve their bottom line. And that means that even though they often present themselves as educators who care about you and your animals, they are often more like used car sales men and women trying to get you in that shiny new convertible no matter what they have to say to do so.

Watch them if you can stand it – (many of them are hard to watch if you have much experience because their self confident ignorance is hard to stomach) – but don’t believe them. They have an agenda: win your trust, then abuse that trust.

And finally the keepers or breeders that work with the animal you are looking to provide for. You would think these folks would be the perfect authority, right? After all, they are successfully keeping the species alive and in many cases reproducing them. Isnt that the best credentials? Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Many breeders prioritize profit over the animals well being. And many are simply not interested in providing high quality care. They may emphasize how “simple” the species is to care for in order to generate sales. Or they may be well intentioned but uninformed.

Simply keeping an animal alive and producing young is actually a very low bar. Animals will survive terrible conditions and will reproduce under terrible conditions. In the livestock industry highly intelligent animals will survive and reproduce in deplorable conditions. Puppy mills will pump out dozens of puppies while living in wire cages stacked to the ceiling in dark barns. Even humans kept in solitary confinement will survive and will not loose their desire to reproduce.

I want to go into more detail on each of these potentially bad sources of information. I also want to better explain the first point – looking to nature for guidance: Earth, wind, sun and water. We cant hope to design quality captive environments without first understanding where to go for good information, and who to listen to with a great deal of skepticism.

Unknown's avatar

Published by Joe

Published

Leave a comment