Re: [Gecko] Phelsuma imports and Parasite loads

[Peter Mudde]

Somewhere in this discussion, the premisse popped up that parasite-loads do tell something about the wild-caught/ captive bred status of animals.It doesn't.  Parasite loads do tell something about the stress animals are exposed to. As stated,all animals,even captive breds do have parasites, ecto- and endo-, in some amount. The only ones that would be indicative for wild-caught,are those that need one specific carrierspecies tomove from one animalto another.  Parasites do belong to animal phyla that tend to have a very rapid reprodction. They have to maintain a balance between overproduction and killing the host, and being killed themselves by the host's immune-sytem. The reproduction rates are ment tocope with a very good immune system. Now, once the immunesystem does not work as well as it should, the parasite-numbers raise sharply. Here problems start, because now the formermore or less commensal parasites become life-threathening sometimes, the immunesystem will weaken even further and so on.. The activity of the immune-system will be influenced by the condition of the animals and the amount of stress they endured. The fact that wild-caught animals do carry lots of parasites does not tell this is the natural condition. But, in fact, lots of hobbyists think all animals in nature are ill..  The parasites loads have made their progress during the hard times the animals had to endurewhen captured,stored at the capturerers, stored at the exporters, stored at the importers and ending in the petshop with the wrong food and temperatures too high..  The fact that captive breds tend to have less or even an intractable amount of parasites reflects the fatc that they have not been mistreated during capture,transport etc and maybe the fact that they have been raised in near perfect circumstances and hence have a very good immunesystem..but.... If you would treat these captive breds the same way as wild caughts, they end upwith comparable parasite-loads. Just don't feed them well, join these territorial animals up together, forget to water them once a day and you'll see... Now, I have seen the alledged breeding facilities of the breeder mentioned myself. Only once, so it's just this one moment in 1997  I can tell you about. It looked as if the geckoes bred well there. He had loads of egg shells to vouch for that (he has to show these to the authorities to proof the animals are captive bred).  But, as there are basically territorial animals in large numbers together, there is always an ambiance of stress. They cannot establish real territoria, cannot eat in peace, will be chased by larger animals, females by males.. I would not at all be surprised to find out the animals carry large parasite loads. Some people would say that the animals would not reproduce if they don't feel well.  This however would proove then that animals in the bio-industry feel well, as chickens do lay lots of eggs in these circumstances..(and carry loads and loads of parasites,which have tobe kept under control by antibiotics, which end up in their meat, causing the existence of multi-resistant microbes in humans. etc)      Peter Mudde   Hoofdredactie 'onder het Palmblad' see :  www.palmblad.com