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fieldsmith Wrote:Supposedly they were collected en masse because most of their native range was about to be logged...thus the exporters wanted to get as many as possible out while they could. This is like 3rd or 4th hand info, so obviously I don't know how true it is, but seems plausible.

That is not quite the case. The reason the species became available ib captivity, is that someone within the ministry of natural resources and parks in Tanzania altered the local field guides that customes used to regulate exports of native wildlife, and posted pictures of this species under the name of Lygodactylus Luteopictaratus a rather common and widespread species in Tanzania. They were then able to bring out thousands of specimens using the forged field guides to bypass customs. Once this was caught all exports from Tanzania were stopped until the local field guides could be reviewed and corrected by outside experts.

This species has a very small native range(the best guess being a few square kilometers) within a protected reserve and thus was never legally elegible for export. The only saving grace is that this species matures quickly and breeds prolificly so that the native population which had at one time been pretty much strip mined has recovered nicely. Unfortunately now as was alluded to in the above post illegal logging does seem to be encroaching on their native range and unless the Tanzanian government takes more aggressive action the species future may very much be in doubt in the wild.

d.crockett · 08-08-2012, 07:26 AM

Tanzania has had a ban on all wildlife exports for about a year after some similar shenanigans.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201108221268.html

The chameleon folks got hit pretty hard by it.

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