WHY (almost) all Jackson’s Chameleons DIE?

One of the most frequent dreams of young boys and girls is to have their own dinosaur after they have seen all the Jurassic Parks and related movies…

We live in a fantastic epoch, when this dream can easily come true. Everyone can own a Triceratops - the Jackson's

Three-Horned Chameleon, Trioceros jacksonii.

What a joy and stars in the childrens' eyes and the excitement to observe it how it eats, coils its tail and sleeps and crawls strange way and basks and makes the funny movements and stretches its body and opens the mouth and sneezes and grasps for branches… What a tragedy when it then suddenly DIES.

All die.

Almost all die.

And they die for a reason.

For one terribly stupid reason.

For an awkward human IGNORANCE.

Why we still see so many in captivity?

Well, we see almost no subadult offsprings. No one breeds them and raises them up, just few enthusiasts. Why? Because it is easy to sell the babies and do not have the headache raising them. But mostly because despite of illegality, they are easily by thousands harvested from the feral populations in Hawaii and then sold in big pet store chains or by animal traders on shows.

We live in a wonderful time. Never before was the gathering info so easy as nowadays. The info is literally at our fingertips in a device that most of us do not let out from the hands for many hours a day. We can even ask Siri and leave our fingers unengaged…. And despite of this privilege and fantastic opportunity, people do not seek information how to keep the dinosaurs alive, they ignore the recommendations and logic of their captive husbandry and they let the dinosaurs day by day suffer until painful death.

Let us fly now to Africa, to eastern equatorial Africa, to Kenya. We land in Nairobi, in a busy capital of a contemporary African country, which is home to our dinosaurs. They live right in the parks in the middle of the city and in the suburbs and if you want to see the giant three horned chameleon you need to drive couple of hours to the north e.g. to the city of Meru.

You will be surprised. No heat. In the afternoon it starts to be a little bit windy so you will need long sleeve and if you stay outside until dark, you will freeze pretty well if you will not have a jacket. We are on equator but we are damn high! We are namely on the foothills of the second biggest African mountain Mount Kenya at an elevation between 4000 and 6000 feet above sea level. This is where our dinosaurs live. This is the climate under which they evolved for millions and millions of years and which they desperately need in captivity for survival.

If you do not give them mild temperatures during the day and just few minutes of basking and if you do not give them cold foggy nights with the temperatures dropping in the 50s, they will suffer and die. Whatever they tell you at Petco and whatever they tell you at the reptile show. They want to sell and have no interest in the chameleon survivor because if it's nice to sell you another one. Because it will not die the next day, it will die slowly slowly for weeks and you will not even notice how miserable it is until it's lays lime yellow on the floor without any movement.

Please please PLEASE do not keep Jackson chameleons if you cannot provide them cold foggy nights in the 50s and if your keeping facility is over 75°F at the daytime. They cannot adapt, they have found the way how to survive in the special climate for millions of years. They cannot change it suddenly.

If you want to keep them, give the mild 70s it daytime, almost no basking and provide deep night drop of temperatures in the 50s with an intense fog. Then they will thrive and live very long maybe even 12 years in captivity.