Terrible Captive Care
Humans dare to tear the chameleons out of their natural environment, transport them for thousands of kilometers under not always good conditions, then sells them in the pet stores or on the reptile fairs and shows until the tortured end tired chameleon finally lands in some cage in a private collection. Even though chameleon care is an expensive hobby and only the equipment costs several hundreds of dollars and the chameleons costs tens to hundreds sometimes even thousands of dollars each individual, some people are so ignorant did they do not even the read the basic care guides and provide such a lousy care to chameleons, that they die four days, weeks and months, struggling, suffering, and in pain, just because they were unlucky to get into hands of an ignorant human. This is why we see deformed, broken and tortured chameleons in captivity, and the cry shakes the heavens.
There are few most important killer-factors in chameleon husbandry, such as:
1. Overfeeding resulting in obesity
2. Overheating resulting in speeding the metabolism
3. Wrong hydration (regime, method and quantity)
4. Wrong nutrition including supplementation
5. Wrong Lighting incl. UV
6. Wrong caging
7. Fake plants and accessories
8. Wrong handling and manipulation
9. Exposure to predators
10. Wrong healthcare and hygiene
The situation is really terrible and not understandable: the proper information is readily available in thousands of publications available in bookstores and online, in hundreds of better and worse books...
There are competent forums in facebook:
There are awesome reference sheets, based on which even a layman can design acceptable to great care for chameleons.
And there are dozens of informative and educational videos:
