While all of our projects are very special to us, we take tremendous pride in our growth in working with the Nosy Be locale. There is very limited biological diversity within the captive bred Nosy Be population currently available in the United States. We feel that it is imperative that the next generations of captive bred lines incorporate fresh genetics or else we will be facing a situation where all of the animals available on the market will somehow be related. Like us, not many within the hobby were/are aware of the issues that we are presently seeing within the community in regards to the limited genetic diversity. When we began to shift some of our focus over to the Nosy Be locale, we decided that we were going to help to improve the genetic diversity of these beautifully blue animals. In order to do this, we picked select animals from a trusted breeder within the U.S.A. and also acquired multiple breeders from a trusted importer of Wild Caught chameleons, directly from Nosy Be, Madagascar. By doing this, we have helped to add multiple generations of new, strong, and fresh genetics into the captive Nosy Be community. We will continue to incorporate fresh genetics through new, imported animals within our project in order to ensure that this improved genetic diversity continues to grow. This problem is more dire within the Nosy Be community, as there is a drastic difference in the numbers of breeders working with the Nosy Be locale than the Ambilobe locales. This situation is likely to grow worse if more breeders and customers don't start paying closer attention to their own projects and animals that they acquire. If this does not improve, the captive bred Nosy Be community will face serious consequences in regards to overall health and the future of these Beautifully Blue Animals!
There are some within the breeding community that are knowingly "line breeding" within their projects.
This is breeding known, related animals together in order to increase the chances producing animals with more sought out after traits. Line breeding / inbreeding increases the likelihood of genetic deficiencies and weaker animals. A lot of these breeders will only provide limited detail in regards to the family lineage of the animals that they are selling. We will not name/oust them but we feel that it is imperative that the next generations of the captive bred lines incorporate fresh genetics. We implore potential customers to thoroughly research an animals family lineage before making a purchase. Although breeders will be unable to provide lineage for their Wild Caught animals, they should be able to provide at least a few generations of information on their captive bred animals. At the very least, a breeder should request that potential customers give them some time to contact the breeder from whom they acquired their animals and then provide potential customers with the details once they obtain the information. If they can not provide you with information beyond the Sire (dad) and Damn (mom) of the animals they have for sale, we highly suggest taking your business elsewhere.
There are other breeders within the U.S. that see the current problems in the same light that we do and have been introducing Imported animals into their projects as well as creating detailed familial lineage reports of all of their breeding animals. We urge you to consider purchasing from like minded members of the community who are putting ethics, quality, sustainability and love of the animals over income.
