John,
As any fairy tale will tell you, dragons are best kept at a safe distance — not as pets.
That advice also applies to adorably dragon-like earless monitor lizards: captivating creatures whose only habitat is the rainforest-covered island of Borneo in Southeast Asia, which has been devastated by deforestation. Just five fragile subpopulations of these lizards remain. But when poachers can find them, they’re plucked from their homes to live in captivity far away.
The exotic pet trade is driving these real-life dragons toward extinction, and it needs to stop.
Earless monitor lizards are so rare and in such high demand as pets — mostly in the United States and Europe — that the species is sometimes called the Holy Grail of the captive-reptile world.
Following a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently proposed listing earless monitor lizards as threatened under the Endangered Species Act — but still wants to allow trade. That contradicts the science showing trade is one of the two greatest threats to the species. Monitor lizards deserve the highest level of protection — endangered — with a ban on trade of any kind. Shutting off the U.S. market will allow them to stay in their wild habitat.
Tell the Service to give earless monitor lizards the protection they need by listing them as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
