LunaticNic
New member
Hello,
My name is Nic. I have been living in Georgia for the past five years however spent the other 15 growing up in Germany. I've had a passion for amphibians and reptiles for as long as I can remember. My sisters allergies to animal hair helped that passion along as it eliminated all "generic"pets from entering the house. When I was 5 my family took a trip to a city 30 minutes from where we lived where I discovered a small artificial pond in the front of a closed restaurant. The resturant was at the edge of town and sitting on the side of a "mountain" (about 450 meters above sealevel). As "unbelievable" as it might be there were allot of newt larvae in the pond (the pond was maybe 2 feet deep and 5 feet wide) I collected some in an empty plastic bottle and took about 4 home and raised them in a small aquarium my dad had used 20 some years earlier for fire belly newts. As they matured I found out they were alpine newts. I returned the more mature animals to the pond the next time we took a trip to the city. Years later I found the adults lived in in a larger (natural) pond a little farther back in the wooded area behind the restaurant. I did this for a few years, until 8. That year I had raised a total of 20 larvae, however I decided I wanted to keep newts as a whole year pet. With the alpine newts being endangered I didn't want to keep any from the local population so I opted for the much less attractive fire belly newt my father was familiar with.
Since then my collection continued to grow, especially once I found an exotic pet store until I ended up with 5 newts/salamanders a giant day gecko, and a bearded dragon. Unfortunately due to my family moving to the us, I was only allowed to keep one pet, and i chose my bearded dragon which had been with me since I was 10. The rest were donated to a zoo. I always wanted to get back into newts ... and unfortunately I picked the worst time to do that. I was hoping to finally get an alpine newt, I was even considering to "compromise" for a marbled newt this time around. And unfortunately I hadn't heard of the ban, and had to find out by following the trail of why newts and salamanders were out of stock everywhere... which makes me feel twice as bad as I was active during the python issue, and signed petitions, even though I don't care for pythons one bit (as pets for myself that is). In the face of all these bans I'm really fearing for my Tegu.
But there you have it, most of my life story.
My name is Nic. I have been living in Georgia for the past five years however spent the other 15 growing up in Germany. I've had a passion for amphibians and reptiles for as long as I can remember. My sisters allergies to animal hair helped that passion along as it eliminated all "generic"pets from entering the house. When I was 5 my family took a trip to a city 30 minutes from where we lived where I discovered a small artificial pond in the front of a closed restaurant. The resturant was at the edge of town and sitting on the side of a "mountain" (about 450 meters above sealevel). As "unbelievable" as it might be there were allot of newt larvae in the pond (the pond was maybe 2 feet deep and 5 feet wide) I collected some in an empty plastic bottle and took about 4 home and raised them in a small aquarium my dad had used 20 some years earlier for fire belly newts. As they matured I found out they were alpine newts. I returned the more mature animals to the pond the next time we took a trip to the city. Years later I found the adults lived in in a larger (natural) pond a little farther back in the wooded area behind the restaurant. I did this for a few years, until 8. That year I had raised a total of 20 larvae, however I decided I wanted to keep newts as a whole year pet. With the alpine newts being endangered I didn't want to keep any from the local population so I opted for the much less attractive fire belly newt my father was familiar with.
Since then my collection continued to grow, especially once I found an exotic pet store until I ended up with 5 newts/salamanders a giant day gecko, and a bearded dragon. Unfortunately due to my family moving to the us, I was only allowed to keep one pet, and i chose my bearded dragon which had been with me since I was 10. The rest were donated to a zoo. I always wanted to get back into newts ... and unfortunately I picked the worst time to do that. I was hoping to finally get an alpine newt, I was even considering to "compromise" for a marbled newt this time around. And unfortunately I hadn't heard of the ban, and had to find out by following the trail of why newts and salamanders were out of stock everywhere... which makes me feel twice as bad as I was active during the python issue, and signed petitions, even though I don't care for pythons one bit (as pets for myself that is). In the face of all these bans I'm really fearing for my Tegu.
But there you have it, most of my life story.
