Leave my lizards alone
 

Bangkok has decided to remove some or all of the monitor lizards from various parks in they city. The video shows them capturing one in Lumpini. The city says they are a threat to joggers in the park. Nonsense. I've been jogging in that park for 20 years. You see them all the time. They are one of the attractions in the park.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/vdo/world/1091201/

They also thrive in the klongs around Thonburi and all over Dusit among other places. And if anyone thinks this will go to fruition I've got some BTS elevators to sell them.

BTS elevators
 

Actually , D , a few BTS stations do have elevators but , most are not for sale .
I agree with your assessment otherwise though . They will lose interest in catching lizards before long .

I confess to not following the story, except on social media where there were some hilarious videos, no Hitler Rant parody oddly enough?

I think these lizards will be relocated to an idyllic farm up country where they can frolic with others.

On a serious note, they may have begun to consume too much of the local animal and fish population, so maybe some sort of balance is not the the most despotic thing the "authorities" are doing here?

In my neighborhood, when small pets and children start going missing the fire department shows up with a burlap bag, and a length of PVC pipe with a noose on the end.

This is a small, young baby lizard in my garden in Bangkok, including the tail it's about 2 feet long.

Monitors are not a big deal - they are shy (at least here is Singapore) and always run away when humans are around.

How about pythons there - do you have many of them roaming around?

I guess the problem is that their population has boomed to such a degree that things are out of whack. Hopefully they can find a balance at the right number of lizards for the park to sustain.

Funny, my last few visits to lumpini I have hardly seen any lizards - I always go to try and see them.

Fun fact: my username is because of them! On my first visit there my friend and I were observing a lizard near a bridge and an older European guy saw us pointed at it then to the distance saying in broken english, excitedly, "many! many! many!". My friend and I find things like this quite funny lol.

Saw one of those snake catcher programmes on Nat Geo TV once and they were in Bangkok, not long after the 2011 floods I think. They were called to lumpini park to catch a massive python hiding in a tree. Would love to see a python in the park! I guess it was probably planted for dramatic effect though.

Tipping the scales

'They are disgusting, they scare me, they hurt with their deadly saliva, and they destroy the trees." These are among the seemingly endless complaints made against water monitor lizards by the many people who use Lumpini Park for workouts and recreation. After extensive complaints, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration decided to remove the "uneasy on the eyes" animal from the park last month.

Accessories made from the water monitor's skin are among the fashion world's most expensive products. But while top fashion labels eagerly seek out the skin to make their bags, shoes and belts, Thai people refuse to regard it as a luxury item. The water monitor remains deeply stigmatised, a fact driven by a set of long-standing cultural beliefs.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/spec...ing-the-scales

Ah, how enlightening. It all becomes so clear now.

Are you suggesting the creatures aren't being carefully transported to a monitor lizard heaven somewhere up country to live out their lives unmolested by joggers and tourists :eek: ?

He probably suggested that trapping these lizards was a starting point to their ultimate journey towards handbaghood...

NO! butchered and skinned in the yard behind a police station? The meat going to a street stall and the skin contributing to some official's pension pot?

I can't believe such cynicism exists in our thread :eek:


As an aside, I was taking a rain-enforced jogging halt under a stand in the park last week when a monitor came out of the lake, plodded past me with no concern at all and quickly climbed a tree. I had no idea they were so agile.

Now I worry about getting rained on by monitor poop.

What are their size? Here in Singapore they grow up to 5 ft.

This one was spotted by my house security camera on June 2016. Location: 40km west of BKK. It's about 6ft nose to tail.

Caught and released into a canal away from habitation.

Cool!
How did you do it? I could never outrun them...
I'm sure your lady would appreciate a handbag made from it...