# Some things about wild tegus you might not want to know.



## VARNYARD (Jan 12, 2008)

*Warning, do not read this if you do not want to know what happens in the leather trade with tegus!!*

Tegus are heavily exploited for their skins in Argentina. Each year, more than 1,250,000 skins are exported from Argentina to the United States, Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong, Japan, and several European countries. Most of them in the US are shipped to Texas for the leather trade. The ones shipped to the US are destined to become cowboy boots, belts, wallets and purses. 

The trade of these skins is important to the Argentine economy. The export value of the resource is worth millions of dollars annually, and for rural peoples in Argentina with low wages or intermittent employment, tegu hunting is a significant source of income. However, the top dollar for these hides is $4.00 US, there are three grades, the finest ones bring $4.00, the medium grade bring $2.00, and the grade three bring $1.00.

One $4.00 hide is equivalent to a day's wages for a farm hand. Additionally, about half the families eat the meat; it is very hard to obtain with the low wages. Tegu fat is also collected, it is highly valued for medicinal purposes, however, and there is no proof that the fat has any special medical value.

The hunting season corresponds with the activity of the lizards, this is done in the seasons the animals are most active (spring and summer). Hunters use trained dogs to track the lizards to their burrows, occasionally the dogs jump an active lizard and chase it to a hallow log or a hole in the ground where they are dug out and captured alive. Baited hooks are another method used to capture tegus, often times these are set along riverbanks.

Once killed, the lizards are skinned from the dorsal side, leaving the ventral plates intact. Skins can be sold directly to the tanneries, but more often the skins pass through middlemen, some of these hides are stretched to bring the higher-grade price. The hides are dried and moved to market. Some places it is legal to hunt, trap and sell these hides and animals. Argentina being one of them, there are also many hides and animals transported from areas that they are not legally obtained from, these are carried across the borders to regions that are legal to trade and sell them.

Argentina is signatory to CITES, and Tegu skins leave the country with CITES export permits according to appendix II rules. This means the skins must be tanned or semi-tanned before export. This makes them legal to export, and not regulated by the CITES laws and facilitates monitoring. This makes this an open industry and gives them the freedom to continue the harvest of these animals.

There is much controversy over the harvesting of these animals; the governments are trying to find a way to regulate the trade of these animals and skins. There are many fears that the animals are being over harvested, and concerns that the numbers of wild tegus are on the decline.

Please keep in mind what I stated about the average income to a farm worker, he can make $4.00 a day working at a farm, but on a good day of hunting tegus he can collect 12 hides, if they are 12 good hides he has the same amount as if he worker 12 days at hard labor on a farm. He also would be collecting meat for his family, something that is very expensive at the market based on his pay rate as a farm hand.

As much as I hate to know this about tegus, it is about them and is part of the information on these animals. I do hate that they are collected for hides and food, but I also realize they are found in very poor countries, and people are doing what they need to do for survival. Like it or not, this is some more facts about tegus.


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## eddiezahra (Jan 12, 2008)

i read a blob on that b4 but thanks for the full report. although it is hard to stomach every animal has it's niche in it's native ecosystem... sometimes involving humans


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## KoreanDeathKid (Jan 12, 2008)

already knew that, it's sickening


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## dorton (Jan 13, 2008)

Very sad, although I understand their reasoning.
Much like america's thoughts on dogs and other countries. In some parts of the word, a dog is just meat, and a pelt.


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## VARNYARD (Jan 13, 2008)

Sad facts, but also part of life. :shhe


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## olympus (Jan 13, 2008)

I agree. :lymo


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## snakehandler (Jan 22, 2008)

Having spend some time in Argentina and crossed whole of the country the depletion of wildlife is depressing. At the same time in areas that are protected the abundance is still amazing.
But to have witnessed the poverty rate in Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia
i can understand why they hunt animals. At the same time they have governments that lack all sorts of responsability. 
But i must say Argentina is one of those countries where they have some good nature reserves. Only too small and too little.
But nature is overexploited everywhere on the planet.


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## VARNYARD (Jan 22, 2008)

snakehandler said:


> Having spend some time in Argentina and crossed whole of the country the depletion of wildlife is depressing. At the same time in areas that are protected the abundance is still amazing.
> But to have witnessed the poverty rate in Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia
> i can understand why they hunt animals. At the same time they have governments that lack all sorts of responsability.
> But i must say Argentina is one of those countries where they have some good nature reserves. Only too small and too little.
> But nature is overexploited everywhere on the planet.



I understand this completely; people there are just trying to survive. I also agree it is happening all over the world, hungry people must eat, and tegus are seen as a valuable resource there. I wish there was a way to keep the harvest from happening, but it is a fact about these animals as well as a fact of life.


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## DZLife (Jan 24, 2008)

I wonder how detrimental this is to the Tegu population there...


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## Bungit (Mar 1, 2010)

Here in Brasil they are rich food source for the locals.
When a group of people live in such poverty, sadly their staple diet cannot come from the supermarket and they have to resort to mother nature.

Getting the balance right is the problem.

I was confronted by one of my workers bearing a 3ft Tegu he had caught and killed on my land, later to be a very special meal for his familly.

he did however after some very strange looks and methods of explanation replace it with a young Tegu - I guess not more than a few days old, for me to rear and keep as a pet.

Can someone give me ideas as to its Breed and sex. :bang 

p.s. thanks for a wonderful site - great for a novice like me. :app


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## Bubblz Calhoun (Mar 1, 2010)

_To me it looks like it has the black and gold (or yellowish) colors of a baby blue tegu. 

But one of the breeders who have seen more babies than me would be able to verify that better than I can.

Was the tegu he killed one of yours or was it just a wild one he found on your land? And where did he get the baby from, was that on you land to or just something he caught and or found some where else? _


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## Bungit (Mar 2, 2010)

Many Thanks for the reply

He wouldn't be stood there smiling quite the same had it been one of mine !!!!!!

The one he killed was a wild one and as I understand it no relation to my baby.

I think the baby was procured from another source and not found on my land - still battling with learning Brasillian Portuguese with local phrases - but it seems that they have a name for all these animals of this sort of size and species "TEGU" so finding out where it actually came from won't really be of any benefit


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## Bungit (Mar 2, 2010)

I think you are right about being a baby Blue - I have been trawling the web for pics and the colours and markings I have seen of baby Blues seems to match.

Thanks for that !


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## Bubblz Calhoun (Mar 2, 2010)

_Eh,..you never know. You're in their natural habitat so it maybe something we haven't seen or don't get to see that often.  Only time will tell._


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## Bungit (Mar 2, 2010)

Yes, We are really spoilt, all sorts of Lizards, snakes and other exciting creatures regularly visit the garden and the house and certain places you really don't want to find them.

I was thinking (as we are in their natural environment and really have no need for heaters or UV lamps etc.) to build my little chap an outside enclosure.

I have an area in the garden with his or her name on it (may help if I gave it a name)
At the moment it is 20ft long x 6ft wide, local sandy loam soil, brick wall to 2.5ft with barbed wire on top. East to west facing and getting sunshine for best part of the day.
I am worried about their burrowing habits though, as the wall has little in the way of foundations - would I have to dig wire into the ground ?

Any suggestions and ideas on this would really be most grateful.

also - he has lost the end of his tail - do you know if it will grow back ?


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## Bubblz Calhoun (Mar 2, 2010)

_His tail will grow back but from what I have seen it may not be the same length or color.

As for their enclosure,...keep in mind they do like to dig. If I had or built and outdoor enclosure it would definitely have to have some sort of foundation to keep them from digging out. Some people have added their own tunnels and burrow openings by using pipe and things for reinforcement. In case of heavy rain and to keep them from collapsing. 

I know wil posted a few pics of some out door enclosures he was working on a while back. Of course Bobby knows all about that also and a few other people on here. 

But we have to keep this on the topic or get back to it any way. You can start your own thread about it to get more responses. Or check out some of the threads under the DIY section. _


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## Kingwolf26 (Nov 14, 2010)

yep it will. i used to live in the caribbean, bothe Barbados and the bahamas and I used to see quite the creatures down there, some reptiles seen out side and some that prefered to live rigght in the house. Centipedes just over a foot long and all kinds of anoles, ameivas, skinks, colorful geckoes. there are no snakes in Barbados though, but a broad medley of grass snakes that mostly ate frogs and lizards.


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## Moofins (Apr 21, 2011)

Unfortunately, I think this will be another one of those situations where we, as human beings, won't learn until it's too late, and the damage has already been done.

We will suffer because our hobby will eventually die out and/or be restricted to captive breeding situations, with no room for introduction of new bloodlines, and another species will suffer when the Argentinians have to move on to the next available source.

It's a vicious cycle.


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## Maro1 (Apr 21, 2011)

The Kids have to eat!


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## JkiddReptiles (Jun 27, 2011)

Its ignorant and wrong for us to say that them killing tegus for survival is sickening or disgusting when we do the same thing to chickens, cows, and pigs. An animal is an animal in the end. Its like saying they don't deserve to eat because we keep these animals as pets. And tegus are native to their land so they have the right to kill them for survival


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## fisheric (Jul 2, 2011)

I would be bothered by this if they didnt eat the meat. At least the animal is not being wasted like they do to sharks.


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## slideaboot (Jul 3, 2011)

JkiddReptiles said:


> Its ignorant and wrong for us to say that them killing tegus for survival is sickening or disgusting when we do the same thing to chickens, cows, and pigs. An animal is an animal in the end. Its like saying they don't deserve to eat because we keep these animals as pets. And tegus are native to their land so they have the right to kill them for survival



Yup.


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## Grendel (Jul 3, 2011)

JkiddReptiles said:


> Its ignorant and wrong for us to say that them killing tegus for survival is sickening or disgusting when we do the same thing to chickens, cows, and pigs. An animal is an animal in the end. Its like saying they don't deserve to eat because we keep these animals as pets. And tegus are native to their land so they have the right to kill them for survival



also agree with above 100%


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