Gecko farmers could save the wild bunch

Herpetologist seeks to promote gecko farming in Vietnam

source: Philip Cohen
New Scientist September 9 1995 p8

Herpetologist, Bob Murphy, from Canada's Royal Ontario Museum wants to promote gecko farming in Vietnam. He travelled to Vietnam to record new reptile species, and discovered that tokay geckos are an important source of income for villagers. They are used in traditional Asian medicines, and there is a very large market for geckos. Murphy found that wild geckos were becoming scarce. Community farming of geckos could both help the environment and local economies. Captive geckos breed well, and geckos farmers might change their attitude to wild geckos, seeing them in terms of conservation rather than harvesting.
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