Explore Angono's Monitor Lizards! | Born to be Wild
Aired (September 10, 2023): Doc Ferds Recio visited the monitor lizard named "Butchikik" that has been kept as a house pet and another monitor lizard in Angono, Rizal to learn about their condition. Find out more about it, watch this video!
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00:00 In the wild, the biowalks have a hectic schedule.
00:04 At the break of dawn, they are already looking for food.
00:11 When they are full, they will swim in the heat to digest quickly.
00:29 They are also busy exercising.
00:32 Solo trip or team effort, this is how the biowalks take care of their bodies.
00:41 But all of that is different...
00:45 when they are in the hands of humans.
00:51 It's big. It's really big and wide.
00:58 [music]
01:03 While walking in the woods,
01:11 the biowalker, Buchiki, feels hungry.
01:16 So he slowly takes out his tongue.
01:22 He feels his surroundings, where he can find food.
01:28 The problem is, Buchiki doesn't know how to find food.
01:37 Because before he finds it,
01:41 in this cage, I first saw Buchiki.
01:51 The biowalker has been taking care of Aling Nanita for more than a year.
01:55 Why do you have a biowalk?
01:58 We saw it here at our door.
02:00 It was just here in front of me.
02:03 I called my biowalker.
02:06 I said, "Pankuy, the booty is big."
02:09 Then it came down.
02:11 "No, that's not a booty, that's a biowalk."
02:14 Then it came down and climbed up here.
02:17 They climbed it.
02:20 How long has it been here?
02:21 Last year.
02:23 So it means it's been here since then.
02:26 What do you feed it?
02:28 Chicken.
02:30 Don't you try to take it out?
02:32 No, we don't.
02:34 Why?
02:36 We took care of it.
02:38 We made a pit for it.
02:40 It's big, right?
02:46 It wants food.
02:49 We're feeding it food here.
02:50 Let's go down.
02:52 I immediately judged Buchiki.
03:07 It's fat. It's big.
03:09 It's very unusual for wild biowalkers.
03:13 Buchiki is overweight.
03:16 Hotdogs are what they feed it.
03:19 Sometimes, it's chicken meat.
03:21 Oh no!
03:23 They seem to have a very good body mass.
03:26 Visceral fat in the abdomen is also big.
03:31 Because they don't exercise.
03:33 They are called "Kodlade"
03:36 It means they have a weak metabolism or intelligence.
03:40 They always exercise in the wild.
03:45 They run.
03:46 And they climb trees.
03:49 Their diet is strict.
03:53 They eat from one to two times a week.
03:57 That's why they are fed wrongly every day.
04:01 This one is a male.
04:05 I saw it right away.
04:07 No wounds on the body. Very feisty.
04:09 40.5 inches.
04:12 This is a good candidate because it's very feisty.
04:15 That's the only thing. It's fat.
04:17 It's big.
04:19 For now, Buchiki can't go back to the wild.
04:23 He needs to diet first.
04:26 So that he can move around in the forest quickly.
04:29 He also needs to learn to find his own food.
04:33 And not to rely on humans anymore.
04:38 For now, he will be rehabilitated in the rescue center of the DNR.
04:42 He fights for his territory.
04:48 He climbs trees to find his place.
04:57 He quickly runs away to avoid predators.
05:01 This is how I met the Bayawak in the wild.
05:08 But if I can see them often in the wild,
05:11 I also see them often in prison.
05:16 Because they were kept for a long time.
05:22 In Monorizal,
05:25 I met Mr. Rolando and his Bayawak.
05:30 He said he bought it for only 500 pesos when he was in prison.
05:36 He bought it in 2007.
05:38 How did you acquire it?
05:40 We swam in Sambales, Iba.
05:43 Along the way, when we were about to go home,
05:46 there were some Bayawaks who were walking on the road.
05:50 You bought it?
05:52 We bought it.
05:54 I was going to give it to them as a gift.
05:56 But when I was about to give it to them, my children cried.
05:59 I took them home.
06:01 They didn't want to share it.
06:05 I met the Bayawak who was choking on a small tray of water.
06:09 He wanted to climb up, but he couldn't.
06:13 Because the prison was too small for him.
06:16 So he was limited in his movements.
06:19 Until now, this hasn't been the case of Mr. Rolando
06:23 because his children have already left the house.
06:26 So he decided to surrender it to the DLR.
06:30 [Indistinct chatter]
06:33 [Indistinct chatter]
07:00 With the DLR antipolo, I measured the weight of the Bayawak.
07:04 She's a woman.
07:06 We're looking for growths.
07:09 No wounds.
07:11 Based on the length and weight of the Bayawak that reached 12 kilos,
07:15 I can say that it's overweight or obese.
07:18 It's a condition where obesity is extreme.
07:21 But what caught my attention
07:25 is the unusual size of his stomach.
07:29 We checked the skin.
07:30 Actually, he's fat. That's what's different from him.
07:33 It's too wide, maybe because his enclosure is too small.
07:37 The Bayawak or the fat that accumulates in the stomach is called visceral fats.
07:43 Because of their excessive obesity,
07:46 they may develop liver disease
07:48 that if not treated, they may die.
07:53 How long is the spine?
07:57 It's not usually this long.
07:59 Because of climbing trees and climbing, it's covered by grass.
08:04 But because it's in the enclosure, it's this long.
08:08 And when it gets longer, even the blood vessels inside get longer.
08:13 We'll cut it later.
08:15 [Music]
08:34 The care of wildlife without documents or legal source
08:39 is prohibited by our law, RA 9147.
08:44 Mang Rolando has lost his responsibility in taking care of the Bayawak.
08:48 But the Bayawak
08:50 seems to be still in prison because he may not return to his natural habitat.
08:56 This is how the Bayawak are often caught and taken care of.
09:06 [Music]
09:14 If people are suffering from excessive obesity,
09:18 so are the animals.
09:20 If we keep imprisoning them,
09:24 we are depriving them of the right to be healthy and take care of themselves in the wild.
09:32 [Music]
09:56 you
09:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]