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Comments On Melissa Kaplan's Methods & Information


Concern About Melissa Kaplan's Methods & Information

by Henry Lizardlover

This page is not an attack on good old Melissa, it's not here to say everything she says is wrong. It's more like a caution about some of her methods and information. Melissa Kaplan has put herself, her information, instructions and attitudes out in public as an "Educator", this makes her or her ideas and methods open to response, opinions, praise or criticism.

I generally don't make it my business to address the shadow side of someone in public or on my website but in this case, I make an exception for a number of valid reasons, mostly out of concern for other iguana owners and a love of the truth, NOT any hate for Melissa as some people see it. This is just to warn iguana owners about the ways she may exaggerate things, ways that she may misrepresent what other people write, and to warn about some absurd ideas she perpetuates about iguana behavior and dealing with male iguana aggression moods, where she has failed to make clear any warning to the iguana owners of the serious risks to themselves in following her instructions of dealing with male iguana attack mood.


Melissa has promoted her views on iguana care and issues to the point where iguana owner's are going to get a big dose of her stuff. Of course, there are lots of correct and useful things that Melissa has posted on her website, various message boards and in her book. I just want to alert iguana owners, especially new owners, that some things written by Melissa merrit serious concern because some things she writes:

- are extremely misleading
- are extremely dangerous
- are silly or nonsense


Then, I'd also like for iguana owners to know about Melissa's over use of scientific lingo which tends to make all would be ig owners tremble at the thought of having to concoct very special diets and very special living arrangments, which are not harmful but can be unnecessary and confusing.

While true, most pet shops will not give you the correct information needed to get an ig to adulthood, you dont need to spend $50.00 a week in special food for a happy , healthy ig either.


I make comments on Melissa's works because there are things she does that really disturb me. I've seen her misquote and unfairly misrepresent what other iguana spokespersons have written. I've seen her repeatedly dismiss books only because of one or two things she disagreed with. I've seen her use various means of insulting or harassing people on iguana message board forums. Melissa is simply someone that new iguana owners have to be warned about, her practices and ideas have some serious flaws but are veiled in intelligent sounding verbage and great leaps to exaggerate some facts while ignoring other facts.

There are many people that see Melissa Kaplan as an Authority on iguana care and behavior. She has been spending what appears to be all of her time, writing posts on various iguana message boards and forums on the internet since 1994 or so. She also wrote a book on the subject of iguana care. She has been very helpful to lot's of people but very mean and nasty to a lot of other people, especially new iguana owners that come along to get help, they get some help along with what seems to many people to be a very judgemental attitude, a very unforgiving posture.

According to her own statements, she is disabled, cannot work, has the "chronic fatigue syndrome" and a whole list of other personal health issues and problems.

Melissa does not post any photographs of herself on her website or in her book called "Iguanas For Dummies", she does not want people to see what she looks like. Why is that???

Take a look at her website or read all of the things she writes on various iguana message boards on the internet. It's easy to be fooled into accepting everything she says, there's a scary over use of science lingo or medical jargon, and she really tries hard to write things with an obvious overkill of detail and information in some scary effort to sound like a scientist or doctor. I have not seen any creative discoveries in her material. What I do see is an extremely efficent file clerk.

MELISSA'S VERY DISTURBING EMAIL RUMOR

Several years ago, there was a message that Melissa was sending out to people all over the net in privave email. I finally got a copy of it mailed to me by one of Melissa's friends to let me see what she was up to. She was telling people all over the net that she was in contact with some mystery witness, someone that she could not reveal, that 'witnessed me amputating the hemipenes of a male iguana using boltcutters'. It was a false story that Melissa was spreading around, stating in her email that 'she was not at liberty to go public because the
woman did not want to reveal her identity'. This all started to make sense to me once I saw the email copy, because there were people asking me strange questions and I had no idea why. I even remember getting a friendly email from Jen Swofford asking me about that (rumored) information that had gone around. So I started posting a copy of the email rumor statement (by Melissa)on various message boards to bring it out in the open and deny it. Eventually good old Melissa responded to it when I posted on the AOL iguana board. Instead of her apologizing for it, she could go on and on to defend it and stated that she had no reason not to believe the mystery woman she claimed that gave her this information. Would it be easy to believe I used a bolt cutter to amputate an iguana hemepenis? The part that's funniest to me is that Melissa would tell people in her email that because the so called woman would not reveal her identity, therefore Melissa could not go public with it. How nice of her, so instead she would go private with it and create a horrific hateful rumor.

Melissa, do you have anything to say about this? Do you have a justification or explanation for it? Have I made false statements about you like this?

_________________________________________________________
From: Melissa Kaplan
Subject: Re: Henry Lizardlover

I heard from a woman who witnessed it that he also
"cures" hemipenal prolapses by cutting off the hemipenes
with bolt cutters - also saying that they don't feel
any pain. And HE accuses ME of animal cruelty!!!!!
She unfortunately won't go public with it, so neither
can I.


--
Melissa Kaplan | melissk@sonic.net
Iguana Care: http://www.sonic.net/~melissk/ig_care.html
Herp Societies/Vets: http://www.sonic.net/~melissk/society.html
Other Herp Care/Educators Info: http://www.sonic.net/~melissk/
CFS/ME: http://www.sonic.net/~melissk/cfs_main.html

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