Again, it is not impossible to keep them, just unwise and expensive. The equipment alone being used in these pictures runs for $10,000+. This also appears to be some kind of research institution which may in fact be in Africa, based off of all the pictures of them in the wild and the...
This site just shows a few pictures. It doesn't say whether this is a zoo or private keeper. You also don't know where this person is located and how much they spent on the enclosures and tortoises nor how long the tortoises lived or are living. Just because there are a few pictures of something...
The wild tortoises that do get pyramided are most often the ones that live near human settlements and eat refuse and food waste. It is not due to their natural diet.
They have two mata mata pages, one that just says mata mata and another that says mata mata (hatchlings). There is still one available on the hatchling page.
They are an excellent pet store. A while ago they had a pair of Galapagos torts for sale. They called them the 60,000 dollar lawn mowers. Turtlesource.com has some captive bred mata mata babies for sale at $450 each.
Pet Kingdom, a very good exotic pet store in San Diego. I am afraid that they do not sell online. Their selection is great, lots of turtles and tortoises.
Well, they do sell them, they allow you to view the colony, and they keep the eggs in the incubator in the front of the store, so you can even watch them hatching out.
There are a lot of mata mata breeders in the United States. A pet store near my house does, they have a pretty good colony going. It's not just one person's hatchlings and wild caught ones in the hobby.
The only problem with this reasoning is that the care of the Geometric Tortoise is already known. They are not quite as delicate, but the care does differ. The best conservation in this case is simply to keep their habitat pristine, not allow people to take them from their homeland, and if the...
The main expense was the other animals, but you have to take into account the fact that they are not a grouping tortoise in the wild. They are sparsely distributed over their range, so there was a lot of driving involved in finding the little guys. The paper I mentioned is mainly about the other...