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Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 3, No. 41 - October 14, 2021
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................7
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne............................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals.................................6,7
Neighborhood Therapist.....3
Pets........................................5
Weekend
Forecast
Friday
Sunny
75˚/62˚
Saturday
Sunny
73˚/61˚
Sunday
Partly
Cloudy
72˚/61˚
Lawndale Tribune
AND lAwNDAle News
Hawthorne Press Tribune
Featuring the Weekly Newspapers of Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale
Full-Motion Digital Billboard
Coming to the South Bay
The billboard will consist of three individual offset display panels made of LED screens all warped within a curving ribbon of light-emitting diodes. The billboard will display the city of Inglewood seal along
with City of Champions branding and will mark the entrance to Inglewood’s Market Street Promenade. Photo courtesy City of Inglewood.
South Bay Student Breeds
Exotic Leopard Geckos
By Kiersten Vannest
Leopard geckos are a special kind of patterned
reptile that usually live in the Middle
East and northern India. But eleven (almost
twelve, she says) year-old Alyson Gibson is
using her knowledge of animals and great
care techniques to bring them to El Segundo.
Gibson feeds, breeds, and sells leopard
geckos, raising them from egg to adulthood.
“Before my mom had me, she had leopard
geckos. Once I found out about that, I was
like, I want a leopard gecko,” she says,
explaining that her mom, Shawna, had bred
leopard geckos in the past and that she
wanted to pick up the practice. Soon after,
her mom surprised her with a leopard gecko
from Petco. Her collection grew from there.
To breed them, Gibson selects the two
geckos she wants to breed based on their
patterns and colors. Not all leopard geckos
look the same, she says. They can be different
colors, stripes, and spots. Further, they can
produce offspring that looks wildly different
from either parent.
Once she has selected, she pairs the two
geckos in the same enclosure. Gibson used
to have tanks all over her room, she shares.
Each gecko had its own tank that needed
to be cleaned often, which she describes as
a long, arduous, and often messy endeavor.
Now, thanks to her stepdad, her closet has
been converted into a rack system, where
she can keep all her geckos in a tower-like
structure and see all of them at once.
“In late winter is when the leopard gecko
starts laying eggs,” she says. As the females
begin laying their soft, marshmallow-like
eggs, Gibson carefully combs through their
enclosures to find them, and once she has, she
places them carefully in an incubator. Gibson
then gets to decide if she wants female or
male leopard geckos. She chooses by changing
the temperature at which the eggs are
incubated, which affects how they are born.
“Her first season, she wanted them all to be
girls,” says Shawna, her mom, “so we incubated
them at the right temperature to make
sure that they were all female offspring.” She
learned that season that females take longer
to hatch, so this year, she chose all males.
Her geckos must be kept separate because,
on occasion, they can get aggressive and fight
with each other. In some instances, a leopard
gecko may lose its tail in a fight. They can
safely detach their tails in case of a predator
picking them up from behind. Though the
gecko can adapt just fine and even regrow
a tail, it usually grows back very differently,
slightly more deformed and discolored. Gibson
doesn’t wish for her geckos to go through
this experience.
From here, the newly hatched babies get
their own slot in the rack system, being
provided with the right amount of heat, food,
and what she calls a “hide.” This is a type of
dirt that allows them to burrow underneath
to cool down. Each enclosure is specially
conditioned to remain between seventy to
eighty degrees, though she laughs, saying
the rest of the house is not that temperature.
Gibson’s geckos lay two eggs every fifteen
days, which can lead to a lot of baby geckos.
“We had like twenty-eight of them at one
time,” she says. At one point, the geckos had
so many babies that they began to feed the
babies to her bearded dragon, who started
Alyson Gibson with two of her specially bred leopard geckos.
getting too fat from all the food. Though she
loves other reptiles and her bearded dragon,
she doesn’t breed that pet because it can get
egg-bound, she says.
Once they are ready, she sells them to
lucky families looking for a beautiful leopard
gecko. Prices depend on the color and
pattern, as Gibson has mainly exotic and
designer animals. Gibson herself gives the
care instructions for the new pet and ensures
that they have everything they need for a
long and happy life.
As for her future plans with reptiles, Gibson
is unsure of her path. “When I get older, like
fourteen or fifteen, I’m probably not going
to keep doing it,” she says, explaining that
See Geckos, page 4