I wonder if they took some living specimens to try and propagate them in captivity. I didn't read the paper thoroughly, but it seems they didn't take any alive, though they did kill two chameleons for study.
Also looking at the paper it seems that the female had 7 eggs in her
It's a tradeoff. They had to kill two animals in order to adequately catalogue and study this species.
Just as it would be a tradeoff to decide and take some for captive breeding. Which may also fail.