Reptile Fight Club - Monoculture in Herpetoculture.

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of monoculture in the hobby.Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland @-FBIG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQ

Welcome to thetile Fight Club. It's me, your host, Justin Julander. And with me, as always, is Chuck Poland. Your faithful friend, Chuck Poland. Did I rip off the NPR guys? Did you? I don't know. That sounded really familiar, but anyway. How you been, man? Good, dude. Just, you know, sweating it out here in California right now.

We finally got our air conditioning on. It's hot. So, it is the season, though. So, how about you? Yeah. Yeah, it's been pretty hot here as well. But we just had kind of a break in the weather, had some rain and stuff. So, that's been nice.

It's overcast today. Maybe it will rain a little more. So, yeah, not too bad right now. Nice. We actually were just down in California, so that was kind of nice. Well, that was a good trip. I'm sorry I couldn't make it up, man. I had made a prior commitment to a buddy.

So how was the shooting? It was fun. It was good. It was where we shoot out is out in Delzura. Well, not quite Delzura, but it's out off Campo, like out east. So it was hot, very hot. We probably quit shooting around 1030 because it was just too, too hot to take. Yeah.

Well, it's pretty apparent by the crowds at the beach that everybody was getting away from the heat, man. It was nice. 75 degrees at the beach. We, uh, although, so we went on a Thursday and it was like empty. There were like five cars in the lot we were in by the beach. And then Saturday we went around 11 o'clock and there was like a mile and a half line just to get in. And so we had to drive down.

That was the beach we'd planned to go to. So we drove down south and we got into one right as they put up the full sign behind us so we yes we squeaked in there and then uh yeah where'd you go are you a huntington beach this is huntington yeah yeah i like i like huntington beach my like me and my cousin was that when we when i used to come up for narbc uh i'd stay with him up in huntington beach and uh yeah he wasn't far off the beach we'd always watch the the volleyball nationals they have there and it's happening right around the same time and ton of course or courts there yep and it's just it's a fun fun fun time right around then that that was a always a good time

for any rbc up there is just a lot of stuff going on in in uh huntington beach so i always always enjoyed that yeah it was always fun vending those shows. I miss the old gang. We used to do any RBC show with, that was fun, fun times. Still not sure what happened to some of them. I miss that Jeremy. Yeah. He was, he was good. He was good peeps, man. I know he, off the face of the earth though. huh? Yep. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. But Chris Behoff still around and he's, yeah.

Good dude. A bunch of few others. Yeah. It's a fun crowd out there. Yeah. Who else was, who else was out there? There was, we have that picture of us at like going out to dinner or something after yeah there was the big comes it's always you know cool to have steve out there and ben and

yeah i bet b hoffer remember all those guys names yeah there's that there's that really big dude i can't remember his name he was around for a while while. And then, um, I think he moved, I think he may have moved to Florida, but, uh, he's still, I know he's still around. I just don't, I don't connect with him much,

but, uh, yeah, you know that, I mean, good times out there. Good. Yeah.

We went up to the LA zoo, checked out the, the lair and, you know, it was pretty, pretty cool zoo. They've got a nice collection, uh,

got some good stuff there. So that was fun to go check out the zoo with the kids they they were a little worn out you know teenagers get get a little fussy when they get warm and worn out they do it's it's it's a strange phenomenon yeah right yeah we had a good time that's cool we wanted to get in the last trip before school started so how's tragg yeah he's good doing good cousins uh yeah traig and jenny are great that's call them the hotel jew lander out there yeah for sure man they have hosted many uh they have hosted many a friend and jew as well yeah you guys have all slept on their couch and yeah good times yeah they um my brother-in-law's living there too so we got to hang out with him he oh nice uh yeah yeah here in l.a and with the air force and so yeah anson's a

great guy we had a lot of fun with him he went to the beach with us on saturday and hung out with him he's he's great great fun so nice yeah it's it's nice though they're going to be a little closer they were in they were in texas and alaska before that so it's hard to see them too often uh when they were that far off but now in california it's only a you know half a day's drive or so yeah you can see them a little more frequently hopefully my sister's still in texas kind of waiting for things to settle down with the pandemic and all that kind of garbage and then move out to LA and, um, join her husband. Wow. That's, that's awesome. So, so in a, in a, in a time where all of the Californians are fleeing to Texas, the,

the Jew lenders are fleeing to, but back into California. I like that. I like that. That's good. That's good. Yeah, this should be fun. So now I'll have another excuse to come down to Southern California. Yeah. Perfect. Besides the herps. So cool, man.

Anything going on with your reptiles? Man, just, you know, I've got the Felsuma grandus babies. I've got four of them now. So they're kind of coming along. I probably need to get an ad up for two of them now. So they're, they're, uh, they're kind of coming along. I probably need to get an ad up for two of them here pretty shortly. And then I've got three more eggs still in the incubator. So, um, probably in the coming couple of weeks, maybe two, maybe three weeks. I don't know. I didn't, I didn't do very good in on writing down when those things, uh, were found. So I'm, I'm

kind of just guesstimating it, but whatever. Everything here is getting fed and getting ready. Diamonds are looking really nice. Tracy, I are looking really nice. I've been trying to get the pro heat panels from pro products, but they've just had, you know, COVID's got them, uh, struggling for materials. So they're not able to get the aluminum framing for the, for the sides on their panels. And I've just been waiting and waiting. And so I, I ended up just buying two Helix panels, um, which, you know, I I've, I've used Helix panels before and you know, they um they're uh you gotta off gas them for the material and stuff whereas the pro products panels you just plug them in and go

so but uh yeah i just finished off gassing those things and uh i just can't afford to wait any longer to get my panels in there um i kind of run those animals pretty cool, like 80 degrees right up until, you know, when I start cutting off food. You know, I'll keep running them roughly around 80. But once once we get past, you know, March time frame, I usually kick that heat on for them and give them that 85 degree basking spot. And so I just needed to make sure I had that stuff like all set and ready to go. So a little early, but, uh, nonetheless, I was just done waiting and, and, uh, you know, I've had, I've had my thermostat just needing, needing panels to plug into it. So, um, that's, that's pretty much ready to go. So yeah, we'll see, hopefully, man, I'm, I'm hoping for a good,

a good year this coming year. Uh, yeah, it would Yeah. It would be nice to hit that out the box again. Yeah, for sure. For sure. That'd be good to get some more Tracy out there. Yeah, I'll have to get some out of the house finally, too. So that'll be... That'll be a nice problem to have, I'm sure. Oh, yeah, for sure.

For sure. They're pretty popular right now. One more clutch, it'd really do it. Yeah. How about you? Yeah, things, sure. They're pretty popular right now. One more clutch, it'd really do it. Yeah. How about you? Yeah, things are good. I got that last clutch of Western Simpsons, and they've all shed out. They're looking nice.

Man, I had to build a couple hatchling racks so I could fit everybody individually. I've got too many holdbacks. I need to move some stuff out of here and get some stuff out of the way. Got still got a few pygmies from last year that aren't doing so great as far as feeding. And so I need to keep getting them going, but this year's babies are just rocking. So is that, is that tough when you have like these babies that are doing so hot for you feeding wise, but then the ones that aren't trying to like, make sure you cater to the ones that aren't doing so good when the ones that are doing so good or just not, you know, are just so easy. Right. And that's a weird phenomenon. I think I heard Casey Lazzick talk about it. He said that like the first year he produced pygmies, like all the babies age is fine.

And you know, all this, everybody was telling them, oh, they're a nightmare, their headache and blah. And then they were just fine. It was easy. was easy and he's like oh what's everybody talking about this is easy stuff and then he tried you know bred him again the next year and he said the next year they were just none of them would eat for the to save their lives and he said he doesn't know what what the difference was or what happened or what changed but yeah he's like then i understood what everybody was talking about so yeah you have your good years and your bad years. And I haven't figured out what causes that or else, you know, it'd be an easy fix. Oh, dude.

All these guys are doing great for the most part. I mean, most of them have taken on their first try. And even the Western Stims and, you know, all the Children's and Spotteds and Stimpsons, all the Eastern Stims as well. So stimson's all the eastern stems as well so you know they're doing really good but i don't know what the secret is but i'm taking it i'm happy with it don't yeah don't look to give force in the mouth yeah i should have the 2021s ready to go soon too so had some cool things hatch out so some fun uh stuff for future projects um uh so yeah stay tuned i'm not sure when i want to release that information of what i hatched out because it's stuff for future projects. So, yeah, stay tuned. I'm not sure when I want to release that information of what I hatched out

because it's really kind of a cool thing. So we'll see. Just some weird morph thing going on. So got to figure out what's happening with it. But we'll see. Something that you saw across the clutch? Well, it looks like it may be. I'm sorry. Maybe I should just.

It looks like maybe a recessive trait, but only two out of the five animals that hatched from that. It was a smaller clutch. The female is a little smaller, but so she had five eggs and two out of the five were this, had this aberration. Yeah. So, I mean, it doesn't look like it's something with chance and we So, I mean, it doesn't look like it's something with chance. And we selected, I mean, it's selected the father based on his phenotype and then bred him and then bred him back to his offspring, two females. One of the clutches went bad. The eggs weren't that solid

to begin with. And then the second clutch went the distance and two out of the clutches went bad. Um, the eggs weren't that solid to begin with. And then the second clutch went the distance and two out of the five. So I'm curious to see if maybe that female got the gene and I don't know if the other, we'll see if the other one has as well, or if it's, you know, if it's indeed recessive or if it's, you know, well, I don't know. I got to work all that stuff out before I get too excited, but it's kind of a neat thing. And both of the mutations ate on their first go around, like the first offering, they took a pinky mouse. So, man, they're looking solid already. So not a bad problem to have them, I guess.

Yeah. Well, it definitely puts a smile on your face. Yeah. It's exciting to have something different hatch out. I mean, you know, I'd take a wild type of this species any day, but, you know, it's kind of interesting or fun. But if you could prove out a morph, would that be better? I wouldn't say better. I mean, interesting and kind of fun, but that kind of leads us into our topic. Something new, something new. Yeah, exactly. We'll hit them off with the topic.

Yeah. So today we're going to discuss monoculture. So there is kind of a trend or I don't know, when you're at a reptile show and you ask people, oh, do you keep any reptiles? What they always say, like ball python, python boa leopard gecko corn snake you know it's all kind of one representative of the groups and so um you know we're we're gonna kind of discuss and debate or fight about whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing or you know how that might uh benefit the hobby to have that monoculture or how it's, you know, uh, ruining the hobby. I don't know. Maybe, maybe there's no, um,

left or right side, you know, we can, we can discuss that. So, and we will, that works and we will. All right. Yeah. I'm, I, I drove for, uh, about 12 hours yesterday. We got on the way home, we got caught in this crazy hailstorm. It was like just this perfect quarter-mile stretch across the road. The clouds just went across and just dumped hail, and we just happened to be passing by right at that time. So they kind of closed down the freeway and made us sit there. A hailstorm on the 1st of August. Yeah, yeah.

It was ridiculous. It was pelting. The car was loud. I mean, it was pelting the car. It was loud. I was talking to Rob Stone at the time. He's like, what is that noise? So, yeah, I'm like, yeah, we're stopped on the freeway to be hailed on, I guess. All hail ice. All hail broke loose.

And then we drove a little further and like the whole freeway was covered with water and we had to drive through this section. And then after that, it was just fine. I mean, it rained a little bit in some spots, but for the most part it was, you know, smooth sailing from there, but it delayed us by an hour or so. We got home about maybe nine, 930. So, I'm a little worn out. So, you're short on, yeah, you're short on good sleep and- Not thinking straight. So, I'm probably babbling on, but so- Maybe I can- Hopefully I can, yeah. Maybe I could best you in your disadvantage state. on good sleep and not thinking straight so i'm probably babbling on but so maybe hopefully i can yeah maybe i could best you in your disadvantage state there we go take advantage you know stick

a knife and you know pour salt on the wound that kind of thing so all right so yeah let's uh let's flip the coin man you ready to all right give it a call all right here we go give it a call? All right. Here we go. Give it a call. Let's see. What you got? Tails. It's heads. Man. I swear I'm not cheating here. Just calling it how it lands.

I full on say, if you weren't such an honest guy, I would have sworn up and down by now that you rigged the toss. Yeah. say if you weren't such an honest guy i would have sworn up and down by now that you rigged the toss yeah well um so i i've thought a little bit about this since we were going you know i probably would trend to say you know i don't like monoculture but i'm gonna defend it this time i'm gonna you are gonna defend yeah i'm gonna go on the side of monoculture. So I don't know if that's a good move or not, but we'll, we'll go, we'll go with it. So, um, do you want to defer or head out? I, I, I think I anticipate your answer. Yeah, I always defer. Maybe I'll go ahead and start us out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, um, you know, I was thinking about that cause you know, you know, you go to one of these reptile shows and and you almost can't know when one table ends and another begins right it's it's like all ball pythons boas

corn snakes and stuff like that so i you know it's kind of bothered me to some extent but at the same time like i see you know it's kind of a common you know, when you talk to people and they say, oh, I've kept that species. You're like, oh, me too. And, you know, who hasn't kept a ball python or a captive bred, you know, and free of parasites and that kind of thing. And so, you know, why not have that be a good starter and have that be a good thing and have people start out with those things? So I would say, you know, that's, that's probably a good thing. And then there's a lot of information out there on those things. So you have, um, several books on ball pythons, boa constrictors, corn snakes, leopard geckos, and a lot of websites and different people who breed and keep them. And so lots of people who can give advice. Um, usually most beginners are starting with them. So they're going to get, you know, they're going to

have a lot of beginner questions. And so those are usually easily answered by quite a big group of people. So I think by that token, maybe monoculture isn't the, you know, isn't as bad as I thought it was. Maybe it's a good thing for the hobby. So that's kind of what I lead with. Yeah. I mean, I think there's probably a couple of ways to start off. But I think, you know, the the, to me, the most obvious way would be, you know, if we're starting to keep in a monoculture, and, and, you know, our, our areas are filled with a lot of the same reptiles, it's, it's taking away from the captive biodiversity, if you want to say, where we're not necessarily taking the best advantage of our abilities as keepers and leveraging probably what we would like to talk about in creating captive biodiversity of species if we're

participating in a monoculture. I think there's a lot of good reasons why monocultures make sense in captivity and in human care, but I think as a philosophical approach. Um, you know, monocultures do not really serve us very well if we're truly trying to, um, work towards a captive biodiversity, uh, that is kind of representative of our, our wild biodiversity. That's probably how I would lead. Mm-hmm. Um, so I was, you know, I, I think I talked about this on, uh, Bill's podcast, uh, lizard brain radio. Um, I was on there the other day and we were talking about the Marco Shea book, the big book of snakes. And I looked in there and there were so many species I'd never even heard of or knew existed in some ways, you and i'm yep i'm i'm kind of recognized as

the snake guy and you know and around here and and you know you people expect me to know a lot about snakes and i you know probably know more than the the average person on the street as we all do but there were so many that i'd never heard of or never known about and really kind of cool species they looked really neat and i thought well why don't more people keep those? And I look and it's like, oh, they're snake specialists or they're lizard specialists. Are they, these ones eat lizard eggs or these ones only eat blind snakes. You know, it's like, how do you do that? How do you keep the, how do you represent those in, in captivity? And, and, you know, if, if people said, oh, these are cool, let's start

importing them. That's going to lead to a lot of snakes meeting an untimely end because they're probably not going to do well. Um, they're probably best kept by a very limited number of keepers. So I would think for the most part, for the, the general populace, uh, to those keeping reptiles, they, they're probably well served by the, you know, the big five or whatever you want to call them. Those commonly available species like ball pythons, boa constrictors and things like that. And another, I guess, aspect to that is as, as they're more commonly bred in captivity, they almost become domesticated. And so they're very more, you know, they're, they're easier to feed on the, uh, available rodents and, you know, laboratory rodents that we have available to feed our animals.

Um, they, uh, will take to those very easily. And so they're not going to give, give too many problems for the most part. And so they also lose that tendency to be aggressive or, you know, those kinds of things that come with domestication. And so I think there's, there's a lot of nice aspects of these things that are kept in captivity and bred out to several generations that, you know, we can benefit from and, and especially with new keepers. And that's kind of what I'm talking about because most keepers in the United States are, are not specialist keepers. They're not good keepers, you know, they're, they're beginners. And so they need a species that they can begin with. And, and so I

think the majority of the things that are produced in the U S are, are one of those commonly kept species. And now we have some, you know, newer ones like crested geckos or, you know, some of the, uh, some of that group that are coming up in popularity and are bred. I remember, you know, several years ago, um, maybe there was one breeder of crested geckos at the show. And then all of a sudden now it's all, you know, the local show to me in Salt Lake is almost, almost like half dominated by crested geckos and their relatives. And so it's, you know, from, from one aspect, you know, your side, it's like, well, I'd like to see

diversity. But then again, I mean, for the average keeper that's coming to buy an animal at the reptile show, a crested gecko is probably one of the better pets that they could select just because they're so easy to maintain. There's all sorts of infrastructure around them, like the crested gecko diets and, you know, different cages and things like that that are uh and and so um i think in in that regard uh that that's that's definitely a good thing for for the hobby in general then they can enjoy the animal for a longer time they can um you know people other people might be interested in purchasing them if they lose interest or want to move it along if you have some obscure or hard to keep or rare or difficult to feed animal, that's going to be of people out there that if we were to start to move into more specialized, uh, animals, uh, that we keep in captivity, I think the market would follow. Um, a lot of these, um, you know, uh, goods and service producers in, in the hobby. Um, if they have a new market to emerge from they'll they'll absolutely start trying to fill

that market um and if we can find you know uh avenues for specialty reptiles uh that we can make uh you know prolific food sources for and and do that you know i i think we i i don't think that's an insurmountable problem i think it's definitely a detractor um from the you know, I, I think we, I, I don't think that's an insurmountable problem. I think it's definitely a detractor, um, from the, you know, straightforward and easy already set up kind of way we do things. And, you know, my, my, my kind of thought background in this comes right out of ecology and biodiversity in, um, our ecosystems and how, how, how you set up, you know, how, how you set up something in nature or to mimic things in nature. And, and why do you do that? And, and, you know, one of the big drawbacks with monoculture is when you have an issue around it, it tends to, you know, move, that issue tends to move through your monoculture very, very quickly and tends to do extremely large amounts of damage.

I think one of the good examples of that is like Nidovirus. Nidovirus has gone through a lot of people's collections that it's gotten into and done a lot of damage because most of the snakes that are affected by Nido are, you know, all relatively related to each other, and they seem to all be kept within the monoculture that we like to keep. So, you know, monocultures are fine until you have a problem. And so that biodiversity that you put into your private collection may also work as a stop gap towards, you know, some of the damage that, that a disease or, or a bacteria or a fungus or whatever can, if it gets loose in your collection, that, that it can do that. And, you know, that's a, that's something that comes right out of agricultural farming where, you know, we see potato blight or, you know like pesticides that do untold damage to our environment in order to maintain that that monoculture. Right. So, you know, there's there's there's by's, there's repercussions for, um, maintaining a

monoculture and sometimes you have to take it down routes that are difficult. Now I'm definitely not saying that keeping ball pythons in mass, uh, is the same thing as, uh, spraying your, uh, the things you eat with glycophosphates. But certainly, the point I'm making about problems coming out of monocultures, whether you're talking about plants and industrial farming techniques, or whether you're talking about reptiles in a reptile collection, still suffer from the same kind of downside when something goes awry. Okay. I'm going to run with that a little, just because I'm a virologist and I like talking about viruses, but I think a lot of these kinds of things could be the other way as well. As you branch out and bring in new things,

there's various Nidoviruses out there and they've been characterized based on what animal they've been isolated from, but we don't know their origin necessarily. We just know kind of the end product of what animal they're infecting. So it's possible that, you know, we had like a green tree Nidovirus get into carpet pythons and then that causes severe disease or a ball python nido virus get into green tree pythons and cause severe disease so it's really hard to say you know to look back and say oh this is how it happened or you know track track that down or um but i i believe that you know a lot of species kind of co-evolve with these pathogens. And a lot of times they're usually fairly inert in the species that they co-evolve in because the virus doesn't want to cause severe disease and kill the

host. They want to just make more of themselves that's transmitted to more of the animals and they can kind of continue their existence that way. Whereas if it gets into like an unrelated host, for example, like West Nile virus, right? We've got West Nile that replicates in these little passerine birds like sparrows and it replicates to ridiculously high titers in those animals. And it doesn't cause any overt disease. The animals, you know, clear the virus eventually, but in the meantime, they're making like 10 to the ninth, 10 to the 10th per mil. That's a lot of virus. A virus, right? So a tremendous amount of virus. And then a mosquito will feed on those and

transmit it to other birds and other birds aren't quite so resilient or humans or horses, you know, but other birds like crows, they're going to die, right, if they get infected with West Nile. Humans and horses can get very sick and can potentially die from West Nile, but they're dead end hosts. They don't replicate the virus to high titers. So they're not, you know, the natural host, most likely. The natural host would be those little sparrows and other passerine birds that can replicate the virus to high titers, but not die from that infection. So I guess what I'm saying is if you have a monoculture and you have, you know, one of those animals has a ball python, you know, say you're breeding ball pythons and one of those has a ball python nidovirus, there's probably not going to be much of an effect if it spreads to other ball pythons and kind of spreads within your monoculture.

Now you might have a strain emerge, but that requires, you know, mutations and, and, you know, some kind of selective advantage that gives them the, the, you know, that, that additional lethality or, you know, disease causing potential, whatever you want to call it. So that's less likely, you know, you're going to have them just kind of persist in the colony. It's when you move that into a different type of host that's somewhat related say like a green tree python you might have issues and so if you're if you're diversifying you're branching out and you have a very diverse collection that could be also a potential you know recipe for for disaster well but at the same time don't you feel like having a monoculture just you you basically have a virus that loads into an

animal uh and you literally spread it across your entire monoculture. And if you don't know it's there and you, you know, potentially could infect babies could be infected by it. Obviously, you know, they don't cross the envelope in in NIDO, it seems like. But if you didn't know, you could spread this to these babies, these babies go out and then they go into other collections where they're not necessarily monocultural and they, and they completely decimate those. I mean, I think, you know, that's, yeah, that's kind of what, that's kind of what we're, I guess, I guess what I'm saying is as a monoculture, you, you, you basically are, have a gigantic Trojan horse. Potentially.

That's kind of the way you could see it. And I don't know how much NIDO has been looked at across other species and stuff, how many other types of reptiles are getting infected by NIDOido but it certainly seems to be in the green tree python community it seems to be in the morelia community um of which are are you know fairly closely related to each other they at least co-evolved on the same continent i mean we know they're wild i I mean, they come from the wild, of course. And like we see Nidoviruses that have caused pretty severe disease in shingleback skinks in the wilds in Australia. So yeah, I mean, there is definitely potential for that emergence of different variants. I mean, kind of like we're seeing the Delta variant and, you know, COVID right now, you know,

so there's, there's that potential. And yeah, if you only have that species, um, you know, you could have your whole collection kind of go down, uh, if you have the introduction of that. So, I mean, that speaks to, to quarantine, but at the same time, I mean, I think it can work the other way too, where if you bring in trying to diversify and not be monoculture, could bring in things agents that these um that your collection is not used to and doesn't have as kind of a background type thing and so yeah you you know that could be an issue as well so it's hard to say you know if that i i was just trying to say that that it's not a new one i like having a monoculture is is is bad bad or good in that regard. It can be either or, you know, it can go either way. So I think that just suggests we need to have better quarantine procedures when we're keeping animals, especially in large numbers.

And it would be nice to have, you know, a little more viral and bacterial research around, you know, reptiles. And it would be, you know, it would be nice if they could actually throw some money at, you know, reptiles. And it would be, you know, it would be nice to, if they could actually throw some money at, at, you know, we have, we have this worldwide trade that we do. And, and so, so, so, so much has moved around and, you know, um, mixed and matched and swapped and comes in contact with each other that never would come in contact with each other. And we do very, very little to ensure to ensure that uh we're not causing major problems uh by doing that and and you know i i think that's probably one of those things where and and you know the other thing i was just thinking is is you know uh something like nido

uh and sit you probably is a little bit different than nido in a collection where, you know, it's, it's coming in contact with other animals. It may not necessarily be infecting shingleback skinks back then, but maybe it's, maybe it's, uh, evolved or it's mutated and now it can infect shingleback skinks where, you know, something that sits in a collection maybe doesn't, maybe doesn't, uh, get that chance to, uh, mut uh mutate uh or maybe it mutates and there's no shingleback skinks because there's just not very many of them in american collection i mean we've seen that with with with a lot of different uh microorganisms and i mean a good example is probably the tasmanian devils where they had that uh tumor causing pathogen that was, that was just wiping out Tasmanian

devils in the wild. And they kind of had to take them in until they could, you know, realize what was going on and how to prevent it or how to treat or, or vaccinate them against that. And so, I think they've made a lot of progress on that, but I mean, that could have been the extinction of that species. And, you know, I mean mean that's the way nature rolls sometimes you you get animals that go extinct and maybe some we don't know why in some cases and others are a little more obvious i agree that you know more um the uh more more research is needed and I think some of these like carpet fests and things that are funding research into Nino viruses is a great thing. I mean, it's really great that the community comes together, but anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think going back, my point would be

that one needs to be very careful when they establish a monoculture because of something potentially like a Nidovirus that, you know, may not, you know, may not necessarily originate from the species that they keep, but can infect a species and do a lot of damage before we really figure out what's going on there. So, you know, in a monoculture one must be careful. I mean, and you know, in a, you know, you know, you absolutely have to be very careful. Yeah, absolutely.

So a lot of this stuff comes right out of the jungle or the, you know, whatever, you know, terrain that it's taken from. And we have very little understanding about the microbial and viral, you know, makeup of those communities and what's really out there. So, yeah, one has to be very careful probably both ways. So, well, and I think too, that's, that's, you know, another, a good thing about monoculture is most of it's captive bred within the United States. And so you're not exposing to some strange pathogens because they're, they're bred and, you know, in a, in a facility in the U S and they're kept, you know, semi-sterile on, on

chavings or on paper or whatever, and they're given clean water. And so, um, and, and a lot of keepers, I think are realizing the importance of a good, um, flow to their work. So you work with babies first, you know, and work with adults on different days, things like that to, to prevent transmission. If you have something, you know, potentially in your, in your, um, collection. Um, if you're working with your babies on one day and then you're, you know, working with the adults on a different day and you're wearing, you know, you're not wearing the same clothes out there or the same, you know, you're, you're, uh, washing your clothes between, between working out in the baby or the adult areas. and you're kind of keeping them segregated

to some extent to to keep you know that's that kind of thing in the minimum i think that's that's probably good practice regardless you know but um i i think there's there's that benefit of having things clean and having um monocultures where you're you're breeding them in-house, they're generally, you know, bred under pretty good circumstances or over several generations. And sometimes that weeds out those issues like pathogens. So I think that can be a benefit for monocultures. So what do you think about monocultures leading to saturated markets or overproduced markets? I think that's probably another area where I would say that monocultures could be potentially problematic. You definitely see a lot of, I mean, there's no shortage of

people breeding ball pythons out there. And I mean, you could go into retix and I think there's some interesting things that happen out of that, that aren't really beneficial to my side, but you know, I definitely think that you can look at monocultures and once you get that stuff nailed down, I mean, and then you see this in an industrial farming, once you get that process nailed down, man, whoo, you can, you can really put some numbers out. Right. So, um, you know, and, and, and what is the, you know, what is the positive to that? I mean, I think when you have seven and a half, over seven and a half billion people in the world, and you're an industrial farming, um, you know, outfit with a ability to export

worldwide feeding that many people, uh, you, you've, you've got a market, right. But if you're a ball Python producer and there's only, you know, so, so many, uh, thousands and thousands of, of reptile people out there, your, your markets, you know, a lot, a little bit, a little bit harder to, uh, maybe justify, uh, uh, you know, overproduction. So what do you, what do you, what do you think? Sure. I, I can see that, but I, I do think that there's, there's definitely a need for large numbers of these commonly kept, commonly available species like ball pythons. I checked

a morph market and not, not the condoning or, or suggesting that site's good or bad or whatever, but there were 15, over 15,000 ads for ball pythons. Right. So everybody says, Oh, the, the ball python market is crashing or saturated or blah, blah, blah. But I don't see any slowdown. There's like endless combinations of morphs and things to keep it exciting. And people are still very much interested and there's people making quite a bit of money selling ball pythons so i i think you know i i you could have a point with some things i mean when i go to a show right i'm excited about my australian reptiles i'm

excited about you know these little antaresia the the little pythons from australia and um for the most part most people couldn't care less. They want to know what more, uh, you know, if I have ball pythons at the table, they're all over that. And I sell more ball pythons at these shows than anything else. So, I mean, I, I've, uh, I'm not saying, you know, I don't keep them for, for money, so I'm not keeping them to, to sell them. And I actually sent all my ball pythons out on breeding loan. And so, um, just cause they weren't, I wasn't that excited about them as compared with the, um, Antaresia or the, you know, Morelia or whatever the, the different, uh, Australian reptiles.

And so, um, but you know, getting some of the babies back from, uh, Brody produced a bunch this year from the animals I sent to him on breeding loan. And there, um, so I, I just picked those up last week and, and set those up. So there's, there's some fun morphs in there and, you know, it's kind of fun again to, to have some ball Python babies on hand. Um, so, you know, I'm, I'm, I think, uh, from that regard, like, I think the market can handle quite a bit of these, those, those beginner species because they're in high demand. Every pet store carries them, you know, everybody. And, and I really think they're kind of that gateway for most people to get into other groups or other species or other things or not.

Maybe they're just happy having, you know, ball python. Now, I think the, the big kind of challenge is, is that everybody thinks, oh, if I'm going to get ball pythons, I have to be a big breeder and I need to get racks and I need to do this or that. I think with, with the higher availability, I mean, 15,000 ball pythons, I mean, you can find pretty much any look you're interested in and, and probably at the price range you can afford for the most part, unless you just have unlucky tastes and you like the most expensive things. But, um, you know, there's, there's lots of cool morphs out there for not much money. So why not get a nice display and, and, you know, give them plenty of room and get a big cage and that kind of thing. And I think that availability and, you know, the mass appeal of these species makes it kind of that way.

So I think if people kind of avoid that thought that, oh, I need to breed these things. I need to be a breeder. No, you can keep and there's no shame in that. There's no harm in that. Oh, I agree. I definitely agree with that. But I think, I mean, I think I would say that maybe the high number of, of, of ball pythons you see on the market are indicative of all of the numbers of people who want to breed ball pythons and who are, who are doing in number and uh you know the reason they're kept

in racks is because people make more ball pythons than they can get rid of uh so they're ending up holding on to these animals for and you know maybe the animals sell maybe they don't i don't know um but you know i i think some some of some of the the whole why would there's so many ads and why so many people keep in racks is a numbers game. They're forced to hold on to some of these animals. Whereas maybe the bigger names, the guys who are gals who are out there with some notoriety, the go-to people, they move animals a little easier than others. And so it's just a time thing where it takes them a lot longer. So they got to hold on to more, you know, some of the, I just, I guess I would just

just kind of dispute some of the mechanics of why those, you know, why there's so many ads out there and why people say that the market is saturated. Yeah, I think I kind of went off on a tangent a little bit there because it's covering a little too, two different things because, um, one, I think we need to separate the species from the kind of pyramid scheme idea, right? Just because you buy a ball Python doesn't mean you have to get a rack system and be a become a ball python breeder and produce hundreds of babies to be to be worth your salt or whatever you can get one or two animals and put them in a eight by four cage and put some branches in there and watch them climb you know four feet

in the air whatever you can provide them with and enjoy, you know, your two ball pythons. I don't think there's any, anything. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to lead you down. I'm going to lead you down a path here. So, you know, if, if that's the case, right. And I totally, I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you. But a lot of the, one of the leveraging benefits of, of a monoculture is that you uh, you seem to unlock a genome of an animal. And, and once that genome starts to unlock it, it unlocks very quickly. Uh, and you can kind of see that from wolves into the domesticated dogs and, and the amount of domesticated dogs that we have, uh, by, you know, by species now. And you can look at that with ball pythons, you know, from a single species to all of these different mutations. And because once that genome starts

to unlock and starts to throw a lot of mutations out there, it just, it goes crazy. And so, you know, you can look at retics and berms and ball pythons, a lot of these that were very heavily monocultured animals. Um, and, and they have this, this large morphological diversity in them now. Um, and so I think to your point, um, yes, you're right. People can, um, you know, people can just keep them and not have to rack them and turn and, and morph, you know, morphetize them out the yin yang. But people see this, man, if I jump into this and I can keep these in a rack enclosure, look at all the things I can do when I get into this monoculture. So it almost is like, it almost leads you down the path. And a lot of these species

tend to not be very difficult to breed so that it doesn't take a high degree of skill. There's a large number of mutations with them. And I think it leads people into this, holy crap, I can keep a ton of these, I can make all these different looks and all this. And I'm not making a judgment about what's right or wrong. I'm just kind of talking about the mechanics of what leads people into why I think they overproduce these as a result of monoculture. Yeah, I get that. But I, you know, I think that the benefits definitely are still there regardless of, I mean, because breeders are going to come and go. People are going to get into it for the right or wrong reasons, you know. And if it works and they stick around, then, you know, they find their niche and they move forward with it.

So I don't have any problem with that. Obviously, that's what I do. I mean, I'm I breed animals and I produce, you know, quite a few and sell those to other people and try to get them interested in the different species that I keep. But I, you know, I guess just looking at it, you know, I see some of these monoculture groups almost like a pyramid scheme, like trying to sell them based on the fact that, oh, you can breed these and make your money back and make more and make lots of money. And, and they kind of, kind of twist it that way. And I'm just saying, you know, that doesn't necessarily have to be part of the equation. We can enjoy these animals and, and these beginner animals are great for, you know, just enjoying and setting up and then, you know, nice enclosure and just looking and, and, you know, appreciating and appreciating what you have. Totally agree for the record.

That might be a total tangent there, but that is what it is. So I don't know. What else you got against monoculture? Well, I mean, I think that going back to the beginning, I think that the more we set up into a monoculture? Well, I mean, I, I think that, you know, going back to the beginning, I think that, you know, the more we set up into a monoculture, the more we tend to focus on things that, um, you know, maybe I don't want to say don't need our attention, but there's, there's a lot of stuff out there that's, that's cool. Uh, it's, it's possibly threatened or endangered. And, you know, maybe, maybe, just maybe a monoculture, a monoculturalist, you know, model tends to move us away from those animals. yeah i i can i guess i can see that but i uh by the flip side too i think a lot of the um beginner species kind of get you interested and you're like oh i can keep this you know this

is not beyond my capabilities any i mean any keeper is going to increase their skill as they is if they're successful at all you know they, they're going to keep, you know, do well and then think, okay, well, if I can keep this, maybe I can keep the next level, you know, and they, it gets them interested in other things. And then they also, as they're learning about the species they're keeping, they get into all the, as these other, you know, discover other reptiles and other things that people are keeping. And they, you know, looking for, you know, ball pythons on one site might lead them to discover other groups of reptiles. And so, I mean, yeah, everybody's heard of ball pythons and boa constrictors and things

like that. But, you know, how many have heard of an Owen Pelly python or, you know, some of the more rare things and, you know, not that we can get Owen Pelly pythons, but, you know, or a Halmahera python or something, you know, that is acqu can get on belly pythons, but, you know, or, or a Halmahera python or something, you know, that, that is acquirable and could, could be, uh, obtained by somebody, but might be more of a specialized or, or more difficult thing to keep and breed. I don't think your average first time ball python keeper would be very happy getting a wild caught Tracy eye in and, and having to deal with that, they would, I mean,

Well, is anybody happy about that? I'm fine with it, but, uh, There's a few guys with, you know, have some, uh, that can do that, but yeah, for the most part, most people don't want to get involved in a bitey wild caught scrub Python. You know, that's probably not most people. And you know, I don't know. I, maybe those people who like those bitey, flighty, uh, snakes, they're, they're my kind of people, man. I don't know. I mean, I just, yeah, yeah, no, there's nothing wrong with that.

You know, as long as you don't get nailed by a really big one, uh, it's not that bad. Well, I guess I'd ask you, I mean, is that what you started? Well, no. Um, I mean, I start, I, well, I mean, and, and, and to your point, I agree with you, you know, uh, I did, I started with ball pythons and I got, you know, like, but I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I didn't know shit about anything.

And, and, and, you know, that's it. But it helped you, it helped you gain your confidence. It helped you think, okay, I can keep this alive and happy and, you know, it's doing well and things like that. And so, you know, I think it's a good way to enter into the hobby. And that's why we need these monoculture, you know, type species where in good numbers. On the flip side, I don't necessarily think we need traciate produced in the same numbers, right? I mean, if you produced a thousand traciate, you would not be able to easily find a thousand homes for are going to buy those. And so, um, not to mention the, you know, the export potential and things like that. So if you're producing, you know, thousands of animals, you're probably going to have other markets outside of the United States as well. So, you know, a lot of different things to think about. And I, I do think

that, um, you know, as a breeder, uh, keeping, um, if you want to be a professional breeder, you're almost reliant on those monoculture species. You almost have to produce some of those to remain economically viable, I would maintain. I mean, if you want to make, you know, money in this area. Now, I do think there is a place for kind of those small scale breeders where you're going to make enough to kind of cover your costs and keep things going like myself. Like I keep, you know, more rare or less commonly kept species and, you know, I sell them just fine. But I think if there were 50 other people just like me that kept the exact same species, that would be maybe a little too much competition. And that's one of the reasons I stopped breeding as many carpet pythons because I was, you know, they were being imported from Europe and there were people that were kind of specializing in them and the morphs hit.

And then there were all these people trying to produce all these different morphs. And so it got a little convoluted, a lot, a lot of different people. And I just wasn't equipped to kind of compete with those different people that, you know, that were maybe full time and could have more time to sell things. And, and I just thought, well, it's not worth the hassle. I'm just going to slow down my breeding of those species and focus on another group that maybe is less represented in the hobby. So I do think there's definitely space for that. And, and, you know, and, and definitely in this hobby is, is a room for any, you know, any interest, you know, you can specialize in, in blind snakes and you might find a few people that are interested in blind snakes and do very well. me here but my my whole thing is is probably like if i'm gonna produce carpet pythons uh i'm gonna probably try to do something you know that uh not a lot of people are doing with them you know like

like i i think your your uh striped jungle project is a prime example of something that you know even with all the hubbub around all the different morphs and all that stuff, if you still had that project going on right now, you'd be selling animals hand over fist still, you know what I mean? So I think, I think the idea that, that, that, um, if you're going to participate in a monocultured, um, uh, you know, produce species that you have to find, you know, those projects within that monoculture that, that really makes sense and set you out, you know, line breeding in monocultures. Right. And, and, you know, I think that's easy. That's, that's, you know, the morphs kind of take away from that kind of mentality, but, you know, you still can definitely in stuff like tigers and stuff that

is, you know, very, very highly variable and highly complex and how those looks are created. Line breed something that's commonly bred as a monoculture and do really well and still be diverse in what you do. And I would say that you're fairly diverse in what you do while maintaining some species that, you know, maybe not at your house anymore, ball pythons, you know, that are still considered a monoculture. So, you know, I think, and I think that's kind of where I would say I'm kind of arguing against the monoculture of, you know, is it easy to have a room that's set up the exact same way and all you have is one species in there? Yes, you can absolutely knock that out of the park because it gets so much harder to create rooms or a room that can accommodate different species with different needs. And you, you almost have to get into like microclimating in,

in one area and maybe trying to find the happy mediums that, that makes everybody happy. And, and how do you do that across a bunch of, well, you really can't. So you have to specialize and you have to kind of hone in on the things that you do.

And I think that's a, I think I think that's where in my mind, I see the most benefit to, you know, you're keeping across species. And, you know, is there a place for monoculture? Yeah, absolutely, dude. Absolutely. And I think, you know, in the front end of the hobby where people are coming in the front door of the reptile industry, wanting to get their first reptile, it totally makes sense. Now, I don't necessarily agree with that whole shot. I think, you know, retics and berms maybe aren't the best monocultures out there, right? But they're produced as monocultures. So, you know, I think there are some examples of monocultures that we've, you know, that because we've figured out and we have that quote unquote recipe, it's easy for us to run with. I don't think that there's, you know, I think there's bad examples of monoculture and just because you can monoculture something and produce it in mass does not make it a good thing um but maybe sure i do think those you know what i mean yeah yeah i mean there's

definitely species that are more like we said beginner species retics are not beginner species i don't know why these are kept in such number and and i think that's why a lot of these regulations are coming through you know if we're not going to police ourselves and people aren't going to feel like, OK, what am I contributing here? If I'm breeding all these retics and sending those out into the world to I mean, you don't see these giant retics anywhere. So they're most of them are probably dying at some point along the road, either through neglect or through moving from house to house, you know, that kind of thing. If they once they get too big to handle. And so, I mean, I, I think people need to ask themselves, am I doing this responsibly? So I think those kinds of projects oftentimes will weed themselves out. Now retics persist and, and, you know, Burmese pythons probably were not, not the worst,

but probably not the best either, because they, they have so many eggs and they get such big sizes. Um, but I think the retics are the next level to that. Right. So, you know, but, but regardless, I think these kinds of things kind of weed themselves out, right. You don't have a, well, I mean, there, there still are quite a few, um, um, reduced, but you don't have the numbers that you do with some of these others. I could check that. Actually, let's see. We've got 1,300.

So about tenfold less reticulated pythons. That's still a lot. That's a lot, dude. That's a lot. That is. That's almost as many as crested geckos for sale on the morph market. Now, that's just taking from one site. So that's, it's hard to say.

But if you take that as a, as a, as a maybe non, a non-statistically, you know, binding average. Well, and it's probably weighted towards ball pythons, you know, because it was set up to sell ball pythons. So that's, and it's kind of branched out in other species. But I, you know, I think the, the idea is that we definitely see much less uh reticulated pythons produced because it's harder to produce those to some extent now when they do produce they have huge clutches so that you know

that that so i i think it's a nuanced thing and i i i'm to just go back to it. Cause I really feel like, um, the, the, the, the monoculture leading to morphs leading to overproduction is, is a, is a, is something that's linked. Um, and, and what's happening to those retakes. Well, you know, they're probably, you know, getting neglected and dying or, or whatever, but that's not a positive. I mean, like, like just because there's not a ton of them out there, even though there's a ton produced, that's a black eye on us as reptile people, right? Like, you know, like, how do we, you know, and so again, I'm a big proponent in systems informing the way people behave, you know, higher price reptiles lead to better outcomes. I think not working

in monocultures exclusively. Now, is there a place for them? Yes. But the idea that we should produce in monocultures as an industry probably is not the way to go because there's those things like monocultures leading to morphs, morphs leading to overproduction, overproduction leading to neglect, things like that. So if we are careful about how we, how and when we use monoculture, I think it probably results in better outcomes. Yeah. Well, and I would refer back to like what I said previously about monocultures is usually things that are not sustainable, like, you know, angry our will through legislation or through, you know, responsible practices like people realizing, okay, I don't need to produce, you know, a thousand reticulated pythons because there's not that many people out there that can responsibly keep those.

Maybe I should select a different species. Well, and I think, I think the factors that govern scrub pythons, I mean, anybody who's had a full, a full grown angry bar neck in their face realizes what that's about real quick. And there's nothing that will check your willingness to jump into something like that than that. You know what I mean? And so you do see the number of people who are willing to work with that. And that doesn't bother me. I know how to work with that. And, you know, I'm not, and that doesn't bother me. I know how to work

with those animals. I know how to handle them so that I don't, I don't have just a pissed off animal trying to kill me all the time. Now, does that, I mean, you know, obviously that that's out there and, and you have those, those angry animals that are just going to be that way, no matter what. But I, I just, I think that, you know, there are certain species that that kind of check themselves. You know what I mean? And I think scrub pythons are one of those. You would think that retics would be one of those. And I don't understand why they're not. I mean, that's more. That's why.

Because they want to produce. And frankly, I mean, there's some pretty ridiculous morphs that have tempted. Absolutely. You know, get some. Yeah, absolutely. And a normal reticulated python is beautiful. And so, you know, and the other side of it is a lot of these monoculture species are typically initially imports that are cheap. And so that allows people to get a group of them together and allows people to think, okay, that's, that's something I want to work with because I worked with a ball Python, you know, when I was a kid, a normal ball Python, and now there's these cool morphs and I know I can

keep them. So I'm going to keep more of those. And, and, you know, and that's, that's a fair reason, I think, for people to, to look into things, but at the same time, it's, I think, for people to look into things. But at the same time, we need to be responsible. Just because there's cool mutations in a reticulated python doesn't mean that we're necessarily suited to keep those. So unless you have a room-sized cage to keep that thing in, you might consider a different species. I think, you know, there's stuff that you, but you see some types of mutations in scrub pythons, patternless, exantics. I mean, they're out there. They're just not, you know,

they're not a lot of these striking mutations. Like we haven't seen, you know, an albino barnack or something like that. And, you know, I guess, well, I would wonder is if we did see that and that could be a viable thing would would uh scrub pythons ever turn into the next you know retake i don't know i'm not so sure you have to have you have to have a species that's going to reproduce well and

be you know amenable to captive keeping i just don't think the scrubs are necessarily in that category. Look how much difficulty people have producing any number. And that's why I think they're perfect. I think that plays into it. Whereas, yeah, I mean, for, you know, but for a monoculture species, they're definitely not perfect. You know, they fall way short. And so that's the thing is these species,

the beginner species need to be easy to the thing is, is, is these, these species, the beginner species need to be easy to keep, easy to breed, easy to, you know, maintain, easy to feed, those kinds of things all play into it. So if you miss one of those factors, you reduce the likelihood they're going to become a monoculture species. Now, some, I think, overcome like reticulated pythons or, or the giant tortoises, the, the spurthide tortoises, you know, sulcatas, they, they lend themselves to, to these kind of monoculture species or, or readily available species in herpetoculture because they have such ginormous clutches. So if you do get them to reproduce, you've got 50 babies to sell, you know, and so then they become less expensive because, you know, the,

the supply and demand kind of, uh, shifts. And so then, then you've got these very unsuitable pets, right. For beginners, especially, um, uh, readily available and in the hands of beginners. I mean, how many adults will caught as do you see around versus how many are sold as babies? I got one from a friend of ours. You know, I had a soft shell. It didn't last long because it was on death's door when I got it. You know, they were just like, oh, you know, he lost interest. And then it got this spongy shell.

I'm like, well, you weren't keeping it correctly. But and I think that that's all too common so you know there there definitely needs to be some responsibility on the side of the breeders as well as the retailers to sell things that are probably going to do well not just sell things to make a buck and you know sure sulcatas are fantastic species but not many people are set up for a mini bulldozer you know they're not they're they're very hard to contain because they. You know, they're not, they're, they're very hard to contain because they're so large and they're so strong. They can pretty much go through just about anything. You know, I had a desert tortoise. I mean, he was good size for a desert tortoise

when I was a kid that was, uh, somebody local had got it. It was kind of one of those, uh, grandfathered animals that wasn't illegal and, and he, and it got loose and my friend found it and gave it to me. And so I was able to keep that as a kid. And, um, even that, you know, what foot and a half tortoise tore through my wall, you know, tore through the drywall and in the corner of my closet, cause he was trying to dig a, you know, dig a burrow there. And so my parents were not necessarily happy with me. And, you know, dig a burrow there. And so my parents were not necessarily happy with me. And, you know, I could only imagine what a sulcata could do. It could go through the whole wall if it chose to, you know, they could probably take out

a two by four if they really set their mind to it. So, you know, we need to be a little selective in the species that we keep for monoculture and not just base it on, well, we can produce a hundred of these very easily. And so let's sell them for 50 bucks a piece, you know, that's sometimes the cheapest animals are sometimes the worst things for people to start out with. Like iguanas or another, there's, there's, there's, there are countless of examples of, of animals that have been monocultured in in the reptile industry that just were not appropriate choices and a lot of them are are are done so because of their clutch size or

things that that that make them um commercially viable but not necessarily responsible or yep yeah and so i i can see the that downside of monoculture when you get into the wrong species. But I do think there's, you know, definitely a very good argument for keeping ball pythons or boa constrictors or some of these that are, that are very readily available, easy to keep. Don't, you know, eat you at a house and home, you know, don't dig holes through your wall. And so those are the ones that, you know, just really lend themselves to a responsible and a suitable and a nice monoculture. And I think that's kind of the way things need to move for, for this to progress and for us to, you know, get people interested in, in reptiles, because if they buy one of the, you know, like, like my friends that bought the

sulcata, they're not running out to buy another tortoise because it didn't do well and they didn't have a good experience and the thing just kind of suffered and died, you know? So I don't think that's the, you know, those are, those kind of lend themselves to getting people interested in reptiles and getting more people into the people who get into these mistakenly monocultured reptiles realize very quickly that they fucked up um and they don't do it again uh and it's and so it's so it's one of those things that's like it's it it's it's not self-perpetuating in the fact that reptile keepers go back for go keep going back for more and more and more it's that these animals still keep stay in the hobby as monocultured uh and and you know uh it's it's one of those it

it's it's it's to my point of why uh a monoculture may not always be the best thing but um you know unarguably there certainly is a place for for monoculture if applied the right way. And I think ball pythons are probably a good example of that. They don't, you know, they don't have really, really large clutches. They, you know, they're easy to keep. They're a starter species. Like they, you know, they have lots of different colors and patterns. And I mean, they're, you know, lots of different colors and patterns.

And I mean, they're, you know, a very... Yeah, keep it going. You're helping my argument. No, I just, look, through the front door, a monoculture makes sense. Past the front door, man, you're not making it to the back room with me at that argument. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, with you, but I think for the most part, the majority of people, it's, it's a great argument and people stick with, you know,

a lot of these species throughout their entire, you know, right. And that's, those are the people who go on to monoculture the shit out of ball pythons. And they're the ones with racks and fucking hundreds of ball pythons. And yeah, and they're the ones I'm talking about that never grow out of the monoculture

and, And they're the ones I'm talking about that never grow out of the monoculture and move on to more diverse species that are interesting and ecologically significant. And that's what I'm talking about is there's a reason to bring them in. But just because they stay on, it doesn't make it a good thing. I'd bring up Ben Morrill. I mean, he worked with a lot of the cool species that i did what's he working with now all right he went back to ball pythons because that was one of the first he kept and that's his first you know interest into reptiles or whatever and and he really loved that species and he keeps them today and breeds just pretty much just ball python i think he has

a couple other species that his kids maybe got him into, but I mean, he had all the cool Australian stuff that I had and worked with, you know, other cool species like Angolan pythons, but he went back to ball pythons. I don't know why, you know, that's just his personal preference or if they're more commercially viable or easier to keep or whatever, but you know, with his schedule, but you know, that's what he chose. And I would let Ben to speak to his motivations around that. But he's also created a genetics company that he used ball pythons to figure out how to, how to sex animals based on their skin shed.

So he's doing things with his ball pythons that really have very little to do with keeping the monoculture i i mean i i i hear you i don't know i mean i hear your point breeds for the more you know and i don't he's not basing his genetics company up well i i get that because he's not looking at but isn't that where he started isn't that where he started though is is trying to get his it might have got his interest in it but i don't think it's necessarily one of the first i think he actually one of his first tests was in colubrid so he uh yeah so i i i don't know i think that's a great example of how the monoculture can work and and foster you know more of the same and and i mean he's producing some really cool mutations

and things like that. And, and he's happy with it. You know, he, I think I was the one that kind of dragged him into the Australian stuff and some of the, you know, the non-monoculture stuff. And, and I, it just wasn't his cup of tea, like the ball pythons were. So he's back where, where, where his true interests and love lies. And that's, that's fine. I mean, I, I welcome it, you know, there, there's a good diversity and, and, you know, you can keep what you want. And if you like the, the monoculture species, I mean, that's almost like a benefit, I think, because there's so many more different avenues within that group, you know, that you can keep.

And so, I don't know, lends itself to, to other, the other benefits if you're keeping one of those monoculture species and, uh, makes it maybe easier to move the offspring, um, different, different, there's definitely a lot of benefits to keeping those monocultures. Well, for the keeper. Yeah. I get that. I get that. Yeah. Sure. You know, not everybody, you know, likes the big bitey snakes. Oh, is that where we're taking it? I see. All right. All right.

Okay. But, you know, I don't fault you for it. You know, I think that's a, and I'm the same way. Like I said, I like these little weird pythons from Australia that don't seem to be that exciting. A lot of people, they're often called dirt snakes. And, but I, I, I find them very fascinating, very cool. One of my favorite species to keep, but, um, you know, not a lot of people share that attitude. So I, that, you know, for me, it's an avenue to educate and to show how cool these things are.

And, but, you know, when I first learned about them, I was completely fascinated, you know, a small Python that lives out in the middle of the desert of Australia. What a cool thing, you know, what a cool, what a cool radiation and evolution of, of, you know, these, these Pythons that, that I really enjoy and like, and I like, well, and, and, you know, Ben can have his, Ben can have his ball Pythons and that's cool, man. And I just, I guess my point would be that I hope that, you know, while ball pythons may be the thing that is the first, you know, experience for a lot of us, myself, you know, the industry probably would look very different if everybody was Ben Morrill and went on to just keep ball pythons and that's it. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. There's not, but you know, this reptile, uh, hobby is so much deeper than ball pythons. And, and, and that is, isn't that like the tagline of Justin Julander? There's so much more out there than, than just keeping, you know know snakes in a cage kind of

thing and i i think that goes and that's why i took this this point of this perspective is because yeah that is my interest in my tagline so i wanted to widen my horizons a little bit and i really you know looking for these these benefits of of the monoculture species and i think they're you know they're they speak for, they're, they speak for themselves, right? Possibly if they didn't, there wouldn't be all these ball pythons produced. If they didn't, there wouldn't be all these crested geckos produced or leopard geckos or whatever, whatever, you know, you want to choose. And, and I think too, like when people stop breeding some of these, um, kind of keystone species, like, you know, there was just really, um, so

many people working with King snakes and some of the, you know, the, uh, colubrids and then all of a sudden they kind of disappeared, right. You didn't see them at shows and that kind of thing. And then, um, I think people didn't even notice where all these, and then they all of a sudden, they all of a sudden they became very popular and now they're commanding very high prices and people are jumping into them again and and I think we've lost some of the things that we had that were available because of that attitude of chasing the next big thing. But, but there's, but there is that demand still. And I think if you're, if you're a smart, you know, reptile keeper, you keep what you like. And then if they become popular, that's great. If not, then, then you know hold off on the breeding and

enjoy but i mean i think i think almost what you said there was that if if uh if you don't have that next big thing in monoculture it just falls apart and nobody it just it just trails off and then it comes back only if you're a breeder okay uh i mean yeah if you're if you're trying to be a commercial breeder and you're trying to make a livelihood based on breeding reptiles, you have to consider what's popular and what people are interested in. But I think a lot of times people consider themselves that, that level of breeder when they're really not, and they really don't need to be chasing those things. And they could do just as well as a small batch breeder focusing on things that they really enjoy and they really like rather than trying to chase what's popular. But I think for the most

part, for the, for the large scale commercial breeders, they have to definitely consider that. But I think, but I think if we're being honest, the, those large scale breeders are what's setting the mark and what they're producing and what's selling is what other people see when they make decisions around starting their small time reptile hobby business. And what do I need to keep and sell? And quite honestly, if you are coming in and you've made a thing out of it and you want to produce reptiles, but you don't quite know. So you're going to take those cues until you figure out what the

fuck you're doing in the reptile hobby, what you like, what's, you know, where your place is. And, and, and then that's when you see that realignment. And so, you know, and that's fine. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. It's, that's kind of how it is, but you know, from, from again, to be consistent with my point is there's a place for monoculture, and it's right through the front door, but it shouldn't persist all the way out the back door. You know what I mean? I think that... Well, if you enjoy that and you like it,

why chase stuff you don't necessarily enjoy as much? If you're a ball python guy, stay with ball python. That's a fine way to go. I just think that if that's the case, then maybe don't be – either go be a commercial breeder of ball pythons and do it in a monoculture and in a way and be one of those people, or just keep a couple of ball python projects because you love it and bend moral it to the end. And, you know, that's fine.

But, you know, just the idea of keeping, again, I'm going to go back to the idea that, you know, monocultures lead to morphs. Morphs lead to chasing that next thing. And you get caught up, man. And I think that, you know, look, it's all an application. It's all how you do it. There's nothing wrong with a monoculture. But if you create a monolith of monoculture, that's probably not healthy. I mean, you can see monoculture in a lot of different natural aspects and it's highly

productive, but it can also have a lot of problems. And I just I think this is, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're basically on the side of it's highly productive and it makes a lot of sense. And I'm saying, yeah, but it has a lot of problems. So, I mean, I just think that, you know, when you talk about monoculture, whether you're talking about, uh, the reptile industry and ball pythons, or whether you're talking about farming or land use or any other type of environmental thing, there there there's definitely downsides to it and and to kind of say like oh it's it's all good it works towards the benefit of well maybe not yeah but but we we and corn aren't going anywhere right they're a monoculture

for a reason and so if you if you try to say well we need to get rid of weed or we need to you know i i think that's why i don't think i kind of the same thing as ball pythons. I don't think I said that. Ball pythons aren't going anywhere. They're going to be a staple. And so there is a reason there's monoculture. It's because it's important to humankind, I guess. You know what I mean?

And there's nothing wrong with – There's a reason. There's nothing wrong with wheat. Not to say like – There's nothing wrong with wheat. There's nothing wrong and not just not to say like there's there's nothing wrong with wheat like there's nothing long wrong with ball pythons okay it's not about the product it's about what happens out of that product right so wheat is necessary it gets exported all over the world and used in in in you know all over the place but but it's it's the chemicals that we need to use and the and the synthetic fertilizers and the monocultured way that we industrial, industrially farm rather than

a mixed use organic approach to revitalize soils, cut down on the types of pests, use, use companion planting rather than, than the monoculture so that you can put plants that actually resist some of the pests that are endemic to wheat or, so it's having a sophisticated way that works with the environment in order to do something. And because we don't do that, we take the technologically superior, quote, quote, quote, in air quotes, you know, way of doing things, we suffer all these issues like, like pesticide, uh, contamination and depleted soils from, from synthetic fertilizers. So that's, that's my point. It's not about the product. It's about the problems that come out of it. Well, there's, there's no perfect system. So

you're going to have to work out kinks, right? You're going to have to say, okay, do we really want scaleless ball pythons or, or do we really want, you know, or, or do we use these pesticides on our wheat? Wheat's not going anywhere. Ball pythons aren't going anywhere. They're, they're good. And they're a staple of the hobby. Um, just like wheat is a staple of, of the food industry. Right. And so we're going to try to fix the issues in certain ways. I read a great book speaking of wheat and wheat production. There was a great book on a scientist that went and, you know, crossbred all these different types of wheat and to make a stronger, more disease resistant type. And I, you know, I think

similar things need to be applied to the reptile industry. That's why I'm saying, okay, just because you like ball pythons doesn't mean you have to be a ball python breeder. You can keep and enjoy ball pythons as pets. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think we have a stigma in this hobby that if you don't breed the animals you keep, there's something wrong with you or you're not, you know, capitalizing on your investment or whatever they say or whatever. So, I think there's issues like that that need to be worked out. Well, I kind of disagree with you.

Just have people understand those things, you know, but I don't think the monoculture is what's bad. I think maybe some of the aspects of the monoculture can be somewhat damaging, like breeding retics. I mean, I think we don't need to mass produce retics. But mass production of ball pythons, I think, is very, very fine and favorable for our industry. So that's kind of what I'd sum up with. But, you know, these things are important and useful, but we need to make sure we do it in a responsible manner. Yeah, I mean, no doubt application is everything. Clearly, we can use monoculture to leverage to the T's anything that we want. That's been the power of the technology that we've employed,

whether that's keeping reptiles or whether that's industrial agricultural farming. I think everything that we talk about and the problems that we have are about use and application, right? There's nothing wrong with the technology, just like there's nothing wrong with the animal. It is how we employ that technology or that animal in the market and the decisions that get made around it. Right. So I, and, you know, my concern is, and just to say, like, I don't think that the industry is running around telling people that they need to go and be breeders and recoup their. I think people wanting to reproduce animals and when they get into stuff like morphs and they start like in their head, just like, oh, my gosh, I could do that. And people get into their head about it. And they're like, this is so cool.

I mean, you have to admit that every time you hatch out a clutch, you're like, yes, this is the greatest thing ever. And that's a common feeling. It's not a Justin Julander or a Chuck Poland thing. That is a reptile keeper thing. And I think when people experience that, it's like the drug that hooks them on, you know? So I don't, I don't necessarily think that there's, you know, I, I think you're right in what you're saying that not everybody needs to go out there and reproduce their animals and not everyone has to be a breeder, but you know, it's hard as a breeder to turn around and be like, you shouldn't be breeding those. We need responsibility. I didn't say you shouldn't be. I said, no, no, no. I'm just saying, I'm just saying,

you know what I mean? I'm just saying. That doesn't necessarily have to be part of the equation. It's like hoop dreams. I mean, there's a lot of people that can play basketball very well, but how many are going to make it to the NBA? And if everybody's planning on being an NBA player, you know, there's going to be a lot of disappointed people. And I think, you know, yeah, you can breed a clutch or two and enjoy that and hatch out animals. That's, you know, one of the best parts of, of being in this. And I think a lot of people get over their heads and then they realize, oh, I got into this too fast. And then they get out and they disappear. And I think, you know, again, kind of buying into that idea that I need to be a professional breeder or else I shouldn't be doing this

is kind of one of the faults, uh, you know, one of the misconceptions that a lot of people have in this industry. So, yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree. All right. Well, cool, man. Good, good discussion. I liked it. I liked it. Yeah. Let us know if there's anything we missed or any other aspects that you guys can think of and, you know, uh, put some thought into it and see what you think, uh, about this whole topic yourself. So that's part of the fun of this is getting, getting people involved and discussing these as well. But well, we,

yeah, we've gone a little long tonight, so hopefully you enjoyed it and you got something out of it and that's the goal here. So see both sides of the coin. Anything else? I have nothing else. Are we talking about a next show or are we going to keep people in suspense?

Yeah, let's keep them in suspense. We're lining up. All right. Sounds good. All right. All right. Cool. Thanks, man.

All right. Good discussion. Thank you. We'll see you, everybody. All right. Bye, everybody. Thanks for listening. Bye.

Bye. Thank you. Outro Music Thank you.