Reptile Fight Club - Reptile Fight Club battles Ben Morrill of Rare Genetics, Inc.

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of reptile influencers with Ben Morrill of Rare Genetics, Inc.Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Welcome to the LVR Network. All right, welcome to another episode of Reptile Fight Club. We have a very special guest, a guy who's near and dear to my heart. Thanks, man. That is so nice for you to say. Oh, wait a minute. You weren't talking about me? Yeah, of course, of course. Oh, man.

No, we do. We actually have a really far more awesome person than myself here today. Uh, and bringing back, bringing back the old school, uh, so. Yep. My old, uh, partner in crime from, uh, back a few years, uh, Benson Morrill. Welcome to the podcast, Ben. Thanks. Happy to be here. Yep. So I guess a little history uh well like that was like early 2000s right that we got to 2002 2002 so yeah uh ben and i both attended utah state university

and um did you you find find my name through like PetSmart or something? I was advertising rodents and, uh, so he, he said, oh, you're into snakes. And we got, you know, we were great friends from the moment we met, like, and then we decided to kind of go into business together, uh, using like student loans and whatever money we could kind of scrape together to buy some projects and yeah the rest is history but yeah we we had a lot of fun uh uh going to shows together driving to california listening to cake good times yeah going and hanging out in san diego with chuck yeah i think like you guys were like the two first like reptile well carpet carpet people that i had ever really like run into from mp so yeah i mean we go we go way way way way back

yeah i wish i could remember that year i would guess it was like 0607 somewhere in there i think it was how old are your daughters they are 14 now so i would guess they were like three or four yeah that's probably about they were in a stroller one of the years like that year they went to the zoo and that was that was after we'd been going a few years. Yeah. So it's probably like 12 years ago, something like that. Your kids even maybe. Maybe. I don't. God, it's hard, man. You asked me to go back in time and I'm like, it's all fuzzy.

I'm not sure. Yep. I think I might have like a collector, like one of my visits page that has some of the first shows we went to. I was going to say like what. Yeah. What year was the very first Anaheim? The very first Anaheim we did was 05. 05. OK. Yeah. That was our very first Anaheim. Man, I didn't realize they had the carpet.

That was the year they had the jungle carpet on the uh on the t-shirt i think so the year was the year we were there the first year we all hung out yeah i just have pictures from 06 on the website but there's yeah ben behind the booth and it was when we had oh man you look young dude it's been a little while uh but yeah we had those uh crate looking things the and i've kind of gone back to that design a little bit with my new displays but like the red rock uh tower the red rock towers well this this was like these were wood boxes that had like that looked like shipping crates with like a big Australia on the side of them.

Just created in from Australia. Yeah. Yeah. And then like with, with plex, like plexiglass, you can see this stuff, you know,

in deli cups below it. But yeah, um, that might've been, that's a cool idea. That was before the towers of, of rocking. Yeah.

Yeah. Justin had a new idea almost every year. Yeah. Of course. Of course. I wasted a lot of my time and our money to try different ideas. But man, it would have been interesting.

Yeah. I was going to say, if you know, Justin at all, his propensity for making his own stuff and like doing like, you know, the creative idea for the process definitely definitely there yeah i just got a i got a like a bunch of u-line boxes like

shipping crates shipped to me and i'm going to turn them into cages so uh i got that idea from alan stevens he does that for his monitor lizards but yeah hopefully it works out well are you gonna put monitors in those or what do you, I'll put some Ackies in one of them and then just snakes and the rest. Yeah. Maybe some blue tongues too. I got to, how are your Ackies doing? Are they, they're doing all right. I, I don't know. I, I don't know why I keep thinking I have time for monitors. So they're, they're doing fine. They just, you know, aren't breeding or any eggs. So,

cause I don't support them for reproduction, I guess. I feed them enough to keep them happy and healthy, but not enough to get them to breed. Yeah. So I tried to give them to my buddy on breeding loan, but he, he wasn't having it. I guess he learned from all the ball pythons on breeding loan. He's like, yeah, I know this game. Yeah. So all pythons on breeding loan. He's like, yeah, I know this game. Yeah. So I don't know. All pythons on breeding loans and Aggies on breeding loans are not the same thing,

but he breeds Aggies. He's got some, Oh, he does. He already breathes out. I guess he ran out of room already. And so he's buying, but yeah,

he's buying up a bunch of desert lizards, which is cool. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Yeah. All right. You're just going to have to do it yourself. Step your game up. Jewel under.ards which is cool you know nice nice yeah all right you're just gonna have to do it yourself step your game up julander let's go i know i gotta get something done but i

i don't know i've been watching like uh um some of the youtube videos on naturalistic backgrounds the natural herb keeper uh yeah um and what uh. Uh, yeah, yeah. They've got some great stuff. Those, those last, uh, um, cages that, uh, what's his name for me? My brain is now Luke. Yeah. Um, those were pretty sweet. I, that was, that was a cool idea to put like the photographs in the back of the, you know, nice job, Luket nice job luke nice job very nice job yep so i it's got the the wheels turning in my brain but i'll probably do some like fake rock work and stuff like that but i don't know if i'm gonna go get a bunch of stuff printed and

put in them yeah i priced it out it was like 80 bucks per cage i'm like yeah i could see it being expensive i mean i guess i don't, I mean, you know, I guess how dedicated are you? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Not as dedicated as Luke, I guess. No, he makes it look good, man. That's for sure. But I mean, those are like, you know, those are like, uh, like zoo quality, you know, like in the corner, it's like, it's super cool, but it is a lot. It's an expensive commitment, for sure. So Ben and I ran Australian Addiction for quite a while. And then when did you move to Virginia?

2011. 2011. So we ran the business, you said, from 2002 to 2011. So about a decade. Yeah uh, that was a, that was a good times. Um, and then, so you, you went out to Virginia after you finished a PhD, um, in same department, we got our PhDs in the same department. Uh, and then you work now in Virginia. Uh, do you still work for the same company that you went out there for?

Yeah. Yeah. The big thing that we're known for now is that transplant from a pig heart that went into a human. That was a pig that I helped make. Oh, nice. That was your pig? That's awesome.

That's awesome. Did some of the genetic edits for it, and I helped clone that cell line that led awesome that's awesome did some of the genetic edits for it and i helped clone that that cell line that led to that pig so that's awesome i got to uh write down notebook numbers from my notebook to send to the fda for that approval and everything that's awesome so so these are genetically modified pigs to have so the transplant's not rejected right yeah more human like immune system big man yeah that's big man shit right there is that targeted to the individual that the transplant's going to, or is it just targeted more towards anti-rejection and just any human? It's, it's, it's definitely complicated and we don't know everything that we need to know.

But we did do some, some typing like they do with allotransplant human to human. There are some specific antigens that we wanted to make sure that some, some people have them from their experiences in life. And we wanted to make sure that we avoid, uh, you know, putting a pig organ into somebody that has those antigens. So there, there was a little bit, but, uh, it's definitely something that we're learning. This was someone that if, if he didn't, he couldn't get a mechanical heart and he couldn't get a human heart. So it was either he's going to pass away or try to the pig heart and him and his family were very brave and wanted to try it. So he lasted for two months with it. So that was pretty cool. The longest Xeno transplant, um, to date. And did it, what, what eventually, eventually i mean was it eventually rejected or what um

happened there i think that they're still kind of i know that like the official autopsy still isn't released there's a lot of people involved and a lot of tests and all kinds of things going so yeah i would imagine sometime in the next few months they'll kind of come out with a yeah a final report you know yeah and then it's kind of back to the drawing board or yeah yeah we're always doing more edits we're always you know making more things we have it kind of narrowed down um to what what's been published and stuff um but yeah we're we're always trying to think of new ways to make it better and making more pigs all the time.

That's cool. And if that wasn't enough, you're also teaching classes. I was just going to say, what did you teach when I thought you were? I did quit that. Oh, did you? Okay. Yes, yes. So you're not teaching genetics anymore.

I was teaching intro bio and that and phys for a community college. But, yeah, I did quit that. I had too many jobs finally. Yeah, I was going to say that and now doing the side biz thing and the family and snakes. Like you got to be a busy, busy, busy dude for sure. It's nice. I'm definitely never bored. I know that that's a difficult thing for some people yeah i do not have that problem yeah right i still have a couple of kids that

aren't teenagers yet that like to hang out with me so i'm not bored anytime that's awesome yeah um yeah it's nothing like a teenager to make you feel old, right? Like, you know, pretty cool. We were talking about that the other day, but, um, so, so yeah. Tell us about your side business there. I think most of our listeners would be familiar with what you do there. So, um, which side business genetics, uh, so the, the genetic test. So I still breed pythons. Yeah. Right now, mostly ball pythons. And then I have, I don't know, about 10 or 12 Hondurans. So I'm doing some Hondurans now.

But yeah, the genetic testing, we are continuing. And thankfully, a lot of people have given us support in social media. And I think I've run samples for a few of the NPR people from back in the day. There's more really cool things coming. Probably for people listening now, the highlights that I see coming this summer would be sex determination and blue tongues and in green trees and hopefully all pythons, if not most, then all. So any of them where people don't want a popper probe or some of the species, obviously green trees that are difficult, you'll just be able to send us a shed and we'll be able

to get sex determination off of any single shed. I've been doing it for the last three years, a really complicated way where I'm sequencing part of the sex chromosome and then tracing it through multiple generations to know which of the markers is coming from the male chromosome. That's expensive and a pain in the butt. But after this summer, I should be able to do it just from a single shed. And we've been doing that with colubrids and venomous snakes for a few years and um heloderma is also looking good that's coming yep so have you gotten any death threats from the chondro community over this yet or just if they've reached out to you with dissatisfaction i don't know they're probably sick of me saying that i'm close to having it figured out for the single-shed test i'm really excited for the blue tongue yeah the skink uh that one's looking good and the the uh test the there's actually a few tests that i've been playing with

they might you know branch out to agurnia bronia some of the other skinks nice i need to do more testing i have people and if there's people listening that are interested, you know, just contact me. I definitely, right now, all I'm looking for known male and female sheds because I need to test and validate these, these tests to know for sure which species they work with well enough that I can, you know, feel confident selling a test to somebody. And that's, that's still a little ways, but I think it's only a month or two out, something like that. Cool. Well, I just, I just sent you a bunch of samples yesterday, so hopefully they make it in

good order. And so I wasn't exactly sure their best way to, I don't know, you'll see, you'll see what they look like when you get them, but, there's enough shed to work uh work yeah you know at least i i know i have at least five or six uh known sex animals uh perfect samples so hopefully that helps what did you send them through the shedder shredder or what you you make it sound like well i mean skinks kind of shedding pieces so it's like i was gathering like pieces from their cave or whatnot hopefully the samples are okay yeah yeah i've been getting chameleon sheds been getting chameleon sheds lately i have a panther chameleon locale test that i've been working on and yeah that's totally different their sheds are so different than than uh all the other sheds i've dealt with yeah that's just interesting

obviously some of them like to eat their sheds so it's gonna be complicated for some people to get sheds yeah that's a little tricky yeah i was thinking about that for like geckos and stuff they eat their shed skins that might be a little more difficult but and geckos are pretty easy if you just are patient but you know if you're buying a whole lot of them or something, you want to get your sex determination quicker than in the act of shedding or something. As long as they're genetic sex determination, if they're temperature, then I can't design a DNA test for them. So even after they're born or after they hatch, they still, you can't do it then. It's not a genetic difference. There could be a gene expression difference.

So you might be able to do some kind of either a gene expression or protein test. But DNA, there won't be a difference. Yeah, that's interesting. Interesting. So like a lot of people ask me about tortoises and turtles. And I mean, the majority of them are temperature dependent, so I can't. Crocodilians as well. Yeah.

Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. Huh. I mean, would it be possible to design one for, like, gene products where, you know, males obviously are going to express different proteins more? Yeah. I would think that it should be possible. That's definitely not my strong point. My strong point is DNA. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to be getting any Western blots, huh?

No, not right now, maybe down the road, but, um, I know that there are some other tests. There's one that, uh, actually interviewed to work at the Memphis zoo and they had, uh, some kind of a device they were using on the skin. And I think it was measuring some kind of hormone level or something. I don't think it panned out. I think they saw some, some hope for that, but anyway, there should be a way to do it. You know, that's not too expensive but it's not dna so i won't be going after it right now maybe in five years or something yeah yeah when you're bored when you when you don't get that extra time man that's awesome putting that kids become teenagers they don't want to hang out with you anymore yeah they'll have more

more reptile time more uh that's cool well and and yeah we definitely so we we're originally thinking we want to have ben on here talk some genetic type stuff but we're gonna save that for a later date because uh you know you've got all these cool things coming out and so obviously we want to chat more about those. So we'll definitely have you back and get, get some pick your brain for like genetics or, or taxon. I hope by the end of the summer, early fall, instead of saying all the things that are coming out soon,

I'll be able to talk about all the things that have just came out. Here's all the new developments. These are the things that work well instead of these are the things I hope are going to work well. Yeah. Well, I'm excited. I'm just kidding. Here's all the new developments. These are the things that work well instead of these are the things I hope are going to work well. Yeah. Well, I'm excited. I'm really rooting for you. It's really cool to see you doing so many amazing things. Huge.

You know, Justin, I've been talking about it for a lot of years. Yeah, exactly. And that's the cool thing is to see, you know, see it in, in practice. I mean, a lot of people have good ideas or, you know, I mean, but you're sticking to it and carrying it through and seeing it, you know, on the other end and now it's working out and, you know, I see the posts on online of people saying, Hey, I got my, you know, this it's a female now, or it's a boy and that kind of thing. You need, now you need to send out like those little, uh, the little, what are the, the gender party things? Like I actually have to do a post. There is a family that just did one and they took pictures for me that I can

post up and I've just been so busy. I haven't done it yet, but they were so excited. They even had me deliver their results to a friend, not to them, because they didn't want to see. So it was a surprise to their whole family. And mom and dad. And they had two kids that are like four or six years old. So, yeah, pretty cool. There you go. Your next little branch out, right?

You can do reveal parties. Yeah. That's funny. Send them a little like one of those little party poppers that sprays out the colored confetti or whatever. All right. Well, so there there's you know, we kind of asked Ben what he wants to talk about. And we there's there was actually a listener suggestion that that went along nicely with this. I better I better look look up the name so i don't uh sit there right who said this let's do it right like i do gotta do it right here so we've got we actually

got a few different suggestions from mitchell hodgson and so we appreciate that mitchell thanks for your suggestions and um so one of his suggestions was reptile youtubers are the modern day snake showmen so like like the roadside, you know, snake attractions or whatever. Um, that's kind of, he's kind of likening those things to, to the YouTubers of today. So I think it's kind of an interesting topic, you know, so let's, let's go for it. Uh, so thanks again, Mitchell. And we'll, we'll try to do it justice here. So of course we'll have our, uh, customary coin toss to do it justice here. So, of course, we'll have our customary coin toss to see who gets to fight Ben. So,

Chuck, if you want to give it a call, your luck's been running out, but maybe today's your day. It's gone. I don't, I don't, I have zero faith. That's tails. It is. You got tails. All right. Well, in the interest

of great minds and old friends, I'm going to sit this one out and let you two debate each other. Whoa. Yeah, I am just going to watch. I think history demands that this fight is between you two. You make old friends fight. That's right. That's right. That's right. Hey, this is, this is, you know, reptile fight club. Once a year it's reptile love club.

So we happen to have been on in the day. It was not reptile love club. So we got to fight. That's the way it goes. All right. Well, I'm happy to, happy to give my, my two cents. I guarantee you Ben gives as good as he gets. Oh, yeah. All right, Ben. Well, you get a call for what side of the topic. So call the coin toss here.

What do you think it is? Heads. Heads? It is heads. You guys. Because I was saying, oh, man. Well done, dude. That was like a 50. That is heads. Nice. Because I was saying, oh, man. Well done, dude. That was like a 50. That was a 50 throw.

I was like, oh, my gosh, that's halfway between his head and halfway between his tail throw. I have no idea what that was. Nice. Good guess. Good guess. Well done. All right. Well, what side would you like to take? I'll go pro. I'll say that they're a good – well, I guess specifically whether they're a sideshow. I'll say that – I don't know.

I guess I'll go for they are a sideshow. And yeah. Is that a negative thing or a positive? I guess – can we define the parameters of the – I guess that's the question. Yeah. Or do we need to define it or a positive? I guess, can we define the parameters of the – I guess that's the question. Yeah. Or do we need to define it as a positive and negative? Okay.

I'll just kind of go off what you say, I suppose. But yeah, so they are the modern-day showmen that are actually good for the hobby? Is that kind of what you want to argue? Sure. Yeah, I can do that. That was kind of what I thought. I don't – whatever. Sounds good. I think that'll, that'll work out. So you've got that. They're not good for that one. And I, yeah, so I, I've, I've thought about this one a

little bit, but yeah. So, um, just, just for anybody and you know, we're not advertising this or anything, but there's that animal convention thing coming to town, I guess, or in Florida somewhere. On Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! Sorry, I just found it like that moment that fit. I went for it. That was appropriate, yeah. for it appropriate yeah so it's this huge uh gathering of influencers you know i don't know if i use that big air quotes just for those who can't well i am on the con side so i'm like yeah but uh so i air quoted with you so it's not just reptiles it's all all animals i guess and there's no animal sales which is you know kind of cool but there there's like 90 of them like i didn't know there were that many animal youtubers out there it's like all social media right i think so i

so this is like llama influencers and like you, alpaca people and ostrich to ostrich influencers and flamingo people are there. Hey, they got to represent, you know, the flamingos need their representation. I'm not here to judge. I'm just asking the questions. So this is kind of maybe what's what was on Ben's mind. The animal con is why it came to my mind to talk about influencers and whether that's good or bad for the hobby was kind of my thought, which obviously goes pretty hand-in-hand with the question from the listener. Yeah, and we do see some of these guys at our reptile shows,

Brian Barczyk, Dave Kaufman. Who are some of the others? I think one of the Venomous guys. I can't remember his name. Yeah, I should probably get the list out. But anyway, I don't even know if the – I'm so bad at names. I'm lucky I remember my own name. Is he the heavily tattooed guy with the big earlobe things

oh that's the guy yeah that's the guy you got bit by a keytober or something oh did he okay i'm not i'm i'm really i didn't know that but i'm not surprised because i was when i watched he scares the shit out he scares the shit out of me when i watch him handle dude yeah obviously yeah there's animals but you're gonna get bit like that like there's no way not to so and there's a ton you know there's a few oh jay brewer's another one oh yeah how could we forget jay no yeah that was actually i think that was one of the first places we went when we went to the anaheim show is a brewer's place so mr. Mr. Mail Me In The Face With A Big Snake. So I guess I need to ask you if you want to go first or do you want to defer the first point?

Well, I got to choose which side I'm taking, so I'll let you choose if you want to go first or second. Wow. All right. I'll lead us off, I suppose. Sounds good. Okay, so I guess, yeah, I'm trying to think if we should restructure it. But anyway, so if they aren't.

I know, I know. Okay, so they're not the modern day snake showman. So I guess, uh, when I think of kind of those old side show roadside snake guys, um, you know, they had to have a little bit of kind of flair, but at the same time they were, wow, there, there, there is kind of a, a different categories within that. Right. So some of, some of the old, uh, roadside guys were legit, You know, they eventually went on to make like Venom Labs or to have like a big reptile zoo or things like that. While others were like hawking animals like, you know, a dollar a foot or something, you know, for different snakes or selling them so people could like gas stations would buy them and just have like an animal display at their gas station. So people would stop to look at the animal and then fill up on gas or something like that. So, you know, that, I guess, uh, I would, I would say maybe a lot of the, or some of the YouTubers or some of the peoples are kind of like that ladder thing where they're, they're just in it to kind of get attention or to hawk their animals or to, um, to, uh, be dramatic or to show, you know, how dangerous these things are or to show off and say,

look at me free handle this King Cobra or whatever, you know, without getting bit, you know? So I think in a lot of ways they can have those kind of negative impacts on the hobby where, especially, you know, with venomous snakes where people say, Oh, I saw my favorite YouTuber, you know, free handling a venomous snake. And even though they have all the warnings, do not try this at home. You know, some kids like, well, they make it look easy. And so they don't realize that these guys have been doing it their whole life and that it isn't, you know, they, they understand the animals that they keep. And this guy goes out in the field and finds a rattlesnake and picks it up and tries to show off or whatever, you know? And I actually saw, saw that in

California. I was out road cruising and there was a dude on the side of the road holding the sidewinder, like his buddies were filming him and stuff. I'm like, okay, I'm out. I'm not, I'm not having anything to do with these guys, you know? So I think, you know, that influence is out there and I, you know, I hate to say it, but I, I think a lot of this kind of falls in Steve Irwin's lap and that, you know, I rest his soul. But, um, I think that, uh, sensationalism that he kind of brought out in, in working with animals or, or interacting with animals in the wild, um, kind of made it, uh, for people following him to try to outdo him or try to one-up him and try to be more, you know, dangerous or more, you know, Oh, look at what this guy, if you thought Steve Irwin crazy, look at this guy, you know, like, so I think that there's,

there's a lot of potential negative impacts from some of these, some of these folks out there trying to either one up the last guy or to, you know, to do these things that they, they are capable and good at, but somebody watching them may not be, and they could result in legislation and things like that. So that's kind of how I lead out, I guess. Very good. Some good points. Um, so for me thinking back, um, so I worked for the boys and girls club as a, as a undergrad, you know, in college, I had that as a part-time job. And I was the snake guy, and so I would go around the whole county and show off snakes. So I was kind of a little bit of a sideshow, too.

I was trying to be educational and teaching, but it was so funny to watch. A lot of the time, the people, and it's usually the adults, the kids were usually very open-minded and excited and happy. Some of them were very tentative, but the majority of the time, by the end of the presentation, all the kids will come up and touch, look close or whatever. But it was so funny, the adults. A lot of the time, the teachers that would be the most, you know,

loud about how scared they were and how horrible it was and why are they in our school? You know, by the end, they're the ones, you know, asking more questions and getting close and even like calling or texting me later and wanting me to come back again. And it was really interesting to see that, that there was kind of that, that, uh, tug and pull the people that were the most negative at the end are actually the most interested and had the most questions. Uh, the, the biggest, um, story was I, uh, got assigned to a new school to be there for the afterschool program itself, the actual place I work day to day. And the week before I went, I got a phone call from one of the teachers and she's like, so I just heard that you're assigned to our school. You're the snake guy, right? I was like,

yeah. She's like, I have had this irrational fear of snakes my whole life. I've tried to not pass it on to my kids. I've tried to have them be open-minded. She's like, but I am just so scared. And I just want you to be aware of that. By the end of that year, she bought a boa and a python from me and she had them in her classroom and she taught kids about them. And, you know, just through that one school year, she completely flipped. And so I see a real benefit. I think that there's a, if people don't understand or know something about something, they're not going to care about it. And, you know, it's, it's difficult because you don't want people to act like idiots either. But, but if there's no exposure, there's no, you know, understanding if it's just a creepy animal they know nothing about,

it's not very likely that they're going to care about that animal. My mother-in-law, I remember when I first was talking with her and she's like, yeah, whenever I see a snake, I run it over and then I back up and run over it again to make sure it's not going to come back to life. And, and after I had been here a few times and she called me on the phone one day, she's like, I saw a snake on the road today and I didn't run it over. So, you know, just for people to know there are some people out there that love these animals and care about them. And for them to learn something about them, I think,

is a big step in the right direction to help people, you know, not just want to get rid of them, you know? Yeah. That's, I mean, obviously, yeah, that's, that's a great, uh, great point on that side is that these people that are educating people to get over their fears and to understand reptiles better. I think there's definitely now this is just kind of a minor detail and i just got to say this but the just sometimes the personalities like that and i get it you got to be kind of entertaining or you got to kind of cater to your crowd or whatever but i must not be in the in the target audience because it drives me nuts when they call them little pet names or

like you know this little monkey, I, I have to, if I watch anything, Bart check does, I have to do it with the volume down. And I like Bart check. I still remember that first show that we went to.

He sat and talked to us for like a couple hours. And the guy obviously loves reptiles and he loves animals in general. And he's a super nice guy he's really welcoming to other people you know just really a really nice guy i just can't handle the baby talking to the animals and stuff it just drives me nuts so anyway you'll never talk about booping snoots yeah right that's yeah that's a taboo topic in my snake room we leave that to the mac and wookiee yeah he's actually calling himself the mac and wookiee did you see me carpets and coffees he's the mac and wookiee now we have one yeah there you go he was still trying

to figure out who who did it he's like was it chuck was it chuck i'm like i'm not saying anyway god damn right it was he doesn't listen so it doesn't matter what we say i know i could say it all it's great yeah and and some of the others i mean we we went to like i said we went to jay brewer's place and i mean some of the the way he like opens up the eggs and pulls out the babies, you know, out of the eggs and stuff, it's just, oh my gosh, that just, just rubs me the wrong way every time. So, you know, I can't watch his stuff either. It's just, you know, it's a little too Cavalier or something and grabbing those giant snakes and having them strike and giggling about it. You know, I get it. It's entertaining.

People want to see that danger aspect, but I, you know, it's just, I don't know, the, the responsibility there is a little lacking, but so I, I, I get it that they're, you know, the, they're not really, you know, trying to cater to the hardcore reptile people. You know, most of them are catering to beginners or passive, you know, observers or things like that. Not really people that have, um, have reptiles. So yeah, I guess we're not in the, uh, the target audience. So maybe we need some of these influencers to influence us. I don't know, but we're the boring members of the choir. Exactly. Yeah. I wonder if there's, if there's any that kind of cater to, to the, I remember hearing Barczyk call him the Tinley crowd. Like he said, he said, you know, I get it. There's, there's hardcore reptile people that know a lot and there they

go to Tinley, you know, but he's like, that's not my audience. I'm looking for the newbies or, you know, the people who don't know a lot or who are afraid of them. And I want to change their attitude towards it. And, you know, that's respectable, you know, I, I guess, but I mean, I mean, can it be bold when the people, yeah. So, so why could, yeah. First of all, why does it have to be the new people? Why can't, why can't these people who influence people do it in such a way that they garner the respect of not only their peers but also people who are new into the hobby? And that would be kind of where – in my head where I'm kind of like, eh. I think there are some that approach that. I guess I don't know if they're at the – and that's the problem I guess is you don't get the numbers that way.

You don't get the millions of subscribers. You get the hundreds of subscribers. Yeah. So people who are, you know, taking it seriously or scientifically or natural history, herping, you know, things like that. Yeah, I guess maybe there's some out there, but they're very few and far between. So, but it leads me to kind of my next point, but I'll let Ben respond to, you know, kind of that aspect of it, you know, the target audience and if that's a good thing or not. Yeah. I mean, I've over the last few years thought more and more about marketing. And I think that that's kind of one of your, when you're coming up with a business

plan, regardless of what your business is, that's kind of part of what you when you're coming up with a business plan, regardless of what your business is, that's kind of part of what you have to think about. Do you want to sell a lot of things cheap or do you want to have a quality product and only very few customers and that, that target audience of the new people, the, the casuals, you know, I've heard that in some industries, they'll talk about the casuals, the people that don't know a lot you know how do you how do you draw them in it's kind of like how many history buffs watch the history channel you know yeah not very many but they do it in a way that you know the casuals you know they at least learn something even if it's not you know the best yeah um so yeah i mean i i think that that you can i think it would

be difficult to do well on social media being the the smaller customer base and doing higher quality but certainly when you're talking about breeding and selling animals like if that's what you're doing you can definitely do that with you know high quality and lots of knowledge and you have a few customers that understand that they might be waiting for a while and when they do get something they're going to pay for it and it's going to be a good product but yeah the the social media i just don't know how you could make it in that unless you're going after casuals because you have to have those numbers to be able to you know bring in you know have any kind of monetization happen it's got to

be big numbers and that's the the part that i don't like which i guess i'm not really supposed to be covering that but just you know the the the fake you know the the clickbait and the yeah the pictures that you know it's of the clickbait and the pictures that, you know, it's of something that isn't even in the video, but it's just to draw people in to show some blood and talk about bites or the, you know, things like that. But I mean, to get the numbers, I guess they kind of have to do some of that. Yeah. And that was, I don't like that. That was kind of my next topic anyway. So you led into that nicely, which is yeah, the, the monetization and having to do those things to get people to watch. And I mean, I guess, uh, if you, if you've done it for

long enough, like Barczyk has, I mean, he's, he was one of those first kind of reptile YouTubers and, but it seemed like when he was first starting out and, and of honestly what interested me a little bit was seeing those rows and rows of cages and racks i'm not cages but racks and that was about all he had were just rows and rows of racks and i'm like oh man think of all the cool snakes he's got hidden away you know and all the morphs and all the you know neat things and so it kind of, I wonder if it brought people into that aspect of the hobby that I kind of likened to a pyramid scheme these days where, you know, oh, you buy this more for me for 10 grand and then you can sell it to your friends for five grand and then they sell it to the, you know, in a couple of years they'll sell it for 500 and, you know, everybody makes money and, you know, it's just kind of a pyramid scheme to some extent because we're just buying each other's animals.

But isn't that kind of the negative sideshow snake? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it kind of plays into that. Right. Yeah. And that's I guess that's kind of. And then after he he kind of got out of that phase, he went to the, I want to make it like as an Animal Planet type show guy.

And so they did the Venom Hunters, which was even more of a joke where, you know, he's riding around a camel looking for snakes in the desert to milk. You know, it wasn't realistic. It was completely staged. Maybe not completely staged, but largely staged. I talked to the guys that were fighting snakes for the show, you know, so it's like, okay, this, this is just nonsense. You know, now he's just, it's like, he's trying to get notoriety or, or, you know, find some way to make it, you know, make a, make a living out of it. And then the, I mean, the YouTube monetization, whatever it is, like, there's like a switch where these, I mean, these guys are making millions of dollars a year. It's ridiculous. I was like, I was talking to the guys on a Herp trip, the, you know, the NPR guys and the Herp network guys. And they were, I was like, how, how do these guys, how is Barczyk affording all these additions to the Reptarium, all these expensive animals for the Reptarium? They're like, oh, he makes millions of dollars off his YouTube. And

I'm like, holy crap, that's crazy, you know? And so I guess, you know, I can see why they're so desperate to get viewers and get, and use the clickbait because they're basically manipulating or going along with the already manipulative, uh, algorithm that YouTube uses to monetize. So you have to kind of play the game to get those numbers. And yeah, it rubs me the wrong way. And, and it just seems like a way to make money rather than, you know, caring about the animals, but I don't know. That's kind of how, how it sits with me. Yeah. Yep. To me, that's the strongest argument for your side. That's a, that's a tough one for me to swallow too. I, I certainly don't have it in me to do that. Um, I, I do still see and, and believe that there are some people that otherwise wouldn't have, you know, thought

about keeping a snake or a lizard except for, you know, this click baby thing that, you know, thought about keeping a snake or a lizard except for, you know, this click baby thing that, you know, there's blood on the hand, he got bit by a snake. Oh, what's that? And then eventually learn, oh, you know, you can keep these, how pretty they are. You know, I hope there's some good coming of it, but yeah, it's a, that's a good point on your side that I don't like that either. Yeah. And, and I, I remember hearing, I, you guys probably have heard this story too. Uh,

the, about the, the famous guy that had the TV show. I won't mention his name, but, he's considered an influencer, an animal guy or whatever. And he was going to sex some snakes and he stuck the probe up the rectum rather than into the,

you know, the, the tail. So it was a male, I guess. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, sometimes they have more time to do YouTube than they do to learn about the reptiles they're keeping. But anyway, the other thing, thing I guess about the monetization is

it's kind of, that's the, that's the reason they're doing it to some extent. It seems like, you know, some of these guys are just doing it to, to get the viewers or to make the money rather than to really promote the animals like they should be promoted or, or teaching about them like they should be. And of course that's a fine line and not all of them do that. I mean, I do enjoy like some of the, you know, some of Dave Kaufman's videos where he's saying, you know, do we keep them right in captivity or whatever? And he's showing their habitat and kind of showing them in the wild and stuff. That's pretty cool stuff. So, I mean, there are some that kind of cater to, to our needs or our, our interests, you know, in that way. So, um, and like the, the herper YouTubers that go around and show what they find herping and stuff like NFK or NKF. Yeah. Noah

Fields, I think his name is. And, um, he does some cool videos. I enjoy watching people herb. So maybe there are some that cater to me, but, um, when you're trying to make money off of it, you know, that that's when it kind of rubs me the wrong way. And some of those guys are like, you know, the, especially like an importer or something where they're like just peddling, you know, half dead animals that are imported and maybe that's overgeneralization as well. But, you know, if you're just trying to pedal your snakes at a you know to get notoriety or something that's yeah i guess that's akin to the old snake the snake collectors back in the old days that were selling their snakes on the side of the road to gas station

attendants to get people to stop to pump gas you know you feel horrible for the animals that are at the gas station but then again like if i saw that when I was a kid, I'd be like, oh, let's stop there. I want to see the snake, you know, that kind of thing. So it does work, I guess. So all those roadside zoos, I guess they were on to something. But, yeah. Yeah.

A really good example, at least for my personal experience, we got to do a video with Emily and her husband from snake discovery, um, this last, um, I guess that was February or March when that came out. And, uh, I mean, it's, it's crazy to see, I don't know if, if did either of you go to Tinley the last couple of years? It's been a few years, yeah i've been we we hung out uh when was that like 2018 20 i think it was right before the pandemic so yeah that yeah the last time i went i think that was 20 october in 2019 was the last time i went and you were there yeah yeah okay so 2019 but yeah they they apparently um like they said that they were going to wear like onesies.

And apparently like there were hundreds of people wearing onesies at Tinley. I think it was a couple of Tinleys ago. Yeah. And this last time they were being undercover. So there's all these people with like fake mustaches and like hundreds of people. Yeah. with like fake mustaches and like hundreds of people it's like so crazy and they've been able to open up a an animal you know their their own little zoo and but yeah talking with them you know i could definitely tell the the excitement that they have uh for for the animals and i really

love how they are so education-minded and that they make it kid friendly. That's that's really cool. Yeah. And I think that's a strong point for you. Like the there are some out there that are, you know, that are doing it the right way and who have become popular for the right reasons, it seems, you know, that aren't just trying to make money, but they did this out of a passion. And I mean, I kind of think like, you know, I think it takes a special personality to be able to do that week in and week out, you know, or day in and day out. Like doesn't Barczyk put out a video every day? I don't know if Snake Discovery does. I've watched a few of those and they're, they're actually pretty good, you know you know yeah i think they do two a

week the majority of the time yeah and i think yeah bar check at least for a while was doing one a day i don't know if he still is i don't yeah i'm not sure either but yeah the um that's and i think if you if you can kind of stick to it and have that passion for the videography and show some fun stuff and educate at the same time. And I don't see any problem with that. And I think some of the roadside attractions turned into really amazing institutions after, you know, while I, reptile gardens in South Dakota started out with the guy on the side of the road with the rattlesnake under his hat, you know,

lifting it to reveal that he had a rattlesnake under his hat this whole time or something. And, and, you know, now that's one of the most amazing reptile, uh, zoos in the world and probably had the biggest collection. And, and I mean, Terry Phillip is one of the coolest guys out there and he's, you know, he's one of the guys that runs that place. And so, um, yeah, so definitely good things can come of, of these things, but I mean, for every one of those, there's probably quite a few that were, you know, terrible that went away for good reason. You know, maybe they changed the wildlife laws or do you feel like that there's people who do serious snake breeding who who maybe are the not good influencers of uh of the of the reptile breeding community you know what i mean like so you have you have people in the influencer who

who maybe they're there for more of the entertainment value of the information distribution value. Or I'm going to get rich. Yeah, exactly right. But then you have those people doing it kind of better. But then you come bring it closer to home to all of those people who breed reptiles and know a lot about what they keep and are very serious and actually tend to be pretty critical of those kind of people. You even have people within those circles who might be the selfish, monetizing influencer of the reptile breeding community. You know what I mean?

So I feel like there's both, right? I mean, I sometimes see it that way i mean i guess you know who who hasn't been fascinated by a giant python at some point or another if they like reptiles at all i mean i that was the first python i got was a big burmese python you know and it um it didn't didn't go as as well as it maybe could have, but you know, for, for the amount of information and stuff that was out there, I just saw a big, impressive snake and I wanted to try that, you know, and I realized real quick that, you know, it's cool for a minute or, you know, it might be cool when you're walking down the street with the

giant snake around your neck, you know, and that was kind of the mindset I had when I was a kid. And so I guess when I see adults kind of like trying to sell giant reticulated pythons or just really pushing that as, oh, these are great pets and everybody should own one. You know, that rubs me. Or Nile crocodiles. Family pet here. Yeah, exactly. It's like the, what does Owen call it? The Hamburg starter pack.

Yeah. Welcome to Hamburg. Have your reticulated python and the Nile crocodile free of charge. Please keep them at below 80 degrees. Please, whatever you do. Exactly. And keep them all in one cage. Yeah, exactly. whatever you do exactly and you know keep them all in one cage yeah exactly and and that's tricky

because i mean there are some beautiful reticulated pythons and i love to look at reticulated python i just would never necessarily want to own them now that doesn't mean i don't think nobody should own them but to to kind of peddle them and to to focus you know your breeding ventures on reticulated pythons, I don't think that's really good for our hobby and that can cause more damage than help in a lot of cases. Well, has it though? That's a good question. I think one of the things that kind of alerted me to that was like, how many reticulated pythons have been sold in pet shops as babies or by breeders? And then how many 20 footers do you ever see or 15 footers or whatever? How many adult reticulated pythons are out there? Yeah.

And just to think of the or sulcata tortoises or, you know, Nile monitors or, you know, I guess if you run that out far enough, how many people kill so much of what they end up keeping prematurely. Right. I don't think we have a great, I mean, like, like the people that I know, obviously they have their animals long-term because their care is very locked on and they understand natural history. They really know what they're doing.

I think if you compare it to other commonly captive bred animals like ball pythons or boa constrictors or something, I would say the percentage of those is much higher because they don't get to an, an, an unmanageable size and you're not saying I got to get rid of this thing or you're just like, I don't want to feed it cause it's going to get too big or, you know, you're not keeping it properly because you got a little cute little tortoise for 50 bucks, you know,

and you don't know what you're doing. So, you know, I think that plays into it definitely because, you know, if, if it wasn't a monster, then, you know, I think that plays into it definitely because, you know, if, if it wasn't a monster, then, you know, kind of their detractors give you kind of a, like inadvertently cause like perverse negative incentives for people to, you know, not make good decisions, not take good care

of them leading to bad outcomes and high mortality rates right which which in my opinion is why they shouldn't be pushed as a as a pet animal you know like they should only be kind of kept in but it's it's hard no market for them then they disappear you know and it sucks too because some of these retake morphs like i, I mean, some of them are just regular retics, but some of the retic morphs are crazy cool looking. Here we are, they're super cool looking. But then also when they're focused on those really cool looking morphs, all of a sudden the locality specific stuff disappears because it's just they breed their morph to everything with the cloaca. That one's for you, Chuck. That's fine.

I guess I deserve that. I bet you love that one's for you that's fine i guess i just love that one um but you know so my favorite muttonism then the locality stuff just is gone you know so yeah yeah i don't know and then you know i mean can't bring them in now you know like does that matter though like i mean you know i mean we always bitch about how bad they are for the hobby now they're you know all we gotta deal with is the morphs in the hobby and even still we don't have these giant constrictors running around i'm not saying that you know what what what nobody talks about and we all understand of, you know, baby snakes not making it to their fifth birthday or whatever, or 10th birthday, let's say, you know, like is okay. But, you know, I mean, is, is the,

is the hobby worse off for that? You know, I just, I guess I feel bad for all the, the snakes that have to definitely, definitely not making that, that, uh, uh, you know, uh, don't, don't care about, don't care about the poor snakes thing. Like I definitely, definitely do. I'm just looking at it from, you know, um, kind of an appropriate versus inappropriate, um, look, I mean, what if, what if all of those giant constrictors made it and, you know, we had thousands of people owning giant constrictors? What would that look

like? Would that be, you know, lots of news articles about Fluffy the dog disappearing because Reggie the snake got out and fucking ate him? I mean, I don't know, you know? Yeah. Yeah, maybe, I don't know you know yeah that's yeah maybe i don't know can you have a positive um aspect of that argument i don't know if they're you know

for me it just comes back to i love seeing more people be interested in snakes and uh me too like i remember oh man i was probably five or six years old and i went to it was actually someone who was renting a place we used to live in my parents were running it to him i guess subletting it and uh anyway i walked in there and he had a cage and it had i think it was it wasn't a giant burmese but it it was, you know, a good size one, probably six, eight feet or something. But I remember for two or three weeks after that, almost every single night I would have a dream about how I had a cage with a Python in it. And I was so excited. And then I'd wake up, I'm like, ah, and then there's no way my mom was going to let me, she didn't let me keep a python in the house till i was 18 and that

was barely um i got i got to keep some of the smaller stuff for a week or two or a month that i caught locally but yeah um so you know i i guess i kind of go back to the point i made earlier that you know and like you guys said earlier too like you you see that giant python, no matter who you are or what you like or don't like, you're, for me, learning what it does in the wild and, you know, seeing it at zoos and recognizing little differences and just like, you know, that set me on a path where I was so excited to learn about all snakes and wanting to keep whatever I could, whatever size it was, whatever I could get away with.

But, yeah, I certainly am not excited about, uh, I guess what, what becomes a disposable pet. That's definitely, and that's, it's not only the big ones, it's the cheap ones too. Those become disposable pets too. And even like hamsters and things like that. I don't love that. That's for sure. Yeah. And I will say that I think Barczyk has done a good job of like kind of showing what, uh, an adult reticulated Python needs for housing and, you know, like maintenance and, you know, if it has problems shedding, like how sketchy that can be and stuff and how you have to have two or three, you know, people working with them. So, I mean, and I kind of wonder like what, I mean, like really like what, what,

what is the impact of the average person seeing some of the sensationalism that like Brian Barczyk does with a large constrictor or Jay Brewer? Like, I mean, cause to us it's kind of like, ah, that's not the best representation. Ah, that's not how those animals always are like ah you know and and we always see those moments and we're like ah that's not showing us in the best light but but we also have to like think about like what what brings people in like would would any of those guys even reach the amount of people you know if they didn't do it that way and and what do people think about that is that is it really i mean is it you know, if they didn't do it that way. And what do people think about that?

Is that, is it really, I mean, is it, you know, do the people who watch that, who don't know a lot about snakes sit there and think how irresponsible or whatever we may even think that is, you know, like, I don't know, you know, I don't know if this is specific to American culture, but we do like to see kind of that crazy, like jackass type stuff, you know, where they're going to, you know, shoot each other out of a cannon or,

you know, uh, I don't know, punch each other in the nether regions, but that kind of stuff. I, I, and,

and so like Chewy, you know, back in the day on Barczyk's videos, Chewy would get bit or they do stuff with Chewy, you know, do stuff to him. He was kind of like the clown, like getting, you know, getting bit every episode. And so it was kind of I think people kind of came in out of that morbid curiosity and like, oh, look at this guy. He's getting bit, you know. And I think it started out kind of on that, you know, sensationalism, like, oh, watch me get bit by a snake and,

you know, kind of using the animals to entertain rather than educate. And I think that's kind of the line, you know, like when you're, when you're using animals strictly for entertainment, especially when you're having them bite you, you know, they can lose teeth or get infections, things like that. Mouth rot. I don't know. Like who knows if they can get exposed to different pathogens that way. So, you know, it becomes a potential problem for the animal just to entertain us. And, you know, I think that's a little on the, definitely on the of this aspect. Glad he's not, you know.

I know. I didn't, I seen a picture of him recently i didn't even recognize him i was like wait it's familiar i guess yes yeah yeah i was at a i believe it was an iha international herpetological association something like that i think we were in arizona or new mexico can't remember but anyway um harry green it's a you know very famous snake he's the one that wrote the snakes book one of the best you know overall snake books and he was at cornell and then or i guess he was at Berkeley first, then Cornell. But anyway, I got to see him give a talk and he was talking about this very specifically. Uh, he's, he's saying, you know, how damaging it is to talk about our animals that we keep in love, but do it in a way where, Hey, you know, check this out or, Hey, you know, this is what can happen. Or he's like,

you know, what, what are you perpetuating? If you talk about the sensational parts, when people say I have a dog, oh, what if he bit me? Like people don't talk about their dog or their cat that way, you know, and it brought up the point, you know, someone says, oh, you ever been bit or is it going to bite you just like you know hey you know just like a pet dog or a cat it can bite but they usually don't you know like you don't have to don't have to make it sensational yeah in our society you know an aggressive dog is not a positively looked at thing right like a dog that readily bites is not you know there's very little tolerance for that long term in society so yeah the problem is a unique thing the problem is we understand that you know like that most dogs

don't bite and that some that do need to be handled appropriately but the the public generally thinks that all snakes are out to bite them and all snakes are aggressive and angry you know that kind of thing yeah i agree 100 with harry green you know that's a that's definitely an important aspect of this that he's like you just gotta get a habit of not talking about your animals that way yeah that's a that's great advice and i i really uh i'm glad But then I almost feel like outside of David Attenborough, nobody gives a shit, you know, like unless it's David Attenborough's voice drawing you in to an informationally positively represented, you know, animal interaction. Most people are like, yeah, something else, something else, you know, change the channel. Well, and the sad thing is my kids would not be drawn in at all by david attenborough it's all this flashy fast pace things changing every three seconds yeah like i remember watching marty staff or staff stouffer however you said his name like

all of those nature channel shows like you know it's nice and slow you get to see the you know the environment you get to learn about things like i don't think kids are sucked into that anymore they're so they're used to social media yeah but every two seconds it's not like eventually you're going to be entertained like i need to be entertained every three to five seconds yeah i'm gonna change the channel and that's one of the whole social dilemma that we face you know we haven't gone through a period like this where everything rotates around entertainment you know it's like yeah it's hard the information age has required that the brain's processing speed goes so much

faster so i think and our brains have done it it seems like kids brains have done it really well but now it's almost like that's how their brains are wired. They want that very quick transition. Give me flash. Stimulate do something, you know, maybe a small piece of education in a very short video. And that's maybe appropriate for this day and age. And I, you know, you can only hope that people can get drawn in. I, I still, I still will watch that segment of planet earth where the, where the little Marine iguanas are running through the gauntlet of racers that is some of the most amazing wildlife footage i've ever seen and probably will ever see it was so cool and i could watch it over and over and i just was in awe of that same i'm like thinking i gotta go to the galapagos you know i gotta go see this in the wild and and i i hope

you know that some of these things are you know and maybe that's kind of where I'm, you know, with the herping videos where hopefully people see that and go, oh, I can go outside and find these things in my backyard. You know, I I love snakes now because I watch Brian Barczyk's video and I need to go out and find him in the wild and see him in my backyard. And hopefully that gets people outside and doing stuff. I'll tell you what, if watching Brian Bartek got people out herping, he would probably not have a bigger fan than me. Yeah, right. And, you know, who knows? I mean, yeah, it's hard to say because most of the stuff kind of revolves around captive stuff.

But Dave Kaufman does. He goes out and herps and videos it. But it's, yeah, it's hard to say because most of the stuff kind of revolves around captive, you know, stuff. But Dave Kaufman does. He goes out and herps and videos it. And, I mean, he got bit by that big lace monitor. I guess that's, you know, just, and he talked about, like, it was my dumb fault for sticking my hand to, you know, not restraining it properly or something, you know. Or for even grabbing it in the first place. Yeah, for grabbing it in the first place. And I guess, I wonder how the games yeah i wonder how many how many of us today kind of are in that mindset because we watch steve erwin

you know when i went to australia i was happy just to see it and like sit back and watch it do its thing you know i didn't need to go grab it and like get a picture of me holding and now i did that with some things of course you know like pythons and things like, yeah, you got to pull them off the road or pick them up or get a wanker shot or whatever. The big, the big panoptes made you think twice though, right? Yeah, exactly. I don't want to be getting stitches either. But, but at the same time, like I, again, you know, I kind of put that back on Steve Irwin where he grabs stuff and he, you know, he'd kind of wrestle it and dive on it and all that kind of stuff.

So that makes you the most dangerous snake in the world. Exactly. You want it to lick your face or you want to like get close to it and dodge its strikes and all that kind of crap. So, you know, I don't know if that's, that's good for us. I want us like, I want to sit and watch the, the iguanas dodge the racers from a distance. I want to,

I don't want to grab the both of them and hold them up to each other, you know, like make the snake try to eat the iguana or something. I want to watch kind of nature unfold or, or things do what they were, you know, they, what they've evolved to do or whatnot.

You know, I, I want to see nature be nature, not, I don't want to grab it and interrupt that and scare it and make it run for the nearest cover. You know, I kind of want to sit like I followed a lace monitor in Northern Queensland for a good 45 minutes. My kids are like, where did, where did dad go? Oh, he chased a lizard up into the brush, you know? And so I, I just followed around with the video camera and my, my still camera. And I'm stopping every once in a while to kind of take pictures or video, and then I'll watch it walk by and walk a little further and I'll follow it. You know, that's what, I don't know. That's what gets me, I guess. And maybe that's because the, I, I was raised more on like nature that the you know pbs documentary series nature or harry butler who was kind of a little more chill about the wildlife and you just kind

of observe it rather than grabbing it every time you know so and maybe it's just a generational thing i don't know in my one thing we used to anyway one thing that em from Snake Discovery said that was really interesting to me is she said that they learned that they can kind of help teach their audience to enjoy videos that they don't like at first. And she was talking specifically about herping videos, that they would not get very many views, but they love doing it. So they would just keep doing it because they love doing it and they might as well film it. And, uh, after a while, after they do a few, they, they actually have their, their, uh, viewers asking for more hurt videos. Cool. And so I think that's something any of us that have had that, you know, there's some of us,

there's nothing you can do to keep us from going out and catching snakes, like whether it's hot or cold or, you know, whatever, if there's a chance, I remember actually I've been talking with Justin about a spot in Arizona to find twin spots. And I got to see a bunch of them in one day because they were doing a research project, their pit tagging and taking data and all that stuff. And so I got to see, I don't know, a couple dozen, uh, twin spots in one day, which was amazing. That's cool. But like two or three years later, we were there. It was like eight or nine o'clock at night. It's starting to get dark. It's pouring rain. And it was actually part of that same IHA when Harry green came and we were in this big van with a whole bunch of people.

And for whatever reason, I can't can't remember we had we parked actually right there by that talus slope like i said it's raining hard it's nighttime but like every single cell in my body was like how could you be right here and not go out there and at least see if there's one sitting on a rock yeah like i knew it was the worst time ever to look but i was like i have to go and you know like anyway everybody else like yeah if you can pass that that excitement on you know get groups and go out and do it like when people realize the kind of excitement and fun and you know how awesome sure there's lots of times it's difficult but if you're there talking with friends who cares you know yeah yeah well and and you know i was just having this thought while you

guys were talking and and and and it ties right in with what you said ben about about how like so so we look at a steve irwin and we say ah not you know famous guy maybe not always the best representation right and then you you know you talk about the herping videos, how they just don't go over very well, but if they happen over and over again, that there's people who are asking for more of them. And so does Steve, does Steve Irwin's interactions like, you know, are they all negative just because, you know, the, the first time you watch him,

he grabs it and he handles it and he does this or he does you know, the, the first time you watch him, he grabs it and he handles it and he does this, or he does that. Like, or, or are people, you know, are people able to look or be past that as, as, Hey, this was just an experience. I was interested in it. Now I'm seeing more things, which might lead them say, maybe I wasn't super into the herping videos, but now that I've seen a few, I'm much more interested. There's aspects of this I didn't understand. I seen it the first time. I didn't get it.

It didn't translate. And maybe, you know, when you see the sensationalism of Steve Irwin in First, it is, wow, this guy's really crazy. But then as you have different experiences on past the Steve Irwin, you become deeper and more understood in things. And so like maybe the idea that Steve Irwin can be maybe not always a net positive, but still not be negative for anything. Well,

I was trying to explain that. And I feel like at the point I was trying to make was like hard for me to make. So I hope that makes sense. Well, no, I, I,

I agree because I, I loved watching Steve Irwin, you know, he, he, he was, he was one of those kind of once in a lifetime guys that comes along and just grab your attention and grab,

even the movies with horrible plots. Yeah. Yeah. I still watch it because he chased a parent. You know, it's like, I'm going to watch him dive after a printy. Even if I wouldn't necessarily do that,

I still want to see a printy on the big screen. Right. And I did see that in the theaters. Like I wanted to see a parenty on the big screen. Yep. So, and, and I mean, he's very rightfully so well beloved, you know, throughout anybody who's interested in reptiles, at least of a certain age, you know, people may not remember him these days or, you know, the memories fading a little bit, but I, I would also kind of another negative aspect to those kind of shows is the thing that just killed me. And this may have occurred to me later, you know, after I'd seen the episode or something. But when they're out in and maybe it's after I've been there.

Right. So I went to Cape York up to the Iron Range and we looked for green tree pythons. We saw a couple in the wild and and then i see this uh you know the the crocodile hunter where he goes out to that same area and he finds like a whole litter or whole group of hatchling uh green tree pythons in like the daytime like next some isolated tree out you know in a field or something i'm like okay those were planted yeah put those on that tree to film this you know there's no way they found you know eight baby green tree pythons crawling around and if they did why didn't they find the eggshells why didn't they find that where the nest was you know like search that tree and find that nest you

idiots like i'm you know kind of screaming at the TV. But then I'm like, oh, wait, this is fake. You know, that's the other thing that kind of doesn't jive well with me with a lot of these things is those plants, especially with nature shows where. And, you know, this probably heralds back to Disney in the 50s dumping lemmings over the edge of a cliff to show you know demonstrate how they run off cliffs sometimes and they were all dead but they dumped them off the side of a cliff you know just for the dramatic sake and i get it you know you and and i guess that's why i like some of these herping videos where they don't find what they're looking for you know marco shea was a good example of that where he went in search of the crocodile of the trees or whatever, and they never found one, you know, like, and so that's kind of real. Yeah. That's more realistic in some ways where like, you may not see your target. You might have to go back several times to, to get a glimpse of it or to,

to see it. And sometimes you get lucky and see, you know, an Owen Pelly on your first, you know, trip to, to Darwin area. So, um, uh, Eric and Owen, but anyway, you know, to to darwin area so um eric and owen but anyway you know that's and you know they that was kind of a lucky thing for them too because eric lost his phone had to go back and they probably wouldn't have seen it if you wouldn't have lost his phone you know so those kind of things there's a there's luck that plays into it but also putting yourself in the right place at the right time enough times times, you'll probably see it. I'll tell you what, Eric's phone has been a blessing and a curse for him. That's for dang sure.

More than most people know. Yes, more than most people know. So I have a question so and i don't want to i don't want to interrupt please finish your thought but i want to talk about the conference coming up so yeah well no yeah i think i i'd made my point i don't know if ben wants to respond to that or but you know that that faking of nature documentaries really rubs me the wrong way and is and maybe the aspect of kind of that making it look easy or like you know i just went to their range and i found a whole literal you know baby green tree python anyway so

yeah that to me that's right the same as the uh the clickbait kind of thumbnails and stuff yeah yeah for sure so we have this conference whole room full of you know hall full of influence 90 of them yeah 90 influencers across crazy you know multiple multiple species and and genus of of animals and they're and they're what they're they're setting the tone for the future of of flash and and and the way animals are viewed and consumed by the the the media uh of humans i guess that's the question is is this to like bring in the next generation of influencers or to you know to or is it just to make money of people who are interested in influencers? It's hard to say. And I guess that is to pin down what an influencer is there for, right?

Yeah. Like what is their – Because I can't see them – like with 90 of them, I can't see them making all that much money off of a conference. Like they're going to split the money 90 ways. I don't know. Or they have to be ginormous influencers which would to me indicate that they're monetized they're already they have an incentive to be like hey let's all get together and figure out how to kind of run this like like kind of the corporations all the corporations getting together and being like

how do we run this whole thing just us yeah you know what i mean it definitely seems like the the way they're marketing it is come and meet your favorite you know instagram or come meet your favorite youtuber like it's definitely you know come get pictures come come talk, come, you know, that's, that's the, uh, the attraction. Yeah. I, I, I guess that's, that's probably appropriate. Cause they, I mean, if they do have that many fans out there, then people probably want to interact with them. You know, they want to chat with them. And frankly, I mean, I wouldn't mind, uh, hanging out with Ken and Harkin or something. He seems like a really cool guy. I'd like to chat with him someday.

I haven't met him in person before, but it's hard to say. And you almost wonder, you go to a reptile show, right? We all go to reptile shows because we're like, oh, that guy's doing this, and he's killing it, and I want to talk to him about that. So we do that, right? But Brian Barczyk shows up at reptile events. and he's killing it and i want to talk to him about that like so we do that right but but but but brian barcheck shows up at reptile events and and you know how how much shit he gets from reptile people so it's like i guess i could feel like why influencers uh like barcheck would want their own freaking thing you know because they're like hey i got i got a million followers like i got a lot

of people who want to you know talk to me or whatever screw all these snake people if they don't like me kind of thing you wonder how competitive this thing's gonna be like no pay attention to me i'm i'm more of an influencer than this guy you know so maybe that's why they have such a diversity of like fish people and arachnid people and you know so maybe that's why they have such a diversity of like fish people and arachnid people and you know so each each can kind of have their three or four guys that's in their little area or something so i i don't know i i have no interest in attending something like this but i don't fault anybody who does i guess and again i'm not maybe their target audience but i i know i've watched some of their videos.

I've seen a lot of their stuff, you know, so I don't know. I think Kevin from Nerd is going to be there, too, if I remember right. Yeah, I think so. And somebody else from there, like the videographer guy that filmed Rob. Yeah, no, the is somebody who used to work there. Not I think it's it's one of the guys that does the podcast with Rob. I don't know if Rob's. Because Rob's not affiliated with, with nerd at all anymore, right?

He just left. Yeah. Yeah. He's totally doing something else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Doing his own thing.

So I don't know, but yeah, a couple of nerd, nerd folks and former nerd folks are going to be there. Yeah. couple nerd nerd folks and former nerd folks are gonna be there yeah so and you know i i have reservations about kevin too but i i'd sure like to go tour nerd someday you know that'd still be kind of cool to see see all the stuff he's got going on so i think we get a black dragon from him yeah right those are cool super cool and and, frankly, I wouldn't mind going to the reptarium and seeing Barczyk zoo, you know, I I'd support that. I think that's, and again, I mean, he's not all bad. He's, he's got a lot of great qualities, you know,

it's just sometimes he just rubs the hardcore herpers the wrong way, you know? So I don't know. It's, I've heard, I've heard a lot of strong opinions about Barczyk. People love him and would die for him and others want to see him, you know, see him dead or something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's, it's, it's like the, the, the, the, the angry anti-passion against him is so strong that sometimes I'm like, I get, I get it, but I don't get it like how you're how far you're taking it right now you know what i mean just don't watch his videos like if you

like let it go yeah easy yep but you know there's also the whole thing of like you know if he's going to be out there kind of representing us in some kind of a fashion, do we have a right to – I mean absolutely. I think anybody has a right to be like, hey, you're screwing me over based on how anti-pet and certain agencies and stuff are, certain agencies and, and stuff are, are doing us right now. Like you're not helping. Like, yeah, I think people have that definitely have that right. And I guess that's where the concern comes in, uh, around conferences like this, because you get a bunch of influential people in a room together. I don't know how often it works out good, but in my hardest of hearts, I feel like it doesn't always work out the best usually. Yeah. And you wonder how many like people, um, that,

that kind of maybe come in through bar check or something, move on to other reptile YouTubers that are, you know, famous, have lots of hits, like that algorithm that recommends the next video, you know? And so when they're, when they're clicking through all the videos that they want to watch that day, you know, they kind of show up and so it kind of feeds on itself. And so you're going to be attracted to a conference like this because you love Barczyk who got you into Camp Cannon, who got you into, you know, all these other YouTubers or whatever. And so you're, you're there because you, you have all these heroes that are all going to be in one room. So I don't know more power to them, but yeah, I won't be attending. I'm sure they, they, they care a lot if I'm there. So yeah, they don't, they don't give a crap.

I don't influence anybody. You influenced me,in me too yeah well it mattered most yeah yeah no i i can say the same for you guys yeah i uh out of out of all the reptile people out there yeah you guys are probably some of the two guys that have influenced me the most so yeah for me before before i could talk to you as you know just looking stuff up the internet was kind of a brand new thing and i remember looking up care sheet after care sheet and you know looking at pictures of how people do things and all of a sudden i had someone i could talk to like i could see in real life and you you had already had some experience good and bad and you know been to some breeders houses and and all kinds of cool stuff like that set set me then the uh you know the joint ventures we had early on and we got lucky and did well and man that just stoked the fire right

yeah it was a good fit right from the get-go. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Yeah, missed those days. And the herp trips we took. And, like, I still regret not liberating that shingleback and the nightly. That was a beautiful animal. Yeah, it was sad to see it in that state. But, yeah, that's good times, good memories. Yeah, and hopefully more in the future. It was really fun

to hang out with you at Tinley, uh, last time around when we were there. So that was a lot of fun. We'll have to make, make more of those, uh, things happen in the future. And, you know, life gets busy with kids and we've, you know, I'm kind of on the tail end of that where my youngest is about the same age as your oldest. So I've got a little more free time now with kids moving out and going to college and stuff, but it's still, yeah. I have never been to Tinley, which is crazy. I've never been. So there you go. Do another fight club on the road.

We can take it. We can take it to Tinley and make it Chuck's first time. Yep. Yep. I haven't been since before COVID. It's about time for me to make it again too there you go so my understanding is like carpet rose no more or like that's changed or what's what's the oh it was there when when maybe i had heard that it wasn't its its former glory glory or something. I don't know. I, I don't know what happens. It means reptile events anymore. Eric and Owen weren't there and you know, maybe that's what it was. Maybe it was like, I mean,

there were only like what two or three of them this time, maybe, maybe four, but yeah. I mean, can you call it carpet row without the pod father? I don't know. And it wasn't, it doesn't sound right. It was a couple of groups in the pod father? I don't know. Yeah. And it wasn't, it doesn't sound right. It was a couple of groups in the middle of a row, you know?

So, but yeah, cool to see Jason Balin and chat with him. Yeah, for sure. Guys. So yeah, cool.

Uh, Tinley's a cool show. I mean, you know, it's changed quite a bit. Anytime you can get that many tables worth of people who like carpets that's a cool thing right yeah oh yeah i have yet to see a reptile show that has a grip of carpet keepers under one roof like it's usually it's like you know one or maybe two maybe but like a row that's

nuts for carpets right so the fact that i missed out on that on this heyday i'm kind of like ah you know that sucks yeah that first time i went to tinley was that was carpet row and it's all its glory and that was a lot of fun yeah i see i wish i feel like i feel like i feel like i missed lollapalooza you know what i mean like like it still happens but it's not the same thing woodstock 99 or whatever exactly exactly it's like yeah i went but it's it's not the same thing yeah my first time going was the year that the carpet python book came out 2011 yeah justin and nick were off in australia so i got to represent at tinley that's right yeah you sold a lot of carpet yeah oh man i sold a lot of carpet but there's so awesome how much support we got yeah excitement

it was it was cool yeah you might have to do the book tour again justin yeah that's true i mean we ever get the book you know yeah that's the question. That's how it goes. We missed, you know, Tinley's over this year. So, I mean. Well, there's the October one, right? That's the big one. That's the one you'll go to, the October one, yeah. Well, I don't know if you're making that date, are you? I don't know.

I don't. Well, I'm going to hold my breath. I don't know. It takes this long to just get the proof. You know, who knows how long it's going to take to get the actual one. You haven't gotten the proof yet. No, I haven't seen it yet okay and last i chatted with or i talked to bob it seemed like oh it was any day you know we were expecting it any day but there's a lot of delays

and he's really frustrated i think he had like three or four books that he's waiting for the blue line proof you know it's like none of them are coming. So, yeah. And I'm assuming they're using all the same, the same. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. So we'll see, see how it goes. But man, I want this thing in my hands. No doubt.

No doubt. I seen a Mackinwookie had a copy before you. It's crazy. Intellectual Mackinwookie. He knows how to get copies. Has that been, has that been widely circulated yet? I don't think so. I think I told him about it, or I showed him over the computer.

It may be time to make that known. I think so, yeah. Well, I didn't make it, so I can't make it known. Whoever created that, whoever you are are make it public he or she who made it the intellectual mackinwookie please give it to the rest of the world to share or she or he because i think yeah if it's who sent it to me then she should uh share that because it's really well done it's amazing. It's fantastic. I don't know. Anyway. Anyway, off of your Mac and Wookie. I'm sorry. Sorry.

All right. Well, thanks so much, Ben, for coming on. This has been a great discussion. A lot of fun to chat with you again and have you on the podcast. I feel bad we haven't gotten you on before now. So, yeah, we'll have to have you back as soon as you want to come back. Let us know when you're ready to come back and talk some genetic chat with us. Sounds good. Really informational, I'm sure.

Well, where can people find you? Put your information out there. So the genetic testing is RareGeneticsInc. So that's a good way. We're on Facebook and Instagram and rare genetics, Inc.com. Any of those things, uh, you can pretty easily get my, my contact information, either go through our contact on the website, or I think I have both phone number and email address, but just be known that I am a horrible on the phone. So if you go phone number route, just text me because I am not good on the phone.

That's the worst for me. But yeah, and then the... I can attest to that. Yeah, I'm bad. And the breeding, that's Reptile Genetic Services. So kind of a similar name. I didn't know if everything was going to be under one name or not. So it ended up being two names that are pretty similar but um but yeah same thing instagram

facebook and and morph market for that one okay reptile genetic services your uh ball python and other uh hondurans yeah hondurans yeah very cool yeah you've been producing some crazy ball pythons they're really cool yeah yeah we had some fun ones last year it turned out crazy we had one that kind of looks like cheddar cheese with mold on it it's like kind of a purpley mold on it he's such a weird looking snake he's pretty awesome what is it what's the he is an orange dream black pastel hypo champagne wow that's also known as the blet the the cheddar blue cheese yeah the moldy the moldy cheddar was that a world or was that i mean i, I would, I guess that it is. I don't know for sure.

His sister is the same genes as him except for orange dream. And she's like silver and white because they both have a little bit of a, you know, a pied look to them because of the champagne, not because of that pied, but yeah, but yeah, they're, they're pretty fun. And we just got 10 more eggs from that same pairing. So cool. See what else we get from that mold pairing so cool let's see what else we get moldy cheddar that's cool yeah you've been doing some cool stuff with that are you are you burking

those things and and i uh yeah i we are at a point now where we're gonna have to sell several holdbacks or build more space so yeah i'm still on the fence whether i build more space or or sell several it's it sucks having to do that because yeah there's so so many that i like you know yeah did you what was that you moved recently did you yeah well that's the funny thing and i didn't when we were texting i didn't write this out but yeah so we had two acres and uh we had a detached garage and so we built a new house just on the other side of the garage so i still have the same snake room gotcha okay well that's that's nice i'm glad you didn't have to move your snake room because that's not fun. My good friend, my partner now, he

moved in with his girlfriend into our old house. So now he's right here with me. That's awesome. We call it the compound now. I was going to say, that is a compound right there. I met him, right? Wasn't he at Tinley? Yeah, he was at Tinley.

He's a cool guy. He's still at it. That's awesome. That's nice. Very cool. Well, yeah, that's a great to have you and chat with you. This has been a fun conversation. So yeah, I enjoyed it too. Yeah. And of course, thanks to the really Python radio network for hosting our podcast. Eric, the man with the many podcasts. I don't know how he does it, but we're glad he does keep it going,

man. All right. Well, um, thanks for listening and we'll catch you again next week for another episode of reptile fight club. All right. Old school AR and the anti-influencer are out. Thank you. Outro Music