Reptile Fight Club - The Four-Inch Turtle Rule w/ Ryan Dumas

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

In this episode, Justin and Rob discuss the four-inch turtle rule with Ryan Dumas Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comIGFollow Rob @ https://www.instagram.com/highplainsherp/Follow MPR Network @FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQSwag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

all right welcome to another reptile fight club episode i'm justin julander your host and back today rob stone welcome back hello yeah i appreciate it kind of a weird situation last week we we had alan and ron on and or last time we recorded i guess one is what in the podcast world but um yeah rob was not able to join us which was unfortunate because um but it was a it was a fun time with uh ron and alan they're they're pretty fun guys and we have another great guest this week so it was uh glad to have ryan demas on so welcome to the podcast and thanks for coming on tonight yeah thanks for the invite happy. Happy to be here and catch up with you guys and talk some turtles. Yeah, yeah. Appreciate the topic.

And, you know, we're not turtle experts by any stretch of the imagination, so we had to have the real expert come on and school us in this. So, all right. Well, we'll get to that topic soon. Rob's been out herping the last couple of days, uh, at, uh, treating you well out there. Um, I suppose it depends. Well, first I was recording from, uh, the Burke Manor here, uh, the NPR studios at Burke Manor. So that's exciting. I appreciate the hospitality on that. But, yeah, so he and I, and then yesterday we were joined, well, we joined up with Mike Curtin and Jason Balin. So that was a lot of fun. So the four of us went out yesterday.

It was just Eric and I today. Yeah, and so that was really good. We did 22 miles of hiking and then cruised around some dirt road cruising with Mike and Jason. And so our ratio, if you just count the miles hiked or whatever, we get classic pine barrens. We got one snake for 22 miles done. So that's about right. That fits with our our average um that being said it was a uh neonate eastern hognose snake which is my lifer so that that was in my

top three of you know hoping to see and to see particularly there is really is really cool so um yeah we two day two full days of doing it to it but We got one snake, but it was a snake I really wanted to see. Yeah, that is a cool species. I was really sad to miss out on that one. I tell you what, they are a bugger to photograph, at least if you don't want them playing dead, which was cool. The Westerns don't really do that to that extent, and I knew that, or at least that was sort of the presentation that I see

in other people's photos it turns out there's a reason most of them are upside down uh Jason well both Jason and Mike were introduced to sort of what a photo session looks like for me particularly if we're probably I don't know a solid six or seven hours into a day without having seen anything yeah then uh and it's a lifer that's there gonna be some pictures for sure so uh i think jason was it was like wow i didn't know what i signed up for on this one but uh that's all right we made it through and uh you know as as usually happens then when i was looking through him i was kind of the happiest with the first couple so yeah where it's like yeah i guess maybe we could have you know, in the back end of it or whatever, but, uh, no, it was really cool to see it. So when we had first,

uh, encountered it, so, uh, getting into herping theory and all that, that we can come back to it at a later time, whether we're talking about going fast, going slow, are you looking on path? Are you, are you, are you on path? Are you off path? Are you looking on path? Are you looking off the path? What are you doing? It was Jason. I was in the front. Jason was behind me. And then Eric was following us behind. But we were all super tight. And I was staring off trail to the left. Jason was looking at a particular item kind of left straight and, uh, certainly at least I stepped right over it so that Eric was like, um, you didn't want to see the hog nose dudes.

He got to pull the line. Yeah. Right on the middle of the trail. Not on the, on the far right, I would say of the trail, but nevertheless on the trail on white sand. So highly visible so that if, if your focus point was the trail, you absolutely would see it. Um, which is not to take anything away from him, but rather to highlight just the, you know, utter complete lack of visibility that, you know, once he,

it was even any indication to look down and it was like, Oh yeah, absolutely. Um, but it was even any indication to look down it was like oh yeah absolutely yeah um but it was really cool so i went and picked it up and it did the the spread natter thing and you know totally flared out probably the first 35 40 percent of its body you know very impressive yeah you can see it in in the photo that i you know that i'm really happy with You can see the scalation is like come back together around the back from having been super distended. Um, so you can see some of that pliability again, the way that, I don't know if you really see with Westerns, they'll hood a little bit, but not, this is very impressive. Um, so that was its initial foray.

So we got, uh, I don't know, probably 15, 30 seconds of really strong hood going. And so that was cool. And then it transitioned to playing dead well, which turns naturally into a squeeze. And a squeeze and then heavy in the fold and the whole thing where it's just going. It has to be on its back, mouth open, tongue out. You write it. It goes right back.

The thing that sort of worked for a while it actually responded to cupping you know when we put the cup on top that didn't yeah it didn't like to initiate when it was coming out of sort of that death feigning response if you put the cup over it it didn't react in the same way clearly it was distinguishing between sort of the cup and my hand um so then it was actually staying righted and stuff and and then by the end it was distinguishing between sort of the cup and my hand um so then it was actually staying righted and stuff and and then by the end it was just sort of no i'm dead regardless of what happens until they're super perceptive like very clearly like if you would even a foot difference made a difference in how how it reacted and how really yeah so that's amazingly interactive and reactive

um and we had a local i don't know if it was i don't think it was someone who worked uh there but a local shirtless local came over and said hey what did you find and said oh that's really cool i saw one over over here in the spring the scent you know hog nose in the spring over here in the spring, the scent, you know, hog nose in the spring over here and the stuff. So yeah, it was, um, a real Pine Barrens treat. No doubt. Oh, you stole my line. I was gonna, uh, that's cool. Real Pine Barrens treat. That's awesome. So, um, yeah, that's, uh, that's unfortunate. I couldn't make it for that, but I'm glad you guys found one. That's cool. Yeah. Have you guys for that, but I'm glad you guys found one. That's cool.

Yeah. Have you guys had weather up there? Oh, sorry. No, no, you're good. Um, so it was definitely a little dry for sure. And in terms of, so yesterday, more so than today, we had done some flipping and probably seemed to me that maybe 40 to 50% of it was what you would call pretty dry. And, you know, coming from the West, that is meaningful, you know. The rest of it seemed, none of it seemed overly wet. The other half, I would say, seemed sort of maybe what you would hope it would be like in terms of like a good moisture, good level of moisture. The water levels at a couple places that i've been to before were definitely low um but i don't know if that's seasonal or specific to this year or kind of both it would seasonally be lower and then it's lower than it

otherwise would be yeah i forget you're not from that area we're in the middle of of a drought we're like five inches under the yearly average, the annual average. And I'm not seeing nearly the same amount of herbifana as I normally do. I'm only seeing them at night, like doing rough green sink surveys or something. But just curious if it's everywhere or just the lovely Cincinnati region. Yeah, right. I don't know. I mean, certainly Colorado and Utah, right. They've

been drier than last year was overly wet. Um, and then the year before it was really wet. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, it's, it's tough to say, uh, you know, in terms of our local experience, but yeah, it seemed, honestly, it seemed pretty dry. The, you know, the pines is just tough. It's sort of, it really reminds me of the North central Florida Sandhill stuff where it's just like, you're unlikely to see much, but whatever you find is pretty cool. And yeah, it was true to form. So. So you've, you've had a job change, right? Ryan, you're no longer in the zoo field.

Yeah. I have, uh, as a, it's been a little over a year now that i transitioned out of the zoo world and into the the world of uh like natural resource management so now i'm a conservation biologist for our county park system which is pretty wild they have a lot of herpetology data gaps for the last 20 30 years and that's part of the reason they were hiring someone like me so it just worked out really well i also do a lot with deer but uh interesting yeah my grandpa was a podcast on deer yeah my my grandpa was a mule deer expert and he studied mule deer in in various ranges throughout the west arizona and utah mainly but yeah there's so much to learn yeah i'm it's like i'm drinking in various ranges throughout the West, Arizona and Utah mainly. But yeah.

There's so much to learn. Yeah. It's like I'm drinking from a fountain hose still a year later with the deer. But yeah, I get a lot of opportunities. You know, the zoo field, I don't have anything negative to say about the zoo field. I was just having a change of heart in how I was impacting the conservation world. And seeing what the park system had to offer, it granted me an opportunity to really get more connected with everything,

land management, resource management. And that's really, really worked out. Like, for instance, I mentioned like the rough green snake surveys we were doing. I don't know if you're familiar with those. They're strictly diurnal. So they nest, or I say nest, they rest and go to sleep up in trees about 15 feet up in the air and they're oh cool and they don't move and they're very very have very reflective uh ventral scales so you go out at night a little after nine o'clock or so and you

flash lights up and you just look for the shine and you find them huh and so we're at the like the northern edge of the range in in ohio so we found a nice, like the Northern edge of the range in, in Ohio. So we found a nice population. That's a species of concern here. And so we've done surveys all summer and now we're using that to influence our management with herbicides and pesticides. And we're going to hopefully influence not using those during their active season. So that's very cool.

So is sounds like you're doing, doing a lot of surveys, trying to fill those gaps. I'm curious. You know, we've had a couple of topics on the show about, you know, iNaturalist and some of those other databases. Have those been helps or hindrances or have you found they're lacking or are they both? Yeah, both. I think. Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's really helpful. And you're like, I wish that wasn't on oh but i'm glad yeah yeah i think uh it's tough because i naturalist i don't think it really distinguishes between federal listings and state listings and things like the kirtland snake is is really protected in uh in ohio but it's least

concern across its whole range so it would be nice to be able to so when there's reptile stuff i try to i i guide folks to hurt mapper or if you're uploading stuff to i naturalist if you know it's a rare like marbled salamanders are a very rare species in hamilton county yeah where i work and but not anywhere else so if um if you're putting it down hamilton county and you find one of our populations it would be really really nice if you check that box that says like hide location or obscure yeah obscure that's the right one yeah but i mean it's a useful tool as well like i downloaded all the reptile and amphibian um uploads and put it into gis and a nice heat map and you can see where all the

where everything is like yeah it's pretty where people go right yeah yeah exactly yeah you can see part of the park system that people are typically at you see a lot more and then you see that high quality woods with like nobody in there but yeah yeah i like it i like it and but also there there are some drawbacks that's why it's a good subject to fight about yeah for sure we gotta have you back on to fight about that kind of stuff get you you already did i listened to that episode but you know a good fresh uh perspective and i think rob and i you know we talk about it all the time so we kind of know what our stance on that so it'd be interesting especially from somebody from the conservation world who sees it real real like yeah i'm curious

too about uh if you know where where something's pretty common across its range, but it's locally, you know, threatened or, or the populations are declining. Do you find that people generally don't really care much about them or are they like, you know, you know what I mean? Like if, if just because something barely comes into Utah doesn't mean, you know, it's not easy to find it somewhere else, but you know, it's rare for Utah, but nobody cares about it because it's locally abundant everywhere else. So, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. I think, um, as far as if you're talking about like the herpetoculture world, I don't think there's a, that much interest in it, except for maybe like in Ohio, we have a pretty good population of box turtles and box turtles in the southwestern area. But a lot of times we're just trying to if they're in the areas that we work with, we're trying to conserve that land like cave salamanders.

They're typically in caves, but we don't have caves in southwestern Ohio. But we have limestone bedrock everywhere and they utilize that as like micro caves. So it's the only place really in Ohio where you have them. So they're state endangered. So we have to work to make sure that we, you know, keep projects out of there and make sure that we're, you know, keeping deer and manageable levels so that that forest retains its integrity and biodiversity and things like that. So a lot of it isn't really, I'm not really working as directly with species, but I do a lot of work in project management to guide the conservation toward those species. Okay. Yeah.

That makes a lot more sense to focus on the broad picture rather than focus on, you know, the, the little pieces that may or may not impact the broad picture. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. So yeah, I get to get out in the field a bunch but i'm also i also do a lot of desk work i've become like really good with teams uh oh i know that that program very well yeah yeah zoom and all that kind of stuff yeah but it's been wild it's it's really awesome so i have the background, I have the private keeping background and now I have this like natural resource management kind of view of things. And it's, it's really interesting. Yeah. And getting paid to herp doesn't sound like a bad gig either. So.

No, there are definitely days. I mean, I had those at the zoo too where I'm like, man, someone is paying me to do this. Like, yeah, right. Yeah. That's cool. I'm curious if you know if the rough and the smooth greens have the same behavior if they are totally different really okay yeah the rough green snakes are more of an arboreal snake and the smooths are uh more of a terrestrial yeah yeah and and they're they're different as well as as like the smooth greens are more of a northern

snake they go up into canada and where the rough greens you see stronger populations of those further south but all their populations are declining like the yeah that from any literature i've read so that's why we made it a focus as well as it's listed as a species of concern yeah so that helps helps it out but um yeah i had much more uh bigger intentions to get out and find a smooth green in in utah they're they're you know one of the lesser observed snakes out here but yeah i only went made it out once or twice so oh wow you got smooth green snakes out there yeah yeah that is a distribution and a half right yeah it's kind of a little bit i you know may not be disjunct but appears to be a little bit disjunct, you know, from the overall population.

But it probably is. It's probably just less studied or, you know, they're. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We have Colorado, too, particularly on the Western Slope. So I haven't I haven't seen those. We did see when we went to Florida in October, did road a big, uh, rough green, which was really cool. So it was, I was so excited about that to see that, um, you know, haven't had them from a kid or whatever, but, uh, yeah, seeing that was beautiful. I know. I, I believe despite finding a pine snake, that was Eric's favorite snake that we found was actually the rough green snake. Such fantastic snakes. I've done enough literature review on that snake to

answer a lot of questions for you if you have them but i i can't get enough of them cool yeah totally excellent and the the point that you made in terms of conserving the habitat and stuff it really reminds me i was just listening to on the snake talk podcast re-listing to an episode um i think it was number 40 with um the expert from memphis zoo on louisiana pine snakes was steve reichling yeah i was talking so he was on there you know a ton of great stuff in there um but the part that really reminded me of that is i guess there's and we'll leave this to the uh avian expert i mean you might be as well ryan but oh certainly not me there's and we'll leave this to the avian expert i mean you might be as well ryan but oh certainly not me there's some woodpecker that apparently shares the same habitat characteristics as louisiana pine and a variety of other things and a lot of the to the extent that there has

been conservation of the habitat that's essential for louisiana pine snakes it's actually been an outgrowth of the protection of some red something woodpecker, which, you know, has the coordination or linkage between that, the habitat characteristics that have been required for the woodpecker have allowed the survival of Baird's pocket gophers and Louisiana pine snake as well. The more you dig into it, the more you realize how connected it all is. I mean, just overpopulation of deer stopped the recruitment of oak and hickory around here and it reduces the amount of leaf litter. And then we have the invasive worms,

like earthworms and stuff that completely obliterate that leaf litter and there's not enough to sustain them. And then ground nesting birds are then affected. And then potentially rat snakes or bobcats, things like that are affected. It's insane. um you did bring up a point that made me i want to step back to the i naturalist uh debate for just a second one of the good things about being able to hide those locations is it's not just about um the animals themselves it's about kind of keeping

people out of there you'd be surprised how little disturbance it takes to completely disrupt an ecosystem like maybe you come in with some uh i'll use honeysuckle because everyone knows honeysuckle but there's a freaking litany of invasive plants it doesn't take much for garlic mustard to grab hold or honeysuckle vine or things like that and start obliterating habitat there are invasive plants that stop turtles from nesting and are destroying us so it's yeah that one thing to keep into consideration yeah when protecting some areas is like the more people that go in the more possibility of plants are tagging along just anything just disturbance yeah yeah and so hard because you know finding that balance between enjoying the natural world and you know getting out into nature and seeing things.

But then, you know, you don't want to be an agent for the spread of invasives or things like that. Brother, I'm in the middle of it. You know, I'm a conservation biologist, but we also are a park system and we want to create opportunities. People get out and recreate. But we have to do that. One of the things I do is environmental reviews. So if there's a plan to put in like a kayaking launch site or something, we need to go out and we have people. There's three of us.

The other two guys are more plant affiliated. So they go out and look for rare plants and things. Then I'll go out and look, do frog call surveys or just give a general look at the site and see if there's any characteristics that we need to be aware of or if it's just not a good site. But you ride that line. Cause you do, I do want people out there. I do want people in these spaces because that's how you build that connection and really kind of have that conservation mindset. But also you don't want them to destroy like the highest quality natural area

you have in the park. Yeah. Yeah. Do you kind of steer them? Like, I mean, it seems like anytime you go to a national park or a state park, there's areas where it's just densely populated. You know, I go to Zion and my friend kind of got me into canyoneering and the canyons only have a permit for 12 people a day. So if you go down those canyons, you're probably not going to see anybody. And if you do see the maximum number of people you're going to see is 12. And so then you get down into the main canyon or something and there's 300 people you know walking up and down this canyon but i mean it's it's kind of

nice that they're kind of localized to certain areas and you know yeah people want to see it it's amazing and spectacular and i recommend everybody go see zion you know but um as a local and growing up and going there as a kid and not seeing those huge crowds and not having to wait in line to go up, you know, Angels Landing or something, it's kind of frustrating to me. But honestly, I think they should raise the prices. You know, they're letting these busloads of tourists in and they're charging the bus 80 bucks. But then my car has to pay 30 bucks. But there's only, you know, six people in my car and there's 100 people in the bus or whatever. It's just kind of a crazy thing.

In Australia, they charge you per head. So if you go into a national park, it's $50 a person. And so if you got four people, you're putting out $200. It's a pretty smart system there. But I don't know if it's, you know, what kind of impact that makes. But it's, you know, be interesting to see. So do you actively try to steer people away from those important places and kind of, hey, you got to check out this part of the park. It's amazing, you know. It totally depends.

And I'm just getting my footing and doing the environmental reviews because there's a lot of land to learn we have 22 parks and 18,000 acres which doesn't sound like a lot but for a highly urbanized county like cincinnati ohio is not a small like 2.2 million people in the in the greater cincinnati area it's a lot of it's a lot of land to manage and i need to learn those things and then there's a mill creek which is like a river it used to be the most polluted creek in the states uh like like 40 years ago but yeah i'm only saying that because uh on one side of the mill creek versus the other there's in completely different like geology and you don't see as much like limestone on the other side so cave salamanders you don't find them east of the mill creek and but you do find like what is it slimy salamanders and a whole host of other things so uh it's just taking time to get

to learn those and and understand what they want but yeah i mean i'm always probably no one uh hopefully they don't listen but i'm probably going to be a little more protective of the higher quality areas sure and make sure that we at least evaluate the lesser like lower recreation kind of areas the ones that we've determined are are much more disturbed already or already have ecological impacts that um disturbing wouldn't do it but i mean sometimes you know you just compromise as best you can we don't have ultimate say and we just provide guidance and i'm just happy that they at least include us into those because a lot of park systems do not. Yeah, that's cool.

That sounds like a rewarding job. That's pretty sweet. I'm totally digging it. Yeah, I'm surprised how much I like it. I mean, I was worried because you spend 18 years as a zookeeper and you started thinking, what else can I even do? You know, how do those skills translate? And somehow they did. And I'm really digging it. Yeah. Yeah. That's very cool. Yeah. Rob and I are about ready to head out to Australia. So I've been in the thick of planning.

I'm I'm staying an extra week and headed out to the east kimberly and so i'm just like getting really pumped up and getting excited to go out and explore a new area and kind of seeing if i can learn stuff ahead of time but it always seems like once you get boots on the ground and it's different than you picture imagine or even remember i mean the last time I've been in the Darwin area has been since 2011. So over a decade ago, you know, and so I'm trying to figure out where we went in certain areas and I can't figure it out on the map anymore.

I used to be able to like see, okay, there was that gap in the rock and here's this tree that we looked at, you know, that kind of thing. I can't find it for the life of me now. And we've been having that same conversation for yeah i don't know seven years we're trying to figure that out you just gotta go more often you're telling me like oh we went this thing and i'm like okay on the front end taking it in and

then on the back end saying what are you talking about so that's to me that'll be the moment of the trip regardless of whatever's we're gonna go there yeah what is it you're trying to tell me yeah you've been trying to tell me here it is here for the six years what is what you're trying to tell me right yeah that'll be a hopefully a moment of not confusion and like wait a second i swear it was right here you know i hope we can resolve this that's the point of that but um i don't know i I just seeing all the potential for different species and new, you know, monitor species, I'd like to tick off the list. And, you know, that'd be really cool to see. And I think there's a bunch of new ones that I haven't seen. Some that I should have seen by now but didn't i think the main thing was too that um my trip in 2011 was um kind of a whirlwind and it had some negative connotations i was dealing with somebody who stole a bunch of books from me and it was looking like i was gonna lose ten thousand dollars and have to pay it to the you know i was and i was didn't have that kind of money. Yeah, it was horrible.

Yeah. So my experience in Darwin was not as favorable as Rob's. Rob went there and had a fantastic trip, found all the pythons aside from one. But the most rare and difficult to find, he ticked off the list. So hopefully they'll bring that magic again this year and we can have lightning strike twice but um should be a fun trip this will be my first time in australia with with rob and eric and keith and yeah we've done i don't know in the last what since covid right we've done i think i was looking at this the other day but not necessarily yeah exactly on something like nine or 10 trips.

You've been, you and I at least have been together. Yeah. Yeah. In the U S and yeah. Yeah. It's been a lot of fun herping with Rob. He plans a really good trip. So I'm looking forward to another one.

Especially. Double dipping a little bit. You're going to be looking up in the trees for birds and stuff. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And for mammals and for anything you know insects interesting insects i mean i'm not i'm not as uh versed in those but and you know the birds it's like i just take a picture and id it when i get home if i can't figure it out there but yeah there's so many i mean the last

herp trip i went on to south australia saw, I think, 42 reptile species or something. I just put up a trip without pictures from my trip of all the reptiles and stuff. Not all of them, but most of them that we found in South Australia on my webpage, AustralianAddiction.com. There's a visits page. And so I just put up that, uh, link to the 2023 trip in October. And, uh, we saw, yeah, 40 something, I think species of reptile and amphibian. And then, um, I saw 90 species of birds. So doubled the amount of reptiles were the birds, just a really cool diversity. And I mean the, and, and that wasn't

my primary focus. So, you know, there are probably many more species I could have discovered if I would have been focused on birds or going to bird spots rather than reptileking. Yeah, yeah. No, I have on my pack list to bring a mask and snorkel so I can go jump in some of these springs and look for turtles because I've seen some pretty cool. And also there's a place in Western Australia where you can swim in these gorges that have freshwater crocodiles and go swim with a freshwater crocodile and Lake Argyle. So I'm pretty excited to to try that out and see if i can swim with a croc and get some uh underwater footage or something like that so

should be fun to go to that island where they have the quokka um i've been there with have you oh my gosh yeah i think i got a selfie with one too or got some fun pictures they're they're cool cool animals rottenest island out out and off of Perth. I highly recommend it. We also found the endemic shingle back there too. The rottenest Island shingle. Oh my gosh. Cool. We only saw one, but then after I got home, there was this, you know, news report or whatever of a smuggler that had gotten caught with like 20 or 30, you know rotten

island shinglebacks in his bag i'm like come on that's why you only saw one yeah yeah just see one we didn't see numbers but on this last south australia trip we saw probably 40 shinglebacks um in in the two weeks we were there insane and i and i i geeked out over every single one of them it's like it's another shingle back. I'm like, I'm, I'm getting, I'm getting pictures. I'm checking it out. I'm moving it off the road or whatever, you know, I wanted to, uh, they're, they're just such cool animals.

You just don't, I didn't get sick of them. I was the Australians that were with us. They're like, it's just, it's just a shingle back, you know? Uh, but yeah, just a single next as the Australian, right? Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're they're the most common lizard we saw down there were shingle bags it's pretty insane and i'm sure it's a you know seasonal

thing this was just the right timing where they're just coming out in full force but yeah we rescued one that was it was in this uh uh pond in like a slick rock depression and it couldn't get out. It was too slick. So it would crawl up. It was out of the water, but like it looked like half of it was dark, you know, where it had been soaking in the water. Cause it just couldn't get further out. And so we pulled it out and put it outside it back into the gorge. But I'm like, you saved his life. We saved a shingle back. Yeah. You get to remember that forever. That's why I save a life, you know?

Absolutely. Speaking of which, so two points out of this discourse that I want to highlight is the first being your visits page is fantastic. Truly, I really appreciate that it exists. I wish you would still do your long form narrative. I know. I know that's not practical. So I do. But I do really think it's awesome.

I thought about bringing back the long form for this upcoming Australia trip just because I'm hoping to kind of write as I go or journal as I go. So it's a little less tedious to put together. It's just typing it up. It's not trying to innovate. Yeah. tedious to put together it's just typing it up but it's not trying to innovate yeah exactly the second thing this is towards you ryan is being in cincinnati i feel it'd be a dereliction of my duty here particularly on a fighting podcast if i didn't ask you about your thoughts on chili so listen skyline chili is absolutely nectar of the gods is it chili i don't know it's more of like a like a sauce um but it's so so good have either of you had it yeah absolutely they sell it in the

can at the grocery no worries yeah it's good but it's not the same as fresh especially when you get that finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese yeah well. Well, you can get it. There's a hamburger chain that also you can order it. You know, steak and cheese. Something like that where they sell it to, you know, in the same press. Is that Skyline? No. Well, I mean, yeah, Cincinnati style. Yeah, there's a lot of recipes, but it's, you know, my favorite is Skyline chili.

There's some other good ones, but Skyline is so freaking good. And I'll fight you if you say it's not. I'll have to check that out. I've never heard of the Cincinnati chili debate. Oh, I mean, it's a whole thing. Really? I think the biggest gripe is that is it chili? And I probably not, but it's more of a it's a

delicious um sweet and savory sauce meat sauce that's just phenomenal cool i'll have to i'll have to check it out i've never been to cincinnati so i might have to remedy that and come find some rough green snakes with you sometime oh yeah rough green snakes not too far north we get some smooths and find some kirtland snakes as well cool those things are awesome yeah yeah that'd be fun so that's kind of a goal is to you know try to find as many species as i can regardless of where they're at or whatever it's yeah it's pretty fun all right well um we we brought you you had the idea to discuss this topic and you were kind enough to reach out and share it with us and even more kind to come on and fight with us. So we really appreciate you coming on. We're

going to talk about the four inch turtle rule. So that's been in place for quite a long time. I'm sure you can give us some nice history and background on that a little bit as we start here, but we'll go ahead and flip the coin. We're going to talk about whether or not the four-inch law is out of date and not useful, or if it still has some helpful impacts. So does that sound like the topic you posed? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, it's a topic. Okay. There's good arguments on both sides. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think this is a really interesting topic to discuss for sure. All right, we'll go ahead and flip the coin and let Rob call it here to see who gets to fight with Ryan.

Tails. Tails. It is Tails. You're back on your wind tear here. Back on the game. Yeah, it must be because you're in podcast headquarters there. I think that's right. Certainly, it's a nice vibe.

It feels very spacious. Yeah. But comfortable. Great sound quality, too. Oh, wow. Well, fair enough. You know, clearly work has gone into this that hasn't on the other end. But that's all right.

But I think given my state, I will defer and then jump in as I'm wanted to. Oh, defer. All right. And you two can talk through it. And then, yeah, I'll try and give helpful – as a lawyer who has taken a class on federal legislation and all these things, I'll try and give helpful as a lawyer who is taking a class on federal legislation and all these things. I'll try and give helpful hands to either side as appropriate. Nice. Okay. All right, Ryan, you go ahead and call the next one and we'll see what side you take.

Heads. Heads. It is tails. You have lost. I will take the side that it still does some good. Okay. We need that four-inch law. Okay.

Sounds good. And I'm going to have you go first, and I'll have you maybe put a little background out there. So, yeah. Right. So, you know, the four-inch law has been around for almost 50 years now. It was in 1975, and it was in response It was in 1975. It was an outbreak, a serious public health issue. By 1971 or so, 4% of households in the United States had a pet turtle. 15 million turtles were being sold a year from turtle farms. Louisiana alone had 75 turtle farms. And between 1970 and 71, both those years combined, there were 280,000, more than 280,000 salmonella infections reported that were associated with turtles.

And they can do DNA fingerprinting to kind of show that. So there may have been even more. But in response, they found that most of the people who had these salmonella infections were children. Not all, but a lot of them were kids under five years old and infants. And so in response, they decided that they wanted to ban the sale of turtles that were under four inches in carapace length and because red ear sliders were popular i think we've all seen baby red ear sliders about the size of a quarter absolutely adored it's not their fault but they're adorable little turtles just the right size yeah um and you know a lot of it goes to

people kids putting turtles in their mouths i think about that a lot um but that's not the only thing i mean um the specter anyways we'll get into that later i just need to give you the background see i i'm digressing already but um they did see a huge decline in like 77 percent decline over the next like four years in salmonella cases and it did seem to kind of hold true and that has been there and not been amended and that law is still intact today boom yeah 77 i mean that's that's a huge decline right that's a very impressive decline yeah very it obviously had an effect but is it but is it outdated at this point? The reptile hobby itself, from what I remember, at least a 2011 number, is more than $1.2 billion a year industry in reptiles and amphibians.

And is this four-inch law now, is it having a hindrance on commerce on breeders? Yeah. You know, is it time to repeal this and, and, or amend it in some way it might be. So I think that it's, we should talk about that. And yeah, well I think jumping off of that the fact that you, you know, you said that 4% of the population had it, and that was about 8 million people. And if they're selling 15 million turtles and, you know, 8 million people are buying those turtles, sounds like there might be some repeats. And I think there was a very high mortality rate for those little turtles. You know, and back then the kind of the the reason they were being sold in such high numbers is they would have this little bowl they call, you know, a turtle bowl or whatever. And they'd have this little quarter sized turtle in there and they would sell that for what a dime for the turtle and probably 25 cents for the bowl or something like that. You know, very cheap, basically promoting that kind of idea of here's a throwaway pet, you know, take this home, enjoy it, put it in your kid's mouth. And then, you know, when it dies, just flush it down the

toilet, you're good to go, you know, and I think from that perspective, I'm all for the law, you know, banning the sale of those small turtles, especially considering the conditions that they were sold in then. Now, is that outdated now? Maybe so. Would that happen again if they repealed the law and allowed the sale of those baby turtles? Who knows? Maybe they're going to bring back those disco shoes with the turtles in the heels, swimming around for as long as they can stay underwater or whatever. Maybe that was just goldfish. I don't know if there were actual turtles in there. Yeah. So I think from the perspective of, you know,

keeping those turtles happy and healthy, that probably was a beneficial thing. You know, then the turtles are gaining a little size, a little age, a little tougher, harder to, you know, kill. But that could also have some negative implications that I'm sure, you know. Yeah, let's talk could also have some negative implications that i'm sure you know the yeah let's talk about one of those negative implications um so like i like i mentioned there were over 75 turtle farms in louisiana alone producing 15 million red ear sliders um once

that ban hit i mean they were still producing a lot of sliders um and those sliders need people needed to make their money. So the commerce, after a short break, started switching and these turtles started going abroad and being exported. And now the red-eared slider is one of the top 100 most invasive and problematic species in the world. So there is all the reason to believe that this four-inch law, not coupled with other restrictions or regulations, contributed to the decline of a lot of other turtle populations and a lot of habitat degradation because of these turtles. Yeah. Do you know if there was any kind of grace period or whatever you know because like you can't just make a law and then say stop now you know like you said they're still they're farm they're producing they're not just going to have this the off switch happen that quickly do you know if there was any kind of um you can continue to sell but you have to decline over the next 10 years or it was it was an immediate ban i don't think it was immediate

but i don't have the actual answer to that i didn't go that far into it a lot of but there are some laws i mean they don't just say like oh tomorrow is when it goes into effect but there are some that's like you know a year from now um that's the hard stop and then that's still not a lot of time right if you are a if you are a part of these this large commerce chain and to make those changes, it comes quick. And then, yeah, a lot of times it is, it is just a hard line. So, um, you're, you're forcing people to, to choose a different route. They didn't really have many options, but, um, one of the bigger problems I see now with the four inch turtle law is, um, you see these articles that says there's an outbreak. I don't know if you saw one and there's been

outbreaks uh there's been articles in 2007 11 14 and 2024 documenting these different outbreaks and it's um you know i have people who comment you know more more people got uh salmonella from cucumbers than they got them from turtles yeah and but what is an outbreak you know and you know an outbreak is basically and you can probably correct me on here because you might have a little more experience like that i've got a page open up from the cdc right now from a salmonella outbreak on august 16th 2024 51 sick 51 illnesses 23 of those were hospitalized over 21 states. So, I mean, not huge numbers. It is an outbreak technically because it is where cases of a disease are more than expected in a specific location or time period, basically.

And so, yes, it is an outbreak, but it is a little bit of propaganda-ish. It's a little bit alarming and fear-mongering. And that doesn't help the case. I mean, you look in two years in 1970 and 71, you saw 280,000 cases. And in 2012, you saw 473. So, you know, and so I mean, what's, are we tracking tracking this and are we making our best evidence driven decisions with this law? Right. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's, you know, just looking at this page, all the salmonella outbreaks that I'm seeing, it's eggs, which was like around the same number of cases as the turtles. There's one bearded dragons, cucumbers, like you said, backyard poultry, fresh basil, charcuterie meats, cantaloupes, dry dog food, fresh diced onions, and another small turtle outbreak. And this one was 80 illnesses and 32 hospitalizations, no deaths, you know. So, I mean, it happens, but there, there's a lot of

sources of salmonella, Rob. Yeah. And that data is, I'm sorry. Yeah. I saw your hand up. Well, I was going to say, Justin, deferring to you here to give the context on this, but is salmonella one of those things that's just sort of out in the world. And then in fact, it's sort of can, can be attracted. So there's externalities that are accounting for this i mean the the thing that when we're talking about data in terms of a limited uh sample size from the 70s when you mentioned that and you're saying oh cucumbers and all this stuff did we have the same level of tracking 50 literally 50 years ago on what like oh cucumbers are making people sick or is it is that whole turtle number maybe including some other externalities and things to you like that we didn't have, you know, just in terms of what that looks like?

Obviously, I mean, it's hard for me to imagine. Justin, you were born. You're just born. You must have a take. You know, 1975. I remember. Well, you know, when that law went into effect, I shed a tear because I really wanted that turtle from the dime store. No, I mean, Salmonella is on a lot of things.

And we actually in microbiology class in my undergraduate, we I brought a snakeskin to, you know, the class and we we put it on some auger, different augers. And we had some really cool bacteria growing, you know, different colors and species and all sorts of stuff, very diverse. And so, I mean, there are these bacteria everywhere. Now, with salmonella, children and the elderly are much more susceptible. Like it would probably take Rob sucking on the cloaca of a bearded dragon to get a salmonella infection, you know. That's quite the visual. You got to quit that, you know, quit that habit. But, you know, it's quit that, you know, quit that habit, but you know, it's, it's,

it's, it's a little difficult for, you know, healthy adult to get salmonella that's fully immunocompetent. If you're immunocompromised, you might have an issue, but yeah. So, you know, you can get salmonella from a lot of places. You can get salmonella from petting your dog and licking your hands if you're a kid, you know. And that's the challenge is that kids aren't very good at washing their hands, you know. Right. develop immunity. And that's probably why we're not susceptible because we got exposed when we were younger. It's probably a dosage thing. You probably don't want to get a huge dose of salmonella and, you know, your bearded dragon poops on your hands and then you go grab your sandwich and start chomping away, you know, washing hands. And maybe, I guess this goes to your point, but, you know, maybe instead of passing a law saying no more four inch turtles, maybe pass a law saying if you have a turtle, you must wash your hands after handling it. You know, that that might be a little more effective in preventing salmonella is teaching people how you get salmonella and how you prevent salmonella.

But I don't know. I'd have to find the report. But before this law went into effect, they did try some sort of like educational outreach. OK. But it didn't. And it's hard. Yeah. Some of those earlier results may not have all been turtles.

But it is. You know, there is a pretty strong correlation with that law taking place, less turtles being sold and drastic declines in salmonella. So it's hard to argue with that. But I think the main point I liked, and haven't seen any any um validation through evidence here but like once a turtle breaks four inches it does it just stop producing salmonella no no like it's like you don't have to and kids you know they they don't wash their hands when a turtle is under four inches but once the turtle gets above four inches they start washing their hands better and practicing better hygiene. Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, the idea was that the turtle, once it passes four inches, doesn't fit into the child's mouth.

I mean, how would the children put turtles in their mouths? Like, I don't think that could happen. It was the 70s, man. The 70s. Anything, man. I'm a child of the 80s, and there's some things I can remember where I was like, Oh, I need to watch my kids for that. They should not be doing that. That was stupid. But yeah. I mean, and in some of that responsibility, you know, I guess because it's a public health crisis, I agree. I'm fine with what they did in the seventies and in enacting that law,

it's the data is there to support that. That was a resolution to a public health crisis yeah but is it still a public health crisis or now that i mean you've seen the results i mean in a bad year is 470 salmonella and what while i don't want anyone to get salmonella at some point the responsibility does not lie with the federal government. There is some responsibility that lies with the human beings who are caring for these turtles. And so there needs to be some way to kind of include that into the equation. But I think a lot of majors are really – go ahead, Justin. We've got our loopholes.

We say for research purposes only or for educational purposes only i'm going to educate my kids how cool turtles are so i'm going to buy this small turtle and but i i guess back to rob's question you know if if your kid has the opportunity to reach into a tiny bowl and pick up a tiny turtle you know the the chances of that child putting a turtle in its mouth when it's not you know the 70s know, your kids aren't being supervised, you know, they didn't have helicopter parents back then. So, but I'm sure they did just not as in the numbers they have today. But, um, so, you know, an education can only go so far it's it's. And, and I guess I think, you know, if they repealed this law and allowed the sale of those small turtles again, is it going to be good for the turtles?

And maybe that's not, you know, germane to this conversation, but, you know, are you going to end up having that same scenario where they're just selling millions of turtles on the cheap? The turtles are a disposable pet again. They're not cared for properly. I mean, if you're only spending a couple bucks because the turtles are sold en masse that are just hatched out in a wild swamp in Louisiana, are you going to have the same amount of care? And if compared to something that had to been fed and grown to four inches over time and it's going to cost a little bit more money, it be a little bit more of you know thought behind it rather than just like oh 10 bucks yeah i'll take five of them you know and well go home with a bunch of turtles here's the thing i mean it's 1975 was a long time ago um i know i'm looking how old i am i'm'm not far behind you. Do you see this beard? I mean, my temples are very white these days. The way they wrote this law, it was mainly towards shop owners and commercial.

I mean, one of the exceptions for this rule, if you can see,'s uh exception number two under c it's the sale holding for sale and distribution of live turtles and viable turtle eggs not in connection with the business that is an exception you can do that and so in the 1970s it's not like there was a whole lot of private turtle breeders compared to right now i mean even a 2014 study showed that the most popular reptile pet is a turtle and so they are so people still have them and there's a lot more breeders and now there are it's the internet and people are putting that on there and so these turtles are being sold it is just still happening but it's a it's a very difficult law to enforce because it's a federal law, but you're also trying to do state law. So what's the point of this law if it's not being enforced en masse or if it's not having some sort of amendment or ability to kind of grow and live with the country as it changes?

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I guess if there's that caveat that says if you don't have a business, if you're just breeding them in your backyard for fun and you want to give them away or you don't have to worry about that, is that kind of what I'm getting from that loophole or that part of the law? Yeah, it'd be funny to see how many folks don't have a business name real quick. Yeah, right. folks don't have a business name real quick yeah right i've got a i've got three animals and i'm i'm now this reptile company and uh oh no i'm not no i'm not no never mind associated with the business yeah i'm selling four inch turtles under four inch turtles that's my uh non-business name mr two inch turtle um but i think part of the reason they made the law so specific is because they were trying to be a little bit um cognizant of the the turtle the way the wordage they use are turtle fanciers um so i guess that would be a turtle fancier yeah and um so they wanted to

protect that market and things like that but um yeah i mean go to your local reptile shows you're gonna see under four inch turtles and do they have a permit to sell those for scientific and educational purposes it's just another one of those unenforceable laws do they have a permit to sell that did all if you're in ohio and you bring in animals into ohio to a show and you live in indiana did you pay for the 25 import permit into ohio when you sell that animal to each individual does it does a uh veterinary health certificate go along with that which is required for animals to be imported into ohio um it's just another very difficult to enforce law yeah and using it again these are geared towards commercial so i think there needs

to be more clear exceptions in the rule now right yeah and maybe that's the answer is the the turtle fence here gets to uh you know have that exemption from is for for uh selling those turtles or and you know i i i'm definitely in in favor of uh common sense laws you know that that help. And it's, it's so much easier just to slap a ban on it and then say, yeah, but you're right. If they don't enforce it, then what is the law without enforcement? And people just say, oh, I can get around this. And then if they, every once in a while, crack down and come to a show and confiscate, you know, turtles under four inches or tell you to take them off the table or whatever. I, you know, I've, I've heard of people at shows that have had the wildlife officials come around and say, Oh, those are under four inches. You can't sell those. So they put them under their

table and they put a little sign, say, ask me about my, you know, whatever species. And then, and then they, they ask, and then they say, yeah, I've got them right here under the table. Would you like one? You know, it's for educational purposes only. So there's there's definitely ways to kind of skirt the law. And but, you know, if that's not the if that's not the target of the law, if that's not the person that the law was created for, then I don't really see too much harm in that. And, you know, it sounds like that's not what the law was written for. So maybe that's not such a bad thing and we don't worry about it so much, or I don't know. But I, I, uh, from, from the aspect of animal welfare, I, I definitely think it's, it's probably a good

thing to have that law. Although maybe now all those baby turtles are going to, you know, food markets or something and they're being made into soup somewhere. I don't know. I know cats and dogs are in threat throughout the country. Watch out. Right next door to me. Yeah, right. I see it.

Oh, yeah. I'm sure you've seen plenty of cats being devoured on the streets. Sidebar, I love the ALF memes that are floating around. Absolutely love them. Hilarious. Anyone give me a ride to Ohio? I mean shoot eat all the feral cats

if you're catching them outside eat them up I have no problem with that we're so particular invasive species let me start it my parents were living in Ghana for a bit they had some folks come to the beach and,

and prepare a dog for, for their dinner. You know, like they, they brought it in on a leash and took it out in their stomachs, you know, like that was, that was normal. Like, that's not a big deal for a lot of people, you know, in different countries, islands, that kind of thing. So, you know, if it happens maybe once or twice, it's probably not too big of thing um so you know if it happens maybe once or twice it's probably not too big of a surprise you know until they're informed that that's that's a horrible capital offense here you know i always i don't know i always use that as an example like

when people tell me oh you know oh you like snakes yeah i killed a snake the other day it's like what other animal can you do that with you know yeah you like you like puppies oh i you know yeah you can't even say it won't even do that for turtles yeah right like you did what to a turtle unless it was a snapping turtle then they definitely like did you hit it yeah except that that uh dickhead country singer guy that on the voice or whatever yeah blake shelton i yeah it's one of those things i'll never forget was that 2013 or 14? does anyone know if box turtles are protected? because I just hit one, I was like, what? why would you? where's your PR person?

people like turtles okay now that I want to bring this point up because I'll forget it because it's late for us east coasters but I think one of the this point up because i'll forget it because it is it's late for for us east coasters yeah but um i think one of the one of the drawbacks of the four inch rule is you know people do

collect turtles there's commercial turtle harvest in the united states and now instead of these four inch turtles you're forcing people to harvest and commercially collect larger specimens that are far more important to these populations um taking out a large an 11 inch carapace female like snapping turtle is going to do absolute it's just going to wreak havoc on that population whereas if you take 30 baby snapping turtles it's probably not even going to have much of an effect if at all yeah and so you're kind of forcing the hands of other things that you're not thinking of to um that may have implications in wild turtle populations and i mean that's evidence as we are in a middle of a turtle crisis in the united states right now so that's just one of the factors that may or may not have contributed to it because i was not aware of that that's interesting because you know i i think of

the four inch law is kind of pertaining to production not to wild collections so that's really interesting so i guess the wild collection is for the the pet trade then or a little bit of everything um it's it's lowering in the united states pet trade but it's still the pet trade. People are exporting large amounts of snapping turtles, sliders, chrysanthemums, painted turtles and stuff, and they're still going out. And snapping turtle populations are falling. I mean, just in Ohio

for six months of the year, if you buy a fishing permit, you can commercially harvest unlimited number of snapping turtles as long as their carapace length is greater than 11 inches. that's my goodness um that's wild at least 11 that's why at least yeah so you're taking the absolute worst yeah animals out that you can and other states have that's another uh rabbit hole i could go down but other states are ending commercial harvests of turtles. Let alone taking only adult.

Or there are special permits for commercial collection, not in Ohio. It's a fishing license. You just can't shoot them. You can't collect via bow and arrow and firearms. At least there's that positive. Yeah.

I mean, that's a pretty compelling point. Like what you make there, that's probably the best point that I've heard thus far, at least to me, relatively compelling to me. I would say the other part that maybe needs to be factored into this, it would be talking a conversation around the specific genera or species that are involved, right? So that like, it's one thing if we're talking, you know, a lot of this comes down to price tag, right? And really goes to Red Eared Sliders and the sort of that 75 farms in Louisiana, right? And sort of what that scale looks like if we're talking about Red Eared Sliders, that if the four inch rule only applied to sliders,

how different does this universe look, right? I mean, you know know if you got a spot if you spend a few hundred dollars at the minimum on a spotted turtle you're probably not gonna have your you know it's not gonna be in a little fish uh you know a one gallon fish bowl uh your three year old's gonna reach in and grab and stuff in his mouth and if they do uh certainly that's happened a maximum one time you know like uh yes please let's not do that um so i i wonder if there's some if again that the we're using brute force rather than appreciating the the value of subtlety and saying like oh actually like it's these things that was the Louisiana stuff. So I don't even know.

I mean, it's so ubiquitous now. Where is the red-eared slider native to? Is it a Louisiana critter? I need to look that up. There are parts of Ohio where the red-eared slider is native. Oh, really? Okay. So it's a United States turtle, which I need.

It is a U.S. turtle, yeah. But presumably, if we're talking about 75 farms, either they're equipped to deal with Louisiana or, you know, that's within their range. I mean, that's just, it's a production question, right? It's a quantity, quantity versus quantity, the nexus of quantity and price. That's putting that at a point where it's really the highest risk. It's not to say there's no risk on other side, the spotted turtle, several hundred dollars spotted turtle.

Still there's a risk. But the nexus is really coming from the disposable pet category. Or at least it was. Yeah. How many, I mean, where, you know, a lot more about turtles than I do. What, what, what, you know, what are some of the species that are produced in numbers like that? Because obviously things like spotted turtles or blinding turtles or things like that are not going to produce that number, right? There are still quite a few red-eared sliders being produced because red-eared sliders have a lot of mutations yeah and some of these turtles are and i'm not much of a red ear slider guy but some of these turtle mutations are

absolutely stunning and that's where people are still commercially you know producing these guys but also like i mentioned turtles are the most common reptile pet in the united states at least as of 2014 and a lot of people breed and And so it may not just, it's not just about one species necessarily. It's, it's the aggregate of everybody. I mean, there's go to the, uh, just look online and you on Facebook pages and you will see lots of baby turtles hatching every day. Um, I produced, I don't know, eight this year and it was a nice it was a nice easy slow year so different than snakes um yeah but there are people who produce a lot more so i'm more worried about the aggregate um of that but um sorry i'm losing my train of thought here like i would not

advise them no right i mean in terms of when we're talking about a turtle turtle or tortoise that you keep as a pet right um like maybe i you know i think it'd be worthwhile to put in here based on your expertise some thoughts in terms of what that might look like in terms of a good option um you know a good versus maybe worse, it's just in terms of that what you have the, the, all the downsides of keeping tropical fish, right. Well, well also having a reptile that is quite, you know, you need to also deal with the land size. So to me it seems a disaster. So yeah.

Yeah. I mean, listen, the pet hobby is kind of a disaster still. We have, I think on the turtle side more than any any tax. But as a as a pet trade industry, we have a massive impact on wild populations. We just we just do. And I think that as long as we acknowledge that and work towards lessening that, that's that's the important part. It's OK that it happened. Well, it's not OK that it happened. But, you know, with turtles, I think provenance is very important. Where did your turtle come from?

Because there's a lot of turtle poaching. Yeah. But I'm losing track of your actual question. So I just kind of got sidestepped there. But, you know. It would be a good pet turtle. Yeah. Sorry.

Yeah. See, and I'm going to go down another road. But there's a lot of great, great pet turtles. I happen to, I work a lot with Knyxies, which are hingeback tortoises, and I think they can be really great. But if you're really looking for an aquatic turtle, one of the most fascinating turtles to just have and watch are mud and musk turtles. Almost any species. Well, I mean, there are some Mexican giant musks and things like that. They get pretty big.

But for the most part, these are small turtles who, like who like think about your eastern stink pot your eastern musk turtle it's really it is one of the coolest little turtles you'll you'll just ever see they're like little underwater mountain climbers they bask really high up but they love being in the water and they don't swim as much as they do crawl around and walk around and they're they're just a delight to watch and they don't get much i mean do they even get four inches well that's part of the problem too there are species that don't even get four inches and so these these turtles can never make it to somebody's home right yeah yeah exactly your turtle fans here that's your turtle fancier which i might need to change like my facebook page to the turtle fancier because I am digging it. Right.

That's a little turtle like AI picture with the pinky up. Yep. Exactly. With a little monocle on. I am the turtle fancier. You'd have to get another accent. Yeah. I think what we have to work on is getting some congruency with laws.

Yeah. Between federal and state and like there are laws that you can't there are states north carolina and south dakota you can't sell turtles that's just that you can't it cannot be sold offered for sale bartered any retail wholesale establishment you cannot buy sell barter or trade any species no uh maybe i guess if it's not buy sell barter or trade so it's kind of like an esa species yeah you know like you're making boas things like that like you can't sell it and you can't trade it because that is that has value so it just has to be something of no value so um if you trade or if you gift it to somebody, that's totally reasonable. And there are five states with salmonella-free laws,

like where you can't sell a turtle unless you have a health certificate that the turtle has been tested for salmonella, which is normal flora. So it's not going away. If they're shedding it or not, like you got it at a good time. How do you even measure? Like, what are you swabbing you know like that's just doing a cloacal and a coanal swab basically if you can get a coanal swab yeah right yeah how do you pry those beak open you know but yeah i think the the path forward is to

uh keep some aspects of this law but amend it and make it a little more common sense and that it grows. Yeah. One of the alarming things I saw is they did a big study in 2020, 2021, where they looked at how many four inch and under turtles were available. And they looked at 16 different websites and whatever, but only half of the vendors at most had anything to do, mentioned anything about the dangers of salmonella and turtles and being and i think that that's maybe we as a community need to be a little better about making sure people are aware of that you know i think as reptile people we probably take that for granted like yeah of course it's a reptile i probably had salmonella a couple times i don't know it just happened but been exposed at least and and i mean really like if having that rule at the point of sale that they can't be positive at the point of sale like that seems ridiculous because i mean if they take them home and they don't clean them out for a couple months and it's just this you know disgusting

ooze that they're swimming around in the guaranteed that's just like a pot of salmonella stew so you stick your finger in there to pick your turtle up and you're you're exposed to you know that's that's a big danger for sure and my understanding of bacteria is that they have blooms it ebbs and flows there's there's times where you could test a turtle five times a year and it'd be totally negative and then you test it a day later and it's swimming around but um some of these other state laws that again are kind of in there are three or yeah three to five states and in areas where if this is this is real i'll read this uh um sorry sorry i went to the wrong place but there are laws in place where if your turtle if you can enter like in connecticut someone can go in and law enforcement or whoever enforces these laws

because they're not being enforced yeah they can go test the water of your turtle tank and if that water tests positive they can humanely euthanize every single turtle in that they can destroy it oh my goodness and now they just need to apply that to all animals because i mean you can detect salmonella in your dog are they gonna destroy a dog because it has salmonella i mean that's a risk you know right because it's a public health health risk so there's there needs to be amended like here is for example connecticut law specifies that after a state or local health department examines a turtle tank uh should a single such examination show the presence of salmonella organisms all turtles in the tank shall be

destroyed oh my goodness that's our same district of columbia and oregon and like it's it's it's really wild but it's just adding on to some of these laws that they really need to be evaluated but yeah who's gonna do that like who wants to be the legislator that removes and obviously shown to be effective health crisis measure yeah um and then what if salmonella breaks out like for real you know five years later that person is you know they're dead their political right career yeah they're not their political right career but they can amend it i don't think it needs to be i don't think it's feasible to get rid of it um completely but it needs to change it is outdated in there yeah well and i think that's the the key is right is states can amend those laws and have local ordinances that allow for certain things or you know know, common sense things,

not destroying an animal because it has a common bacteria that's associated with it at a certain time. That's just ridiculous. And that's, that's probably one of those things that was put in because they found some hoarder that had 500 turtles and, you know, in a stock tank in his backyard and it was just disgusting and the turtles were suffering. So they went, oh, I bet if we make this law, that'll prevent this from ever happening again. in a stock tank in his backyard and it was just disgusting and the turtles were suffering so they went oh i bet if we make this law that'll prevent this from ever happening again yeah just someone

near the long island sound that if all 500 of the turtles got out it would just plummet the uh the the diamondback terrapin in colorado you can't even bring in you can't bring in a turtle that's less than four inches it's unlawful as a state to add on to federal. So there are states like in Arkansas, they've turned the four inch rule into a six inch rule. Oh, wow. Yeah. No stink pots for them. Ever.

Yeah. No kidding. So, yeah, obviously there's things that should probably be amended or removed or changed. But, yeah, that's really a struggle with government to, to, uh, change and make for common sense laws. I have seen it in Utah. They've made some pretty good changes to the rules and regulations that have allowed, you know, people that are really interested to be able to work with certain species that they couldn't before. So that's, that's encouraging, you know, and some

training and things to get a permit to be able to collect certain species and, or any species for that matter. And, you know, getting that permit is pretty straightforward online. You just have to take a quiz that shows that you're competent and you know what you're doing and you're not just collecting this for fun or whatever. So kind of nice to see that can happen now yeah if it will happen in the future that's the other question well those are things that we as private hobbyists and herpeticulturists can help with i mean we we don't all take very good data and records but that's what it takes to change laws right um so like just right here, item D petition, the commissioner of food and drugs,

either on his own initiative or on behalf of any interested person who has submitted a petition may publish a proposal to amend this regulation. Any such petition shall include an adequate factual basis to support the petition and will be published for comment. If it contains reasonable grounds um for the proposed regulation and this did happen in 2007 louisiana turtle farmers yeah tried to sue the federal government to to change it over because they and you'll you may laugh at this but they swore that they had salmonella-free turtles, that they could guarantee salmonella-free turtles.

But the data, surprisingly, was not there. And so the amendment was heard. I mean, and then it did go to court, but it did not go into effect, and the law is still there. But that's a good start. We just need stronger data, I think, to overturn it. And also, you know, I said I was going to be tired this late and here I am jabbering, but you know, it also restricts the import of turtles. So if you're trying to establish assurance colonies and get, um, genetic strength from populations outside the United States, you know, you're not going to be able to bring in young young animals those folks are going to have to wait and and keep those animals um and raise them up that's why uh russian tortoises very very commonly imported you never see imported baby russians for sale because that's not legal but they're always at least four inches so go and again you know that just impacts the wild

populations and diminishes the number of reproductive animals in the system and in the wild. That's crazy. You know, I wonder how long that can persist or it's insane. Gal. Yeah, I guess I'm speechless. You really educated me on a lot of things it's been really eye-opening to see just what in this law entails and i honestly i didn't do as much research into this as i probably should have as far as the law goes and seeing you know you see you think of it

as a simplistic thing like no every time yeah that's it but man there's so many different caveats and depending on what state you're in and what city you're in in some cases and it's just crazy like yeah and that's why with that i can't i don't like seeing comments like this rule is terrible and needs to be gone it's like maybe part of the rule maybe not but which which part and but can you acknowledge there are good parts and can you acknowledge where it needs to change and how should we change that and what evidence do you have that you think we could get to change it like don't just say that crap like put some back it up back it up you know and i think you can but i think that there's a lot of data to be had from from us as herpetocultures

so i think that we could work towards something like that but yeah and i'd be curious too like you know if there if there are certain species like the red-eared slider i mean obviously that's not a great pet turtle it's it's much too large for most people to keep inside in a tank or whatever there's not very many tanks that are big enough and um and and it often leads to people releasing the turtle and the turtles surviving and establishing populations outside of their natural range, which is not good. And I mean, yeah, Utah, there's red-eared slider populations. We've never been a part of the natural range, historical range of those. So, yeah, that can be problematic. So, um, No, I should throw in because, uh, I don't want to piss off any, uh, ready or slider breeders,

but they can make great pets. They really can. If you're prepared, I think a lot of people are not prepared and you see it. Like you said, like I said, you go to a show, you, you're still going to see a half dollar size ready or slider for sale and different mutations and things like that. And, and they look cool as heck. And you know you're gonna make that impulse buy i mean red hair sliders like six dollars yeah like a normal kid so someone wants a turtle like and you're a parent that's like six bucks and a five dollar stupid tote like right let's bring that sucker home if it dies it dies yeah and and that's that's my biggest concern with this is, you know, by eliminating that aspect of it or it's going to be more of an impulse buy for

a whiny kid that's going to lose interest in a couple of weeks, you know, for the most part. I mean, there's definitely exceptions to that, of course. And I think all of us have probably been in that boat. I mean, when I was a kid, I wanted a Burmese python and I got a Burmese python and it was not a great pet for you know my household that tried to eat my brother and yeah no i i was that that uh very mature kid walking around the neighborhood with the big snake around my neck and having old ladies chase me out of their yards and stuff you know get that out of here but so no not to encourage that but i bet that was cool oh yeah yeah very i was the coolest kid well and and i i did grow out of it about age 12 so you know like seeing seeing full-grown adults doing that it's like okay we're

we went wrong here somewhere yeah so i and i i think you know we we put those childish things behind us and we we mature and we understand you, what it is to responsibly keep a red-eared slider or a Burmese python or something like that. And it seems like the most difficult pets, like, you know, a green iguana or a sulcata tortoise or whatever, they seem to be the most productive. And, you know, they just have so many offspring and they start out very cute. I mean, there's nothing cuter than a baby sulcata. They're just gorgeous little tortoises. And to be quite honest, they're super awesome as adults. Oh, yeah.

Those are critically endangered in the wild. Yeah, right? It's insane. Sulcata, tortoise, ice, and redless. Yeah, I mean, it's tragic. But at the same time, I mean, yeah. How many people can handle and effectively contain a small bulldozer that has a mind of its own and wants to dig through and break through every barrier that you put in front of it? So what third largest species of tortoise on the planet? Yeah. And how many outlives everybody like? Yeah. Yeah.

You just put an air tag on it it's fine yeah it's all good tie a balloon to it and it'll be good you know where it went that's what i do with my kids get the air tag well i tried the air tag with my dog and he just ran too far away so i couldn't couldn't track him effectively with the air it's like that didn't work at all my air tag my kids like backpacks i don't know oh man i see this shit going on you're like i need to know where at least your backpack is i guess but yeah anyways yeah i need that backpack back it costs a lot of money i really need it okay um yeah yeah this is a tough topic because there are good sides to it i mean we need i mean i could argue either side and i think there's merits so well speaking of that were there any uh you know pros of keeping the law that you can

that that we didn't bring up that you could or i think that um i think we covered a lot of it there are I mean there are a couple studies that show that regulating the sale of small turtles likely remains the most effective public health action to prevent it so it's hard to argue with data but

you could take a hard look at those papers and someone who's capable of that. And I think the only other thing that I could really throw out there is that it costs a lot to treat salmonella. In 2012, there were eight multi-state outbreaks and 473 illnesses were reported. And it costs about $2.8 million in medical care, medical costs. So that was just 473. So saving money on medical costs, that could also be some economic boom.

Yeah. People spending money. Pumping that money into the health care system. They need it. They need it. Yeah. The insurance companies, we need to enrich them and keep them strong you know what would this country be without those insurance companies

you know you're touching a lot of good stuff too yeah no i mean this was really enlightening and um i'm really happy to have an expert on here to that knows this stuff you know and understands turtles and and this law and how that impacts a lot of things. So thank you so much for coming on and posing that, uh, topic for us has been really cool. I had had that on, on my list of topics to talk about and just, I, Chuck was always, nah, we don't, we don't have the expert, you know, expertise to talk about that. So I'm glad you volunteered to come on. I'm like, I don't know why I didn't think of you before, you know? It's okay. I wasn't planning on coming on. I just wanted, cause I was like, I don't know if I want to defend either side of this

because it's so controversial, but I was like, yeah, I should, I should, it's going to force me to do a little more of a deep dive into it. And probably selfless plug here um selfish plug here is we're probably going to do a deep dive on this on an episode of let's talk turtles it's a podcast myself and and tom arbor yeah um so you should definitely check out that podcast yeah i i have it's great yeah not you know i'm not much i i love turtles and i i don't keep any currently but i've kept you know some russian tortoises in the past, but I had a desert tortoise. That was one of my first pets as a kid. Yeah. It was really sweet. It was a beautiful animal for sure. But I,

and I love going and find a mountains Southwest corner of Utah. And one of my favorite finds is to just sit and watch a tortoise walk by, you know, it's great. Yep. We have a whole episode with Luke Basulto of the desert tortoise council. A desert tortoise. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah yeah i have listened to a few few episodes but probably not as many as i should have yeah yeah but it's really good it was really entertaining yeah well and you know you think oh i'm not a turtle guy so this isn't for me but it is i mean i think having that broad understanding of different reptile groups can never hurt you know and it

kind of it builds connections between the two groups because we kind of be you know we kind of tend to be a little tribalistic and well i'm a snake guy i'm a python guy so i'm not going to talk to kluber guys or turtle guys or you know lizard people they're just they're just out there they're just weird you know i i gotta stick to my politicians they're the lizard people and the crab people right the lizard people it's good i'm glad that we got uh we got to talk about turtles on one of npr network's uh podcasts right yeah i know that's you should come under the umbrella we could fold you in and have a turtle wing of the npr podcast i'm not totally opposed to it but i really love where we're at right now. I pay

like, yeah, it works. I love talking turtles. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. And, uh, we, you know, I, I think all of us could stand to learn a little bit more about turtles. I, I do like the Kinexus and I really got kind of did a little bit of a deep dive on Kinexus and cause they're just, I can't remember the species now but it was just beautiful i saw one of the show and i'm like oh man i i really want to buy that but i've heard some of you know especially the wildcats stuff can be very difficult and so i thought well i'll look for a captive bred you know and they're they're a little bit fewer and further between but i think more expensive but uh but it's worth it just like with captive

bread anything like after but it's gonna unless you need genetic strength yeah to your population which i don't think there's anybody that like needs it uh yeah yeah go catch the bread yeah i if you're into the home cinch back well i'll hook you up but uh for sure for sure yeah and i i'm thinking i probably need to be like retired or something and do do a better better job i mean snakes are a little easier with my schedule you know turtles are well a little more you were born in the 70s so you're not that far away from i know right yeah sorry yeah wait that was so rude no that was very very well. As I'm a few years behind you. No, I'm looking forward to it. Like, I can't wait to be retired.

I can follow my passion a little better with the reptiles and herping and all that good stuff. I mean, my dad, he's retired and he's like, man, you do more trips than I do. How are you doing this? Have a pretty generous PTO with with the university so it works out well yeah i'm jealous of you with the new job i had to start building up pto all over again and it's just like yeah it's a struggle i think i have like four months of sick leave saved up so i can i can get really sick of work and go out herping for four months and say yeah get paid for it uh well yeah yeah do you get out much herping uh aside from your job now or do you it's not as much as i'd like to but but i get

i get more than i've had recently uh through the job you know we do have 10 sites and and i've got a few more planned um yeah mainly looking for the the species who are listed in Ohio and how we can manage those. Like how do we create more wet meadows for Kirtland snakes? But yeah, it's one of that's another one. Right. Yeah. Should funding be available for common species? Yeah.

Yeah. Especially funding is only available for listed species. And how do you protect the ones and stop them from going? Keep the common species common. Yeah. Yeah. Especially is only available for listed species. And how do you protect the ones and stop them from going? Keep the common species common. Yeah. Because you're saying everything's common until it's not. Uh huh. Yeah. And I mean, even if it's if it once was locally common and now you never see it. I mean, growing up, toads were everywhere in my yard. Like I could go outside and catch 10 toads in a night, you know, I love toads. They're really fun. I mean, maybe seasonally, you know, they were more abundant in the spring or

when it was raining or whatever, but I could pretty consistently go find toads. And now you see a toad and you're really excited because it's a rare event and just kind of a sad deal, you know, the different viral things and fungus and all the bad things that are hitting our wildlife, you know yeah the different uh viral things and and fungus and all the bad things that are hitting our wildlife you know developments yeah yeah neighborhoods yeah you don't appreciate them until they're gone it seems and then you know some some cases it's very difficult to go back and i'm sure you're you're finding that with a lot of your work there. I am. And I'm feeling older. Cause I'm like back in my day. Yeah. Right. I can see.

Yeah, exactly. Damn kids get off my lawn. Yeah. All right. Well, yeah. Thanks again for coming on. What, where can people find you? I don't know if you want them to find you. Oh, you can definitely find you i don't know if you want them to find you oh you can definitely find find me um you can uh the let's talk turtles podcast is available on any uh major whatever you can also listen to them on rad uh hyphen reptiles.com um same as rogue reptiles right it's got that that dash in there that hyphen um you can definitely if you're if you like turtles and you want to talk about them more we have some pretty in-depth discussions like this on the let's talk turtles podcast facebook group okay so feel free to join and and talk with us nice nice i probably already

invited you somehow and uh yeah i'm on there yeah okay yeah sorry if i if you got a bunch of them i i just don't go on facebook very often but I made the mistake of going on after the debate and seeing the crazies come out of the woodwork. You know, yeah, I try to stay away, especially during an election year election time. It's just not so. The last four years have been a weird place to be on social media. I remember following some of your conversations about like how viruses work let's just say like yeah i was like yeah don't listen to this guy right yeah it's not like i have uh spent my life learning about this or anything it's crazy but what do you do i mean

you find those people that you know you tell them about turtles and oh they know more about turtles you know they've seen all these turtles and stuff. You couldn't imagine the amount of comments I got. I posted a picture of a cottonmouth and I made the comment like, oh, it didn't even chase me. You know, like it ran away from me or something. I had all these comments like, no, no, I've had I've had him chase me. You know, I'm a reptile guy. I know these things, you know, that it wasn't.

I'm like, OK, that's that's fine. Maybe you were out fishing and you had fish sent on you or something. I can't see that as an aggressive behavior, you know, like they're coming to try to bite you or something like that. Just like microdosing mescaline or something. We need to dispel that myth that they actually are trying to chase you in an aggressive manner. Um, not to say they thought they might, they might might you know they may have thought they could get a benefit from you like free feed or you know they hang out watching the fishermen or whatever but yeah it's man i like to have hope in humanity but you know you say a lie strong enough and outrageous enough and people are just like it must be true that is so wild it can't be right they're definitely eating dogs we gotta save those dogs and cats yeah

yeah and a lie what is isn't that isn't there a hitler quote that says something like a lie repeated often enough becomes yeah there's boy. Another conversation, but yeah. Yeah. I always, I always say be careful of those people trying to enrage you to get you to follow them. You know, it's like, don't follow somebody out of rage or anger. That's just not a good, good method. Seems to work pretty well for a lot of people. Yeah. All right. Well, yeah, that's, that's way off topic thank you for having me on it's been a pleasure yeah thanks for coming on and we'll we'll let you go uh it's

getting late there and i'm just rob's looking droopy there he's uh been out herping those 12 miles well 22 over the last two days yeah a little bit. Hey, it wouldn't be a trip without all day you know working on staff and then it had flown in overnight and eric picked me up at the airport at 4 45 in the morning and then we just met mike at you know we got over there by 6 37 something like that and then we just went all day and then we counted through it and came home and slept pretty good um but uh the funny part was we're driving over to meet mike it's an hour and a half something like that from the airport and uh he asks me he's like eric says oh yeah i haven't heard with mike and so we'd gone you know you went yeah i was like um yeah no you know i didn't have a strong take

for him or whatever and man i should have really highlighted that Mike totally lived up to a Rob trip. So on the, when we met him at his house, which was great. So we parked there. We all took the same vehicle. Didn't want to, uh, Pines pinstripe Eric's car again. So, uh, we, we took the car that Mike's willing to put through its paces and, uh, and he was like, Oh, you guys like spicy stuff. So we, we went to this bagel shop got the jersey bagel experience all this and he's like you know just trust me with

the order you like spicy okay trust me with the order and we had jalapeno cheddar bagel pork roll egg cheese all also amazing nice uh as we're driving to the spot the first spot the first of many in the same area that we'd been, you know, you and I have been previously, but different little areas and all this stuff. But that was at 730 in the morning. We next saw civilization at seven o'clock at night. Straight 12 hours of yeah um i remember i remember when i was taking pictures of the hognose that mike had asked the group of course i was preoccupied mike and asked the group hey do you want any of this jerky and that was his his sort of lunchtime offering was like, you know, a piece or two of jerky and, uh, you know, I, you know, I'm good.

I'm working on something here. And, uh, yeah. So we went for supper and had some stories about, you know, various things. It was great. Jason was great. It was awesome. You know, Mike was great. All this stuff. But, uh, yeah, we, he did a solid, you know, I guess the answer to Eric could have been, yeah, Michael put you through a solid Rob trip. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We had breakfast and then, you know, 12 hours later, maybe we'll think about doing something else. That's awesome. Yeah. You guys are warriors. I am a breaks guy. I need to have a break.

My favorite plan is just to go to the grocery store, you know, before I head out into the Outback and you'll ask Steve about this and he'll vouch for it. But, uh, we, we just buy like a case of tuna fish, you know, like a couple of cans for each day and then some granola bars for breakfast. And then, uh, you know, maybe a couple extra cans of tuna fish for dinner and just like that's all i throw you know survive on for the week is just some crackers and tuna fish for a meal and you know just eat when you can and herp herp all the time it's yeah i it's a way to way to go in my book but not a lot of people agree with that i don't disagree with it i just don't know if I'm physically capable of it. And he's like, you know, let me just take a break here. This looks like a really good log to flip over. I'm just going to sit down and admire it for a little bit. He's like, so the cool thing,

what you've got to do is you just have to look like you're looking at something and then you can take a break. You would be like, Oh, I'm studying this feature. I'm trying to evaluate whether I was like, wow, Keith, this is like you're working 40 chess here, man. This is crazy. Some extra advice. If you start learning plants, you ever gone on a walk with somebody who's botanizing while you walk? That's my dad.

You are stopping every five minutes that's all you have to be like did you know that this garlic mustard is uh really hitting this disturbed area and you're probably not going to see it i could i can make you stop but uh but then he's teaching and then you're like oh this is great yeah but can we get moving i don't care about elm trees that's you know that's the benefit too of like you know seeing a cool bird you know you stop and take a look at the bird and take a little break from flipping rocks or you know yeah looking down you have to be around the people are cool with it my wife and kids like hate going on walks with me did you hear that hold on yeah that was an

eastern peewee did you hear that I don't hear those around here much. Is this a shingle oak? Holy shit. You don't see shingle oaks here. That's awesome. You're my kind of people, Ryan. All right. Well, we'll let you go.

And thanks again for listening to Uptown Fight Club. We'll catch you again next time.