Reptile Fight Club - The Pros and Cons of Culling.

Episode Date: October 1, 2021

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

Welcome to the MGR Network. All right, welcome to another episode of Reptile Fight Club. We're fighting it out today. This is Justin Juliner, co-host, and with me as always is Chuck Follin. Hello. I can actually hear him this week, so that's good. We apparently had to redo this episode due to some technical difficulties, which magically fixed themselves with no work on my end so i don't know justin was saying it was on my end but i i claim that he just flipped his little switch and he fixed it so whatever it is i'm glad it's done

hey if i could have fixed it i would have i don't i don't want to re-record this i don't know it just it's hard beating up on you so hardcore and then having to do it all over again. Oh, don't you know it. I mean, listen, I'm the one with the lashings on my back. You just walk away with a smile, one coin toss and a smile. Well, yeah, so we're rerecording, and hopefully it'll work out a little better this time. We're nice and polished. We know each other's game now, so who knows how this is going to end.

Yeah. Yeah. So anything new? I can't remember what we talked about last time. No, I mean, not much new. I am after some Felsuma Barbonica. Oh, yeah. So that's kind of new.

I'm kind of probably another couple weeks or a month they'll be ready. But, yeah, I'm excited for that. Oh, yeah. They get the Manuel Van Hagen stamp of approval. You can't go wrong with that. Well, it's funny when you go on to iNaturalist that, you know, like when you look at who the photo credits go to, they're all Emanuel Van Hagen's photos. And I'm sure they're probably pretty sweet photos too. Yeah.

Oh, of course. They're a good picture. Absolutely. No, as a matter of fact, when I was looking at them, all I could think about was big old Emanuel Van Hagen down in the mud, like taking the photo. So, yeah, you put that iconic thought in my head when I was looking at those photos. So that was pretty funny. I got to witness that, man. I wasn't about to lay down in the mud, but he was down there to get the right shot, the right angle.

Like he was the real deal, man. And lucky you. I mean, I met him at NARBC. I, I, I mean, you got to actually herp with him and you're right. That, that booming voice and just his personality. And he's just, he's just fun. He's a fun dude. So yeah.

He talked to herpeton as well. So I got to listen to him. And that's where it stuck in my head. Borbonica. He repeated it many times. Cause I think that's, i think i'm pretty sure he said that was his favorite gecko so yeah well they're pretty they're pretty cool oh they're pretty cool so yeah yeah i'm surprised you didn't pull the trigger at the narbc we saw him in person

yeah no i well so you want to do research yeah i did i i did and um you know i don't know if you know john woodward but i got one one of my William's eye from him. And he he has five unsexed animals that he put up. And I'm like, I'm doing it. I'm just going to do it. So, yeah, he's he's man. He's he's killing me, dude. He's he's got some like another like a dactylist species that I was kind of like, oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yellow headed geckos. Those are kind of like oh yeah uh yeah yellow-headed geckos those are kind of cool i could do that too like so it's just like i don't know i feel like i'm falling down the rabbit hole when it comes to to to small uh madagascar and ish ish area geckos so um well it's hard to beat a nice day gecko they They're just nice to look at out during the day. Yeah. Well, and they do, they definitely do well in my room. My room's kind of like, you know, we talked about on the previous podcast, it's kind of that Terry Phillip middle of the road, you know, room and, and all those geckos seem to do really well in that, in that, in that middle of the road temperature. So it works out, you know? Um, and, uh, yeah, they're fun. They're active and they're fun to look at. So yeah, I'm, I'm really enjoying, I'm enjoying this dive. Yeah. Yeah. I got, got two clutches of eggs today. So from my, uh, um, clone geckos or my, uh, what's the scientific name i always space on that lepto or lubricus uh

yeah anyway they're they're cool and uh i'm i'm running out of uh egg laying site so i bought some um bought some more off of amazon there i'm using the um quarter uh roll they're like square tubes so they don't roll and then I can just set them on the, in the cage and they lay their eggs in there and it's worked out really nicely. So, um, yeah, kind of a, an easy way to do it. And then I can label, you know, the, the top side where, you know, to keep the orientation the same. And then I just take them out and put them in an incubation container, just take them right out of the cage. So they've been pretty good about just laying in there. They haven't laid them anywhere else in the cage. So that's nice. I've got a pretty simplistic setup.

Just, uh, I, I was, I had them in a really thick, uh, naturalistic vivarium and, um, they just weren't thriving and I couldn't monitor their feeding very well. And they were just kind of failing to thrive. And the, and the food I would put in there would get moldy really quick. And it was just not the best situation. Actually, one of, one of the original ones that I got, uh, died inside the cage. And, um, so, you know, I figured I'm going to set them up a little more simplistically so I can keep track of them. I think certainly the, those heavily, you know, heavily naturalistic, uh, planted vervariums or terrariums, you know, can, can be a little tough for that.

Just that reason is they're, they're so biotic and they've got a lot of, they got a lot of natural factors going on to manage and, and, uh, that, that can be tough. That can be tough. And I never really saw them. Like I probably should get some, I'm actually looking for a couple, uh, I've got a couple empty cages at work and I'm thinking about putting some stuff in them. And I, of course you are. What do you do with empty cages? God damn, you fill them.

Brody's got some, uh, some nice, uh, collared lizards. And I was gonna, I don't know. I'm, I'm still debating on that one. I wanted to pick up a pair and I'm like, well, he breeds them. So that would be kind of, you know, double duty there. So I'm not sure, you know, maybe I'll just get one and put it in there and just enjoy the one. you when are you going to get your uromastyx yeah all right i think i'd need more of a big you know more of a complete setup for those guys a larger setup so this is probably good and it might be a little on the small side for collards too so that's kind of making me pause a bit and yeah rethinking that but i i think i'd like to get some uh strophurus in there you know seeing some of of the strophurus ciliaris and some of the other species at the NARBC show made me think, well, maybe strophurus would be the way to go. Australian geckos, it would be on, you know, brand.

Kind of up your, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Still in. I never kept any of the strophurus, so that would be cool. I kept some oedura geckos for a little while, got some eggs out of theirs, but I never hatched any. So, and strophurus are kind of a little more day active. They come out and bask there that you see them more frequently. So I think that would be fun to have, uh, to, to watch from my desk at work. And I've got a, you know, roach colony in there, so I could feed them pretty easily and i actually uh threw some mealworm

beetles in there and so the the mealworms have been doing well in the roach colony so they'll go down and eat nice the roach food and eat the i don't know if they're feeding on you know the middens or whatever it's called the the feces of the roaches but they i see mealworms in there all the time and i see the beetles every once in a while so they're uh doing well it's kind of a nice joint uh uh colony of yeah roaches and mealworms but so anyway yeah that's kind of what's going on do you have do you have a hard time concentrating at work sometimes just watching your animals that you have there a little bit i would get distracted i think i would i think i would take i would take the time to take a break for that yeah i had dart frogs in there a while back and they were a lot of fun to watch.

Yeah. And I enjoyed that, but the fruit flies are headache. That's so fun. So that was not the best, but it was, it was really fun to watch that. And then I had a bunch of little cups with tadpoles, but those tadpoles take forever to morph. So yeah, that was a, like a long project, but I would like to, um, I I've, I've got some crested geckos in there and they just laid some more eggs. I have a couple of

colonies of crested and, um, got some eggs from my really nice red pair that I got from a grad student. Um, he left some eggs when he graduated and moved on. So, um, I've been, uh, keeping those and, you know, producing some here and there mostly going out to friends you know i don't really know the crested gecko scene and it's like uh some of those things i think oh man how are there so many crested gecko breeders and now here i am just adding to the mix but they're they're enjoyable species to keep and i think it's kind of cool like you know they're pretty close to australia so yeah kind of you know up my alley but um so they've been fun i'd probably had to get a pair of leeches or something just i yeah i've been i know i think i think i'm gonna try and sell my

wife on some leeches by kind of doing them like my daughter's pets kind of thing yeah yeah there you go yeah and the girls will totally love leechesies. Like that'll be like that. That's just, that's just their flex. So I see this as a, as a plannable win-win for the future. We'll have to see. I'll update you all later. That'd be cool. Yeah. Well, it's, it's about time for breeding season again here. I've been considering what I want to pair and how many I want to produce and how much work I want to have in the spring and summer. So yeah, no, I was kind of listening to the, uh, NPR with, uh, with, uh, Brandon Wheeler and they were just kind of talking about what they're going to pair and all this stuff. And I'm like, gosh, man, we are, we're right. Like we're here we go, you know?

So, um, with the geckos and it's a little different, they kind of are like, they just go pretty much all year and then they, they may cool down for the winter a little bit, but they're, uh, yeah, it's kind of funny how the difference between pythons and geckos, you know? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, yeah, they kind of take a break, a little break and then do it again. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you've always got another clutch or two in the, in the wings. I got surprised with another Amy clutch. I didn't think she was going to lay again. And so it was nice. So I've got those eggs incubate. That's the last eggs I have in my incubator. Sorry. I look back at my incubator when I talk about it. Is it there? There they are.

Justin doesn't fly by. Talking to the microphone, but, um, should um should we uh get to fighting here oh yeah all right well uh today's topic is calling should we or should we not call are there reasons we should or shouldn't call um we'll discuss kind of both sides of that topic and uh see see what see what comes out so uh we'll go ahead with the coin toss i i predict part i predict a giant ass whooping yeah well just just whatever you're gonna pick pick the opposite god damn it's like my my daughter she like when we go out into the reptile room every time she says he or her about a snake she always gets it wrong it's all ashley just can't get the genders right on my animals out in the reptile room it's so funny yeah i always know

like if she says it's a boy it's gonna be a girl or vice versa so i should just have her help me sex i'm gonna be like okay what's this one boy okay i'm gonna i should just have her i just should have her call the coin toss and then yeah whatever what opposite whatever she said uh might be opposite she might get coin tosses right she's that's true she is a jeweler that is true i apparently don't do coin tosses so well okay go ahead and call it all right heads and stay it's hails see no i believe you man it's just that's hilarious i don't know so you know don't go to vegas anytime no no listen so check it out so so when i was in high school right like i had this buddy jake and jake would like get into just these nefarious things and just completely

get away with them and i was And I was never that guy. You know what I mean? I would always get caught for stuff. So I've always been a rule follower. And this is why. It's because I lose 98% of the coin tosses that I throw. I don't gamble in Vegas. There's a reason for all this so

i you know i just i you know i i lay bare my luck uh for and and this is why this is why tracy is such a big deal for me because i don't have luck like that okay you know that's all skill and that's all it is yeah we'll see no luck. No luck involved. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I think, I think lightning strikes three times. I think you're, you can safely call it right.

If it'll strike, if it'll strike one more time and I get a clutch, then that's good for me. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. Well,

I, I think I will take the nay side. That you should not call. Shouldn't call. Yeah. Okay. I mean, or the, or the negative aspects of calling. And so, yeah, I mean, obviously I'll, and, and I'll, I'll defer to you.

So I'll shut my mouth and let you start. Sure. Yeah. Sure. All right. So, I mean, I feel like this is old hat cause we've, we've, we've done this show. So he knows knows he knows what i'm already going to say and he's he's smirked just waiting he's the trap is set yeah the trap

is set i'm gonna get my other leg chewed off here in a minute folks um so so why calling this is um is okay or or why we should uh you know i think that um it's a touchy subject uh the last time this subject really came to bear was uh back in the mp days sean christian brought it up and everyone lost their freaking mind over it and i understand I understand why people lose their mind over it. I mean, you know, and so I think first off, I would establish that culling is something that is probably a breeder only type of thing. I don't see any reason why, you know, your average reptile keeper needs to be culling any animals. And when you do think about culling animals, you want to think about, you know, how, how is that done humanely? I think, you know, Hey, you're taking my side here.

No, no, I'm just, I'm setting up. You're saying why we shouldn't cull. I'm setting some ground rules here before i go in okay just just just let me stake off my property line sir i'll try to be patient i just i'm just trying to snap yeah yeah spring that trap early i know i got you I know how you operate. I know how you operate. So all of that said, you know, I don't really see a reason for, you know, your average keeper to be calling animals. For breeders, though, I think, you know, we see plenty of neurological issues. We see snakes with problems. And I think, I do truly think that, you know, you can get animals

that, that, you know, through their line breeding or through their, you know, morph combinations become just not viable. And, you know, perhaps taking them out of the gene pool is the correct thing to do. I mean, I think you look into nature, you see that nature, non-discriminating, you know, no feeling, no apology will deselect the weak from the gene pool. you can see it on national geographic. Every time a lion takes down the weakest of the herd, um, or, you know, takes the easy, the easy prey, which is often the slowest or the sickest, or, you know, uh, sometimes the youngest. So maybe the young one takes it for the team, but, um, I think that's kind of probably how I'd start. Um, and I will just allow you to retort. Yes, exactly. Um, no, I mean, obviously that's kind of what I was, uh, gonna,

gonna start out with is, is that there are of course, times when you need to call an animal, euthanize an animal. And that's typically when there's severe disease, you know, if, if they're suffering and there's not much chance of recovery, um, then it's, it's probably a good time. Now it's difficult with reptiles because you don't usually know they're sick until it's, it's pretty far in. So that's kind of tricky to make that call, uh, because they do a good job of faking us out to show, oh, everything's great. And then, you know, two days later they're, they're crashed or they're, they're dead, you know? So, um, it's a little difficult to, to make the call. And, and, you know, I do think that if you,

if you have a sick animal, um, for the most part, you should try to seek, you know, veterinary help for that animal and not just put it down because it's an inconvenience now of course if you've got a giant breeding operation and it's your livelihood and all of a sudden you've got a bunch of animals that are are sick and it's spreading through your colony yeah obviously you know you need to put a stop to that and that's kind of more along the lines of farming or you know a big operation rather than a hobbyist or pet keeper. But, you know, say if I'm not a huge breeder, I've got a fairly manageable collection. If I have an animal that's sick, I have a veterinary, um, friends that can help me out with that. You know, I can take

them into the diagnostics lab up at my university and, and have somebody help me out there. Um, so it was, it was really convenient when I had a graduate student who was a vet because he could really come on over and check it out. He couldn't complain about it because I was a major professor. Right, exactly. Of course, I never forced him into that. Yeah, I see how you hold feet to the fire. But he was very nice and very helpful.

And I was nice to him. I let him use my male crested gecko to breed his females and stuff. But you bear trap your co-hosts. Yeah, exactly. Hey, man, this is Fight Club. This is Fight Club. No whining in Fight Club. There's no whining in Fight Club.

Yay! You're right. You're right. That's fair. That's fair. But so, aside from those obvious things, I mean, I think the first step is not to say, oh, it's sick. We better put it down. You know, let's, you know, let's try to get it some veterinary care.

So I would say there's probably relatively few reasons to call an animal. Now, should I let you go now or should i bring up another point no go ahead go ahead another point so i i think the the the thing that got everybody up in arms um on the forums was that you know he was talking about taking less desirable phenotypes and feet that are healthy and could make somebody a wonderful pet and feeding those off to like a king cobra or something you know that was kind of like the the attitude of like ah i didn't want these these aren't these aren't going to make me any money so i'm going to feed them off to a king cobra and everybody's like oh no that's not appropriate that's not the way to do

it and if you're gonna do it why would you bring it onto the forums and talk about it here you know it's yeah it would just seem to like like what are you know what kind of point are you trying to make here you know we like these animals we like carpet pythons we don't want to see them be food just because they don't have the gene you want they them to have you know they were like um not the the normal vert you know the normal offspring of coastal to, to Jaguar. Right. And, and he was, you know, wanting Jaguars. It's like, well, actually it's probably the Jaguars you should be feeding.

Yeah. I was just going to say that. Now I would say that's flipped. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so I think that's why everybody got upset and rightly so. I think that's kind of a, you know, I mean, unless you're just in it for the money and you just want to, you know, maximize your dollar and keep the most desirable morphs and feed everything off to a snake because you don't want to mess with it. Now, there's other avenues for that. We talked about wholesaling and things like that. So I think that's that's the vehemence. And I would side with that, that no, you don't just call an animal

because it doesn't have the appropriate genetic combination that you wanted. So I think to respond to that, um, I, I don't, I, I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not arguing against that, but here's what I will say is that, uh, you know, we feed off live rodents all the time. We feed off all kinds of other insects and all, you know, all manner of feeders. And we don't bat an eye at that because that's the cycle of life, right? And so, you know, the idea that you can take, you know, a snake that you produce and feed it to a blackhead or a Cobra or whatever shouldn't be for, for all of us, big boy, um, you know, snake breeders and, and, and animal keepers that, that shouldn't be, uh, uh, uh, you know, an over the line kind of thing. Now, should you

bring it onto a forum where everybody likes carpets and make it kind of an incendiary comment or thread? Like, no, probably not. You're probably not. You're going to get the wrong rise out of people. But just from a this is okay, but that's not okay kind of tact or whatever, I don't see any difference in feeding off a snake that you produced and, you know, feeding a rodent or anything else, you know, and, you know, maybe don't advertise that you're, you're, you, you take animals that maybe you didn't necessarily plan to use as a feeder, but that you have, you know, snakes that now let's

just say that, um, you were a King Cobra breeder and you, you know, bred ball pythons and, and, you know, probably not the greatest snake, maybe retakes or something like that, where you can get a bunch of them. Um, and, and, you know, you fed off, would people flip out about that? You know, and I think part of that depends on your audience. And, and so, you know, you fed off, would people flip out about that? You know, and I think part of that depends on your audience. And so, you know, that's a little removed from calling, but I think it follows in the same kind of, you know, mental thought process around like, why is this okay? But this isn't okay. And, you know, I mean, there's all manner of things like Jags is a good example. Like people are willing to deal with fall off the perch neuro animals and and they live, they breed, they do their life.

And, you know, they're we have no idea whether or not they're suffering from that. But the argument might be, well, that's not a healthy animal. Sure. Now, does that mean that we should be calling jags that are neuro? Well, it seems like we've had the issue with neuro where perfectly normal Jags can get neuro. So it's just a thing with Jags. Right. Um, but I, I do, I do think that, um, you know, if we're talking about strong genetic populations that don't get deselected in the wild, um, then the wild, then we have to entertain the idea of

calling for genetic strength. It's not a popular thing. It's not something we should advertise out to people. And it should be done in the most humane way possible. But, you know, when we're taking animals out of the wild and removing them from the natural selection process and doing artificial selection, I mean, isn't culling that another word for the natural selection or deselection that we do? I mean, yeah. Once you take it out of the wild and put it in your care, um, you've kind of removed those selective pressures, right? You're not allowing predators into the, into the cage with, with your animals or setting up some naturalistic way in that regard for the most part. Um, now I would say, I, you know, I agree wholeheartedly that, um, if you're going to feed off, it seems like a lot of these, you know, people that are feeding snakes to king cobras

are doing it for shock value like they're taking like some rare morph and feeding it to the to the king cobra showing you know take this you ball python breeders you know which which is which is inappropriate you know that shouldn't be that that shouldn't be put out yeah that just makes us look like a bunch of you you know, barbarians. Yeah. So, and, and there's ways to properly, you know, we, we euthanize our, our feeders a lot of times. I mean, sometimes, you know, we don't, and there is some debate whether or not, you know, CO2 euthanasia, which is most commonly used for, for euthanizing feeders, um, for, for rodents, um, is, you know, more or less humane than allowing a snake to kill the rodent because the snake can, you know, a good Python can kill a rodent fairly quickly with constriction. Uh, venomous snake, of course, can, can kill a rodent fairly quickly with, with, you know, an appropriate sized food item. So, um, you know,

that, that is debatable and, and it's hard to say, so maybe the fame goes for feeding off. But neither is a painless death. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's possible to have a completely painless death. There is some, you know, question if, if, uh, CO2 euthanasia is more euphoric, if they actually have pain. I mean, they're saying that, oh, the mice start jumping around and they're showing stress, signs of stress. So they know that they're going to die kind of thing. So, you know, it is really hard to say now when I euthanize mice with, with CO2, it seems to happen pretty quickly, you know, within 10, 15 seconds,

but also, uh, you know, a snake can constrict a mouse pretty quickly, you know, within 10 to 15 seconds as well. So, you know, that's, that's debatable. And, but I, but I do think, you know, to, to use it as a way to, to show off or to get clicks or to get attention or whatever, you know, is definitely inappropriate. Yeah. Grossly, grossly inappropriate. And I also disagree. Like, I think that, you know, I don't think that people should be putting up live feed videos either of even a snake killing a rodent. You know, I don't think it's, it's appropriate to celebrate death in any way. That's, that's my personal belief. And I think, you know,

if you respect a snake and you respect, you wouldn't want to see a snake being killed. Why would you want to show somebody, you know, a rodent being killed? It's, it may be the same for them as it is you. I don't like to see spiders killed or, or bugs, you know, in, you know, stepped on for no reason that just doesn't, I mean, I'll swat a mosquito all day. So I'm a little bit of a hypocrite, but you know, if there's a snake, if there's a spider in the house, I will try to take it outside or put it in a spot where it can maybe catch some, you know, bugs that are. But you do, you, you, you research emerging tropical viruses. So you and mosquitoes have some history, right? Oh yeah. I get it. I get it. They kill more, more people than anybody. So I guess if anything deserves it, it's a mosquito.

But anyway, you know, I think it's very important to value life, you know? And so if you're going to euthanize an animal, you know, back in the day, like even in the lab setting, you know, these researchers would just kind of smack the mouse or the rat, like even in the lab setting, you know, these researchers would just kind of smack the mouse on or the rat on the side of the table. And sometimes that would get the job done and other times it wouldn't, or sometimes they would knock their nose and there'd be, you know, just a horrible scene, you know, that's not appropriate. And so there were measures taken to correct that behavior. And so now we have a veterinary or medically approved euthanasia measures that we use in the lab. And that includes, you know, may include, um, CO2,

uh, asphyxiation, or it may include chemical, um, injection. Um, and it, it can include, uh, cervical dislocation. I think that's a conditionally, um, approved method and you actually, they used to have it where you, you know, could play something behind the neck and pull the tail kind of thing, but sometimes that wouldn't work out. So that's not approved anymore. Now it's, it's almost, you have to, um, physically pinch the cervical, uh, you know, between the cervical dislocated with your fingers dislocated with your fingers. And uh, you know, between the cervical dislocated with your fingers, dislocated with your fingers. And so, you know, if, if you're going to feed off a snake to your, you know, King Cobra or whatever, it's probably a good idea. You know, I, I guess it could be

debated to say, you know, maybe you, um, feed it live and, and let the animal have natural behaviors. And it could be that that may be a fast and relatively humane way for the prey animal to die. But at the same time, it should be done with respect and, you know, with care for the prey animal, right? And if you can, it's probably a good idea to euthanize the animal humanely. And, and, you know, like, I think a lot of people will say, Oh, just chuck it in the freezer, you know? And, and I, yeah, that's my least favorite. I, I, I mean, you know, I, you know, it's hard for me to, I, I, I get,

I get the argument of why, you know, uh, why reptiles in a freezer don't quote unquote feel pain or what I, I, but I, I'm not so sure I, I buy that. I mean, I think that, you know, uh, they certainly don't freeze to death like that. Yeah. And you can certainly see how, and i think we're figuring out how cold tolerant snakes can be so you know i mean i get it they get down to freezing fairly quickly but they're suffering they're definitely suffering yeah and formation of ice crystals and you know oh yeah in tissues yeah you know is definitely, something that can cause pain. And so, and we don't know how, you know, their perception is. So, you know, we don't want to be chancing it

if possible. So I would, I would suggest, you know, the, I, I mean, in, in the lab, another approved method of euthanasia, especially if you need, um, certain, you know, uh, bioanalysts from the blood is, uh, decapitation. And so, you know, that's a quick and painless death. It's not, not the most fun way to euthanize an animal, of course. And that's, again, you know, should be done with, with care for and concern for the prey animal, but it is, it is a fast and painless, uh, relatively painless death or, or rapid, uh, death. And, and, you know, to be honest with you, like these people who, you know, say like, well, you just chuck it in the freezer. Well, it's, that's easy for them to just put it in a freezer

and walk away from it. And they come back and it's dead and frozen. But if you actually have to get your hands dirty, so to speak, um, you know, I, I just, you know, as somebody who's hunted and I don't really hunt anymore, I shoot for fun, but, um, you know, I, I, I don't, I don't need to take an animal's life. So I don't take animals lives. So, um, if, you know, but if the day came where I had to shoot an animal to feed myself, like, yeah, I'm cutting it and I'm cleaning it and I'm cooking it and I'm doing the whole thing. So, you know, I, I do think that, you know, there's, there's,

there's kind of a moral responsibility, but yet at the same time, like you kind of have to, um, you, you, you know, you, you, there are times when it is appropriate and when it is appropriate, you go ahead and you do it, but you do it in the in the most humane way you can. And, you know, I just I think it's it's easy to say that culling is in no way appropriate ever because these things are captive and we had there's no reason to do that. And I just think that that's a naive approach to the way life is. And I think somebody who, you know, I mean, I mean, I think people who develop horrible human disease at some point in their disease say, man, just can I get this over with? This is, I am suffering. This is awful. And I'm

not pretending to make a statement on behalf of suffering animals. I'm just saying that you don't know what an animal is going through. And that's kind of the tough part, right? That's the two sides I'm kind of talking about is if you act unnecessarily, then you're being hasty and premature. But if you don't, then, then you're being, you know, you're being callous because you think you're being caring. Right. Yeah. So. Yeah. I, I think, uh, another aspect of this too is, you know, a lot of times, um, reptiles take, you know, they take a long time to die if left to starve or left without appropriate temperatures in their caves, things like that. They can kind of keep going on and on. I was really – it's really hard to sell animals sometimes because you know a lot of the animals you sell are probably going to be neglected in some way you know and that's that's hard sometimes as as uh somebody who breeds and sells animals you know to some extent i mean i'm a terrible salesman so i keep most of the stuff i

produce but probably doing your probably doing the animals you produce a favor right yeah i don't know i mean i i'm sure there's probably... That's not a fair thing. Yeah, that's not a fair thing. There's definitely people out there that give them a better life and can give them larger enclosure or more whatever than I can. And I welcome that. I seek out those buyers that can do a better job with that with that one animal than, than I can, you know, where I have multiple animals. And, you know, I think I like the idea of moving away from,

you know, everybody has to buy into the reptile pyramid scheme. Like you can't just buy one and keep it as a pet. You have to buy a pair and breed them. You know, I, I, I'm hoping we're getting away from that a little bit in large part, you know, I think we can enjoy reptiles without breeding them. Of course, breeding them is, is great and I enjoy it. And it's, you know, there's not much better than to see a baby hatch out of an egg, but you know, there's other things we can just keep and just enjoy. We don't have to necessarily breed it, but anyway, that's kind of aside the point. But the other thing, you know, if, if, if animals are languishing, you know, I basically, that's kind of an inhumane method of euthanasia instead of allowing an animal to suffer and, you know, needlessly meet an end because you've lost

interest or whatever, find somebody who will give it a good home and give it to them, you know, give it away. I see so many like, you know, less than ideal animals out there being sold on, you know, various classified forums. And it's like, why are you trying to sell this, you know, half dead animal and trying to make as much money as you bought it for, you know, you see overpriced animals and, you know, the cages are in terrible condition, but they want like they're knocking 20 bucks off of the price they paid for it, you know. And I think that's another avenue of, you know, this aspect of culling animals. They're culling it by neglect. You know, I think that definitely should be done away with. And we should not

have this attitude of animal equals dollar sign. You know, I put this much in, I need to get this much out, you know, that, that needs to go away. And I, I've been kind of encouraged, like some of, some friends on the, you know, um, I'll, I'll drop a name, Eric Burke. He, he was nice enough to, uh, send me some animals and I, I've, uh, kind of returned the favor and, and sent him some animals, you know, it's, and, and I think he's talked about that on the podcast where he'd rather just see him,

you know, go to somebody that will appreciate him and enjoy him rather than make money off him. I think he's kind of to that next stage of, you know, I've, I've kind of kept in bread and I, I got over that whole, got to make lots of morphs so I can, you know, make lots of money kind of aspect. And so that I, I, I encourage that and I welcome that, you know, change for, and I, and I hope more people follow that, uh, that attitude and that, um, mindset of, you know, let's, let's enjoy these animals together. Let's not worry about how much money we can make off of them and things. So, you know, I, I guess, you know, people need to pay their bills and there are some people that, uh, pay their bills fully

through animal sales. Um, me, I just, you know, selling the animals here and there lets me keep the lights on, you know, and, and and and add to the collection or or um add bigger caging or better lighting and things like that so that's kind of the well i'm always trying to improve my my animals you know lives if i if i can yeah and i and i think you know uh the the last npr of with wheeler uh that's kind of what they were talking about, too, is like, if you got into carpets to make money, you fucked up. Like, you're not going to. And that's true. I mean, it is true.

Like, if you to really and especially with where we're moving with with trying to up, you know, up our our husbandry and our environmental game, um, you know, the, the captive environment game, uh, I'm spending so I'm just hemorrhaging money out my nose, trying to provide the best, uh, environment for my animals, which is absolutely fine with me. Cause I don't, you know, I don't, I don't care about making money off of anything that I do now, if I can, you know, put more William Sy out in the world or give a kid a day gecko that they're going to love, or, you know, make some more home of Harris, uh, for, uh, the captive, you know, scrubs, scrub lovers of the world. Like I'm fucking down for that. You know, that that's, that's what I'm, that's what I'm about,

but you know, just the, the, the chasing the money thing. And you just, I don't know, that's what I'm about. But, you know, just the chasing the money thing and you just, I don't know, man, I feel like you can see why people get so muddied with some of their, you know, ambitions when it comes to snakes and the profit scheming and all this stuff. And I get, you know, I, I, I'm not the, the, the doing it for a living and doing what you love is not lost on me either. I don't look at it like, Oh, you just, you know, now you do it for money and that's what you know. No, no, no, man. Don't, don't, don't, don't get it twisted. There's, there's a lot of great people doing great things and they, and they do it all the time. And I think they were talking about Todd Dyer and just how talented he is. And I was just like, man, they're 100% right, because I've never met anybody who reads snakes so well. I mean, that dude, he's spot on reading snakes.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It is. It's impressive to kind of talk to him and hang out with him and so you know there's definitely those people who make a living at it and who are super the real deal but i i do think it's that idea of you know seeing the nick mutton or seeing the todd dyer and and thinking like oh i want to do that i want to and there's i'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but it perpetuates this idea that everybody has to be that, that sleep reader guy. And, and, and that's when I think the, you know, in the desperation to do that, some of the, you know, some people get some of their motivations get muddied and, and it's, it's nice and it's refreshing and, and, you know, to watch the evolution of keepers.

And, you know, I have been comforted to hear so many people change from, you know, one tack to like you were saying with Eric of just like, well, you know what? I'm not super into these anymore, but I know this person is. I'm going to send these to them because that'll be a great place for those animals to be. And, you know, what a way to keep contributing to the community. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And I, you know, I think there is a progression to kind of how we, we do this thing, but I, you know, I would definitely say, you know, I, there's, there's a better option than, you know, if you're producing too many snakes and you're like, oh, I don't want this, you know, genetic anomaly or I don't want this normal and, you know, and I just want the morphs. So I'm just going to cull the ones I don't like. I think that's a kind of a selfish aspect of it or just, you know, focus on the money where they could give that to somebody and say, here, you know, have a nice normal ball python. You know, that's one of the hardest things to find anymore is a normal ball python. It seems a little more rare than some of these other morphs. Up front, I said that I thought that culling was strictly for breeders and that there were certain situations where it applied.

And I think you make a great point that, you know, a breeder should try to find a home for something. Just because it's, you know, maybe not, you know, grade A breeder stock that you're going to sell for top dollar doesn't mean that it's not going to be a great pet for somebody. And just the idea that every single thing that comes from you has to be perfect all the time. No, it has to be honestly represented all the time,

but it doesn't have to be perfect because anybody who knows, knows nothing that, you know, we do breeding animals or breeding anything or any, you know, any life is ever perfect. Right. So I definitely think there is a place for calling, but man, you know, like you also said that you should be looking up front in how you produce animals so that you don't have to cull animals on the back end, right? It's kind of, you know, making good choices on the front end reduces having to make bad choices on

the back end. And I'm not saying that culling animals is a bad choice, but if you can avoid having to make that decision by making good decisions on the front end, then you should try to do that. Right. Yeah. Yep. Planning is, you know, goes a long way when you're breeding snakes and people learn, you know, like not to say that, you know, I wasn't the guy who thought, oh, I'm going to get all these pairs and I'm just going to breed them together and it's going to be great. And then you do that and you're like, oh, that's what that is. Yeah. I don't, I don't want to, that's too much. Yeah. That's too much. I, you know, I, I can't afford to do that. I, my bad, my bad. That won't happen again. Right. I like the example of who's the guy that

you got some Williams eye from the school oh john uh oh uh frank pain frank pain yeah sorry i'm terrible with names but frank as is a great kind of role model in that regard where he's kind of selected a few you know relatively underrepresented projects not he's not you know doing some giant warehouse full of reptiles he's got two or three different projects and he's doing them very well he's got a few i think he's got a few more than that but like his main staple projects yeah sure 100 like he's selecting animals that yeah that yeah people have done poorly with in the past and he's he's kind of refining it and he's just selecting a few that kind of

have similar care needs or whatever. And, and so I've really admired like, and putting out educational videos and going the whole, you know, nine yards to educate and to show kind of how it's done and, and to, to, uh, do it that way. So I think he's a great example of, um, what, you know, how, how it should be done, you know, and we can, we can all kind of, uh, learn from his example and, you know, produce, you know, he doesn't produce a ton of animals, at least as far as I know, it doesn't seem like he's just cranking them out, you know, but he does well. He does well. Yeah. And he produces some very nice animals. So he puts a lot of, he puts a lot of William Cy out.

Yeah. And I mean, a lot of these projects are like things that nobody really breeds. And so he's got the market to himself and what a smart model that is, you know? And I think if we did more of that, instead of jumping on the bandwagon going, Oh, you know, what's the latest, coolest ball Python, ball Python, more if I got to get that, you know, and then breed that. I mean, that is a way to run a reptile business, but I think a more rewarding way is to select something that you really enjoy and you want to keep and learn about, or you want to go see it in the wild and you, you know, kind of see it in its natural environment and you kind of appreciate it.

So you want to see that in your home. That's, that's the way to go. I think that's such a more fulfilling way than to chase something because it might make you some money. And, and I don't think Frank Payne is necessarily hurting for cash. I mean, I think he sells the animals he produces and he's generally like when I've checked his website, he's been sold out of a lot of the stuff he has. Yeah. I mean, I think his animals move fairly, fairly well. Yeah. And he does it so well. He gets me considering, Oh, maybe I want to breed this chameleon or keep this chameleon species because he does such a great job of showing how cool they

are and how colorful they are and, you know, that kind of thing. So, you know, if you can select something that's underrepresented and maybe, I think Joey Muggleston's another great example where he's he's got some, you know, project, you know, Xenosaurs and his Chinese crocodile lizards and things that traditionally haven't done the best for people or aren't necessarily, you know, huge moneymakers. You know, they have relatively few babies and so they're not really a viable project you know people who are breeding shingleback skinks things like that you know where they're not going to make any money but they're freaking cool and and they cost a lot to get but you know you you get them because that's the only option you know that kind of thing so yeah well i think both of those two guys are very very talented guys too yeah. I mean, you know, uh, Joe's, Joe's pretty good, man. He produces some pretty cool stuff and it's pretty diverse and he's pretty

damn consistent. So, yeah. And he's a good guy. Like, Oh yeah, for sure. And so I, I think, you know, there's some really good examples, but I mean, he's running a reptile business and he's got, you know, he's got a lot of animals and, you know, he needs to sell animals to put food on the table and things like that. I mean, he's also a professor and teaches classes and things. So I don't think it's totally. I don't know how he sleeps, dude. Like, yeah, he must be so busy. But, you know, that's he's he's a good example of things.

Yeah. Um, so I, you know, I, I think despite there, you know, maybe kind of wrapping it up here, I think there might be some, some reasonable, um, reasons to call an animal, you know, I think disease, but, but first seek, you know, veterinary care. Um, if you have something that's horribly deformed, you know, the, disease, but, but first seek, you know, veterinary care. Um, if you have something that's horribly deformed, you know, the, the hearts on the outside of the body or something, of course that needs to be, uh, euthanized. And, and I would say something swift and, and, and effective, you know, so you're not causing the animal undue pain. Um, what do you, what do you think about animals that you like, uh, a line you think maybe

going through genetic depression or, or that had that this, you know, uh, just doesn't do well. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's, there's a lot of animals out there that we kind of limp along, you know, because we're trying to feed them something they don't want to eat or, you know, and we're trying to domesticate them by getting them to take the, the commonly available prey. And, you know, it's been successful over the long run for something like a hog nose. You don't have to try to get toads or, you know, scent with toads. You can feed it a pinky, you're pretty much out of the egg. But, you know, there's others that are a little more tricky. And, you know, I work with the Antaresia that want to eat lizards and I, you know, I like lizards, so I don't really want to feed them lizards. I found alternate ways to

keep them going, but every once in a while you'll get one that just refuses. And so, you know, they're, they're a little trickier and I, but once they hit a certain size, they usually start taking rodents without hesitation and they're solid the rest of their lives. So as long as you can kind of give them, get them over the hump and get them to that time, then they, they do great. So, you know, it is, it is tricky. You know, I agree. There are probably some projects that, um, uh, the, uh, did we talk about lines last time or we did, we did. I think, I think, I think last time we talked about the Peterson line, but no, no, we, we didn't talk about that line. That was solid it was the yeah no i know and and then later later after conferring with the podfather it was the sylvester line sylvester line yeah sylvester line's the one that had the

kind of uh which is funny because i really i don't i mean you say that name and i'm like i remember that name but i never remember seeing any animals that were from the Sylvester line. Yeah, there were relatively few produced and the ones that were produced kind of didn't do so great. It took a long time to get going. And then once they kind of got to breeding size, I think they had tumors or they had something where they just. It's not a tumor. That genetic, that genetic, whatever it was in inbreeding or genetic defect lined up just right with that line. And they just kind of weeded themselves out.

So you don't see them anymore and they've kind of gone away. So I don't know if that's genetic euthanasia. They're just genetically not fit. And, you know, yeah, if your animal's suffering, it's not eating, again, I would probably recommend seeking veterinary care. And there are chemical ways to euthanize animals. And so, you know, you can have the vet give it an injection. I can never remember this compound either. The euthazol is the trade name, but it's used to inject and put down an animal.

So, um, there, there are, um, different ways to, to do that, uh, appropriately. Um, if you could whip off the name of all those drugs, I might, I might call you. Dr. Pentobarbital. Oh my God. All right. Dr. Kevorkian. That's the, oh, I didn't know you were going to call me that. See?

Nevermind, I don't know what the name is. You shouldn't, yeah, you should have backed off. Pentabarbital has been used, you know, but it, but it needs to, yeah, it does need to be injected properly, right? You have to hit the right spot or else it can be painful. So, you know, obviously veterinary, um, use of pentobarbital is, is recommended. So. And you can't, you cannot use a chemical, uh, euthanasia and then feed it off to something, right. That would be quite bad. I would say, yeah, don't don't do that.

I had a friend that bought some dog food and was feeding blue tongue skinks. And all of a sudden the skinks started dying off and he took it to the vet and the vet detected traces of pentobarbital in the skinks. And they had eaten this dog food that had pentobarbital in it. It turns out they were supplementing the meat in the dog food with ground up dogs that had been euthanized with pentobarbital. And so the pentobarbital levels weren't high enough to kill a dog, but they were high enough to kill a skink, especially a gravid skink. So my friend lost a lot of gravid females in his breeding colony. So be very careful about where you source your food for your reptiles. That's a possibility. Now I talked to my veterinary friend about this, just to give some, you know, give you some good information here in regards to that.

But he said, if you go with the top companies like Purina or, or some of these, you know, bigger, I think he said there were four or five that were big enough that they get first pick of, of meat. You know, the kind of, it's like the by-product or the secondary meats from human consumption. You know, the pet food industry gets the kind of leftovers, but you know, they might, if, if you're one of the bigger companies, you're going to get the better leftovers and the ones at the bottom who are, you know, can't get the good leftovers. They get the dead dog leftovers, I guess. And apparently that's, that's an acceptable way to do business and they're okay. As long as it's not killing dogs. And he sought some, you know, know legal recourse but his lawyer told him hey you used it off label you used dog food to feed a skink you know so he wasn't able to make a case

for for going after the company and i mean other than the fact that you know why are you using dead dogs in your dog food that's disgusting yeah it's like a soylent green yeah soylent green is made of people um i can't remember the brand of the dog food or else i'd probably tell you just so that is that is above that is above like that is above the top on cringe where yeah right horrible like just like that's a food pretty scary so anyway. So anyway, you know, be, be careful. And, you know, that's why products like, uh, Repashy diets are good because, you know, you know, they're prepared for animals and they're not, you know, ground up skinks to feed skinks or whatever. Anyway, that's, uh, you know, kind of, uh, a little bit sketchy, but yeah, you, if you're going to feed the animal to a King Cobra, don't be, you know, chemically euthanizing the animal pentobarbital. Um, so, uh, but you know,

that's, that's an option. If you have a sick animal or an animal that's just failing to thrive, that might be a more humane method of, of euthanasia is having a vet put the animal down for you and then they can dispose of the carcass appropriately, things like that. They have, you know, incinerators and stuff. Um, so that's, that would be my recommendation. And, you know, usually it's probably better not to take matters into your own hands and have a vet do it properly. So the animal suffers less. So, um, but you know, there's very few exceptions where, you know, an animal should be called. I think there's very few reasonable reasons to call an animal.

I definitely don't disagree with that. I mean, I don't think we can call ourselves animal lovers and, you know, divert to calling when we don't like something that that doesn't you know you got to have a at least have a fucking coherent you know uh mantra about yourself if you're going to call yourself an animal lover and and uh you know um so yeah i mean i think uh you know i think it has its place i i've kind of talked about the reasons why, you know, captive breeding has no deselection process. And so, you know, sometimes, and I think you are right. I think, you know, in certain situations, you know, animals will deselect themselves like that Sylvester line did. And so you will just kind of see them weeded out. And I think in other times,

maybe you need to make, you know, some sound judgments, probably nothing that's a rush to judgment. And, you know, if you feel that that that's a proper way to do something that maybe you seek your veterinary professional to assist you or advise you. I mean, I, I, you know, I mean, ultimately it's, it's, it's up to the keeper, but you know, if we're going to tout ourselves as, as pro animal and pro life and, and, you know, um, then, then we, we definitely, you know, can't, can't, can't be talking about just tossing shit in the freezer, uh, when it, when, you know, we don't like it. So, um, yeah, I, I mean, I think, I think that's pretty, pretty squared away as far as, you know the way I feel that calling is, is appropriate. And, you know, I think, I think there was some, some good statements made here today that, you know,

definitely think through, you know, how you keep the way you keep and who you are as a keeper because that all matters a lot. Yeah. know, importers and, you know, there've been some, you know, pretty, uh, despicable things that have come out of that where, you know, they just kind of treat all that, you know, that thing's not going to make it or, you know, they have a lot of sick and dying animals. I think, I think any, you know, ethical importer should have some sort of euthanasia protocol where if they see that an animal suffering or that it's going to die or that has wounds that are not going to heal or is not fit for the trade, they should probably have, you know, some kind of euthanasia protocol. So I think, you know, giving, giving a point to you

that there, there should be, um, ways or appropriate ways that these people can deal with animals that are probably not going to do so well. So yeah. That's, that's probably a common thing with imports. Yeah. Yeah. And go ahead. No, I go ahead. Yeah. I was just going to say it is, and it is unfortunate because you, you do see some, some importers who are doing just really great they're they're really great their animals always look really great you could tell they take care of them you you know and you and then there are those other importers who you can tell almost don't even

open the box you know what i mean that however the animal comes in they literally turn around and ship it to you the same way and you open it and the animals you know the story of the common doa animal like what a ridiculous what a ridiculous thing for for for a commonality of a doa animal coming in and and it's like you know enough people put their hands on these animals and travel is fast enough nowadays that there's really no excuse for that and it's it's just you know, when you hear that, you're just like, that's fucking flesh peddling. They don't give a fuck. They don't give a fuck. Yeah.

If you're bringing in animals, yeah, you need to respect the animals. And that goes back to kind of the first point is life is precious. You know, let's respect life regardless of if you're, you know, excited about that life form or not. You know, I try to educate people. I love the – so I use this one at the family reunion because I've got a couple cousins that were afraid of snakes or that have killed snakes, and they were talking to me about it like, what do I do if there's a snake?

And I use the example like snakes are the only thing where it's almost acceptable or socially acceptable to say, oh, I kill the snake ones. You know, I cut its head off. If you replace any other ant, like if you replace puppy with snake, oh, yeah, I kill the puppy ones. I cut its head off. People would lose their mind. You'd be in jail. You can talk about that all day about snakes and nobody bats an eye because, oh, snakes are evil.

Snakes are of the devil, whatever. That needs to stop. Well, and I always tell people, and this will hit both of your points, is I always tell people don't fear snakes. Fear rodents because rodents vector human disease. And a rodent can make you sick. Snake will eat a rodent can make you sick snake will eat a rodent and and you're not gonna jump a disease from a a rat to a snake to a person that's too big of a jump they're they're an intermediary stop in the same way that spiders eat mosquitoes mosquitoes vector human disease

but everybody's fucking scared of spiders i mean nobody likes mosquitoes especially you but you know that it's it's a it's a it's a it's a misthinking on our part we those things that we can't identify that are so foreign to us or weird to us and there's like you know kind of a floating like uh uh you know ethic to it where you know people think octopuses are cool. Well, you know, they are cool, but they're really weird and they're really different like a snake or, you know, like a spider. But for some reason, people can gravitate towards an octopus because I think there's an intelligence there, something that they can identify with. Whereas with a spider, with a snake, they don't see that and they can't identify with it at all. So all of a sudden, because you can't identify with

it, it's useless. And, and it's, that's just such a, it's such a short, you know, way of thinking, uh, for, for how, how are, you know, how our planet and, and it's, it's it's uh fauna is constructed on this earth yeah hey talk about smart or talented i cannot weave a web with string coming out my butt you know like that's that's impressive that they can make those structures wow dude i can't even win a coin toss i want to see you weave a web with string coming out your way. If I could do that, I would let the whole coin toss thing go, but I can't. So, you know, every animal is smart in its own way and adapted in its own way. And, you know, I also use the example when, you know, killing a snake.

I believe this was a study done in Australia, you know, in regards to like Eastern Browns or things, but they, they estimated that every time you kill a snake, you sacrifice an acre of grain to rodents because the snake is out of the natural web. And so, you know, snakes are what, what are here to take out rodents, you know, that's, that's the natural way of things. So you can either kill all the snakes or kill all the predators and then have to deal with all the pests and have to poison them or or whatever or you can leave them alone and and do things the natural way well and i think you know when you see like the more humans muck with the the natural makeup of an animal biome the more fucked up it gets and then and then we we introduce species

that we think are going to fix it and it screws it up even worse so like literally every intuition humans have about interfering with the natural web of nature is wrong um but but you know we're making impacts in other ways. So not, you know, not intervening sometimes is almost just as bad as intervening and making it. I think we make it worse no matter what, whether we intervene in the animal part of it or whether we don't, you know, whether we just keep messing up the environmental part. So, yeah, it's, uh, well, definitely a food for thought. Hopefully everybody got something out of this and we can, uh, you know, impart some, uh, different thoughts that you might not have considered. Um, yeah, definitely think it over and, uh, make your own judgment or make your own, uh, plan for appropriate euthanasia if needed and hopefully avoid or avoid it if it's not needed. So that's right. Thanks for listening. But I, I, I neglected

to talk about the South, the Northeast, North, Northwest, where, what direction are we here? West side. Yeah. Northwest Carpet Fest. Sound like they had a lot of fun And I think we missed out I couldn't Justify it, couldn't make it I saw a picture of Ryan and Nick Hugging on the couch It looked like it was a good time I'm sure

The debates were heated Oh yeah They should have recorded that That would have been fun to listen to, you know. Yeah, I think Brandon touched on that. He said it wasn't, we couldn't put that kind of information out on the internet that was given out. And I guess that's kind of the point. If people know they're being recorded, they're not going to talk about some of the things that they might talk about otherwise.

So you kind of get some inside information or whatever. Well, and it's one of those things where that's what makes, and that's what I was saying is like, I like going to shows. I like, you know, stuff like that because you get people in, I don't want to say like intimate settings, but more of a one-on-one setting

where you get to talk to them and they're a little freer, a little looser. They'll talk to you, you know, you hear. I mean, heck, that time we hung with Casey Lasek at NARBC and heard all kinds of crazy stories. It was just like, that was the most awesome. But good luck probably getting Casey to run around and tell everybody those stories, right? So, you know, it's just one of those things where, you know, there's such for that, that one-on-one interaction in the reptile community. Cause there's such so many great people and so many fun stories and so much good

conversation to be had. I think, and I think, uh, you know, Jeff and Kendra, that was, you know, cool of them to host that and keep that going. Um, we're actually going to have a Kendra on the podcast here pretty soon. So we've got a couple of fights that look like they're going to be good ones. Yeah, the gauntlet was thrown down by our Mr. Scott Iper. Did you hear that, folks? Justin and Scott Iper are going at it. I'm excited.

He's challenging me to a debate. So, yeah, that'll be fun. We'll have to record that here soon. So, yeah, we should have some fun stuff coming up. We appreciate the listens. Go ahead and give the other NPR have to record that here soon. Um, so yeah, we should have some fun stuff coming up. Um, we appreciate the listens, uh, go ahead and, uh, give the other NPR network, uh, podcasts a listen as well. There's lots of, uh, good stuff out there and, and lots of content that that's, uh, Eric and Owen have, have been, you know, they're, they're pioneering a lot of

good stuff out there. All right. right well i don't know if you caught the marco shea episode i haven't yet and i filled herping podcast i'm waiting so i can sit you are in for a treat that was really cool yeah and it's just part one so there's a part two coming i'm seriously i seriously hope eric just like tries to make this as many of a part series is because you could probably get show upon show upon show out of Mark if he's willing to do it. Oh, yeah. And it's just great listening to that. And I mean, it's pretty, they basically just let him talk. Like there's a question and then he just talks.

So you're just like enthralled. It's really great. I can't wait. No talking over him they did a great job with that episode so i'm really really happy to listen to that and man it's making me itch to get back over to australia i bet dude oh i did i did another like bad move i i uh read the red-bellied courier it's like the one of the australian herpetological society publications you can get them free online but I was reading through and they were going like there was one,

uh, a trip to the Kimberly talking about finding rough scale pythons in the wild. I'm like, dang it, get me over there. I got to get out there and try to find some of these things. So I'm itching to herp again in Australia and I'm going to be herping in,

in Arizona pretty soon here. That'll be a lot of fun. Uh, two weeks, I think. Two weeks. So, yep. Lucky enough to get, get invited along on this herb trip. So it should be a, should be a lot of fun. I really enjoy herping with these guys.

And so hopefully we find some good stuff in Arizona. It's, it's always, it's, it's getting trickier to to predict when things are happening like the monsoon happened earlier than anticipated so hopefully it means there's some good activity when we're there but it's really it's really cool here man it's unseasonably cool really for you know september october time frame usually it's hotter than hades's ass out here right now yeah we had a bit of a dip it's been a little colder here too but i guess that's how it goes and our fall is pretty short we have a very long winter that's miserable but yeah i i i uh definitely uh envy where you live during the

winter yeah you can keep your winter i don't but the skiing is is not bad and we're actually doing that for our Christmas this year. We're getting everybody ski passes. So that'll be fun. We do have big bear. We can go skiing if we need to. If you want to call that skiing. Well, okay.

Fair enough. Fair enough. I'm just saying we have it. Okay. Yeah. All right. I'll let you have your big bear. I mean, it does say greatest snow on earth on our license plate.

And there's a reason for that. No, that's fair. Utah is a good place to live. You suffer for it. I do. You earned it. And we've got five national parks here. I really like living in Utah.

Oh, yeah. It seems like all of California seems to have that, share that, because people keep moving here from California and driving up our property taxes. Come on, guys. Settle down. Don't think you're special. They're moving everywhere but California right now, which, hey man, do it. Go for it. It's funny, all these people who are like, I'm out of California. I'm going to get out of here. And they're never going to leave. They're not going to leave, but they keep threatening to leave. And I'm like, look, by the time you get around to doing it, it's just going to be as expensive as California. Yeah. Right. Oh man. Prices here. Ridiculous. Anyway. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's, it's a good place to live, but it is fun to get out to

Australia and other places to herp. So, um, Utah is wonderful and there is some good herping in the state where I'm at, you know, it's a little limited. There's some fun species to find up here, rubber boas and, you know, rattlesnakes and gopher snakes and stuff. But you know, yeah, I like to see herp fun in other, other areas of the world, but well, I think we're, we're good to go. Thanks for listening and appreciate you guys, uh, the support and the ideas we're getting. We're getting a lot of good ideas and looking forward to the, uh,

intern versus the pod father and, and the, uh, enforcer. What do we call it? But, uh, that'll be fun to, to watch them battle it out here soon. We'll get that set up. Yeah. Thanks for listening. And if you want to, if you want to bring your ass on, come on.

Yep. Yep. Don't be shy. Throw down the gauntlet. I'm liking it. We're getting more people who are like, I want to come on. I want to fight about this.

So let's, let's keep it up, man. This is, this is good. I'm, I want to, i want to i want to see everybody that i know fighting yeah well thanks for listening and uh tune in next week for

another episode of reptile fight club and as always we're out so Thank you.