Reptile Fight Club - The pros and cons of high-priced reptiles.

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of the pros and cons of high-priced reptiles.Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comWebsite: https://www.moreliapythonradio.netYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQ@MPR Network on FB and IG.Email: [e-mail]-spring store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Thank you. all right welcome to reptile fight club back with us so uh with uh chuck'm with Chuck Poland, as always. Say hello to the people, Chuck. Good evening. All right. So, yeah, what's been going on, man? Not much. Just busy.

Kind of, you know, just, I don't know, man, it's been good. I I'm really happy with where all the reptiles are at and, uh, I've been enjoying, uh, the podcast and taking stock of, of, uh, you know, an awesome life that we're living. So, um, yeah, just, you know, um, getting, like I said, I, nothing really new new but just kind of getting stuff ready for uh this this coming season and uh crossing my fingers hope i didn't uh totally screw myself uh you know by switching cages on the tracy i uh we'll find out i mean i it's good data either way so yeah um you know uh you know um i'm never, you never know if you're going to set them back a few years, you know, by messing with their setup or changing something on them. You

know, if you're going to start over the clock and have to try again. Right. I think a lot of those lessons are very painfully learned. So, um, yeah, like you said, good data either way. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I've got a, you know, I've got a grip of babies coming up, so, um, you know, uh, it'll be okay either way. I hope. Yeah. Yeah. Things are starting to open up around here. I, I went in the, my first, uh, store without a mask. It felt kind of weird, you know, you feel a little naked, but, but, uh, you know, and people around here kind of nuts about masks. And, um, I've got a couple, you know, family members that are little sister, well, my wife's sister-in-laws that are kind of fighting

the whole mask, you know, mandate or whatever. Like, I don't know, they're, they get a little upset about it, but I, I'm, I'm all for mass. I'm all for vaccination. I mean, I'm a virologist for crying out loud. So I got my family all vaccinated and as many as we could, and we're continuing to get the younger ones now that they're lowering the age. So yeah, what a, what an amazing thing to watch that, uh, the speed at which the, the science worked in this regard, but I mean, we've really done pretty amazing. My, my daughter's just got vaccinated last weekend and yeah, it's, it's been good. And I totally feel you. I, you know, I work around the military, so I, there's a lot of, a lot of guys in, in you know, in my program that are, are just very, I mean, just some of the stuff that comes out of their mouth as well. That's

like, really dude, you believe like, where, where did you, where did you get that? You know? So much misinformation. Yeah. It's, it's, you know, and it's not, you know, I'm, I'm not going to spend my entire day correcting people who aren't going to listen to me either way that there's, you know, enough misinformation being put out there that, and that's, if that's what they want to grab onto, then that's what they're going to grab onto. But, uh, it's definitely unfortunate.

Yeah. We had a bunch of our friends from the East coast come out for a herp trip to Utah last week. That was a lot of fun. Um, uh, let's see, Keith McPeak, um, Nick Scaly or Scaly. I never did ask him how he pronounced his name, Matt Minatola, Rob Christian. And then, you know, we had our, well, Sage, what's her last name? Great, great people. It was a lot of fun. We had a great time in our, I guess, local host down in St. George area, Chris and Aspen. Those guys are phenomenal field herpers and it's always fun to hang out with those guys. So we had a, oh, Lon Dexler. Sorry.

Yes, I was going to say Don Lexler, but I just was waiting to see if you. Yeah. I have a terrible memory. Yeah. No, that's awesome. Yeah. I enjoyed hanging out with him. Yeah.

You know, Heidi and I kind of, we stayed in a tent for the weekend for the most part. They were nice enough to invite us to stay there, but it was, we wanted to try out our new tent and kind of spend a little time. It's a rare time where we get, you know, to be alone together. So it was kind of nice to have a little date weekend as well. For sure. And saw some cool stuff. Um, I missed out on the two helas, like kicking myself for not being able to see those that we got there just about an hour later, right after they saw him. So I was kind of bummed out

about that, but glad they got to see him. That was a cool experience. And Chris was saying one of the helas was the same one that we found on the exact same day the previous year so that was kind of cool too oh that's pretty cool but yeah it's a rare sight in utah to see a helo and they saw two in one day which is just incredible yeah so good times now we also saw speckled rattlesnake another rarity down there so that was also uh really cool so overall a good trip not a lot of common stuff was out but we saw all the rare stuff yeah hey uh you got a herb trip coming up soon too right yeah yeah i'm heading out with the podfather we're gonna go go cruise around west texas again kind of do a redo with uh rob and uh rob and eric and then the thp guys justin and phil so should be a be a cool trip hopefully we see a little bit more than we did last year

um my buddy nathan hall was out there uh this week and he said it was pretty dead i'm like oh no it's gonna be a repeat of last year but he he's, he's like, Oh, it's like the, the good weather's moving in. So you should hit it just right. So I'm hoping that's the case. I still need to chat with Nathan on the phone, but, um, it looks like we, we might be able to, to see something this year, but either way, it'll be, it'll be cool. It's always good people and hopefully good herping. Right. You know? Yeah, for sure sure so let's hope so yeah i got got my first hatchling so i had a clutch of western simpsons pythons hatch out oh i'm sorry children's pythons no god yeah i'm not going with that we'll we'll have to have that on a future podcast but yeah and then uh some pygmy pythons hatched as well. Nice. So, yeah, they're looking good.

And also a couple female blue tongues had their babies. So, man, when it rains, it pours. So we got quite a bit of work ahead of us here soon. Looks like you got good problems at your place. Yeah. I need to thin down the collection a little bit. There's so many cool species, right? It's hard to do that.

Well, what do you say we get into it? You ready to fight, man? Yeah, let's fight. That's cool. All right, let's do this. Okay, so go ahead. Do you want to introduce the topic? What's the topic we're doing?

We're going to talk about the high price of rare snakes. Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing? Are we for or against it? Okay. We'll let the coin decide. You ready to call it? You think you're going to get it this week? Probably not, but I'll call it anyway.

Okay, here we go. Go ahead and call it. Tails. You got tails, man. Oh, I win. You got it. I'm impressed. Way to go.

So I will take the pro side. Okay. You're for high-priced rare snakes. So I guess kind of what's fueling this topic or what kind of had this on our minds is how we've seen kind of Bolins pythons rise in price. I mean, I think what they're up to like nine, 10 grand for a single animal. It's, it's pretty incredible. I would, I would just say that Sommelier across the board is, uh, is up in price. I mean, if it's, you know, harder to breed or rare, it seems to be, uh, getting priced accordingly. Um, so yeah, it's a good topic. Yeah.

All right. Well, do you want to lead us out since you won the coin toss? You know, I will let you take. You're going to defer. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I definitely will. So, go ahead.

That's a good strategy, I think. Man, you're getting this, man. You're going to kick my butt this time, aren't you? I've been, you know, I don't know about that. You're always a worthy adversary. We shall see. Hopefully, good points are made on both sides. I guess the biggest issue I see with high price in rare snakes is the fact that people who would likely do well with them or who may already have some, a lot of times for them, it's very difficult to justify because they remember paying like maybe three grand a pair or something for some imports a few years back. Well, maybe more than a few years now. But so they're like, well, I can't, you know, I can't justify, you know, I haven't done well with the ones I have now. I haven't bred the ones I have, let alone, you know, putting out another 20 grand to get a pair, uh, to try, you know, to increase my, my group size. And so I think, and they're the people who probably have the most experience who have kept them, who, you know, may have had some limited success and just need some genetic diversity potentially. And, and that's really a difficult thing for them to justify, you know,

paying that much where, you know, they have it in their mind. Well, that's, you know, not what, what I paid before. And it's really difficult to pay that. Um, also I think it puts it in the hands of people who, um, and this is kind of a, uh, another topic or another point. So I'm, I'm covering two bases here and maybe, you know, I guess you can respond to both of these, but the other one is, um, it, it sometimes puts them in the hands of people who want, you know, social media likes. And so, Ooh, you know, look at me, I bought this really expensive snake. Look how cool I am. And then, uh, well, I'll save the, another point for later, but anyway, you know, if you're getting it for prestige or for status

symbol, um, which, you know, unfortunately occurs with, with the social media in the state it's in. Um, they, they sometimes end up in the wrong hands of people who, who can afford an expensive snake and, and may not care about, you know, breeding them or producing more of them or, or proper, you know, producing more so they can be in the hobby a little more readily, but rather to say, look at me, I can afford an expensive snake and I have a cool snake so I can post on Instagram. So that would be my first, uh, two starting points, what you got. So, I mean, I think to kind of address your, your first point, um, you're, you're kind of talking

about, uh, people who, um, maybe have to focus more, um, rather than work with larger collections. And, and I think maybe that's, um, kind of the point I think higher, uh, rare, higher priced animals, um, uh, uh, command people to, to almost do that. Uh, so you, you know, yeah, you're right. You can't, you know, buy a several pairs, uh, and keep them, but, uh, maybe you are forced to, or maybe you do buy several pairs and keep them, but you don't buy five other different species. And so you become much more focused, which allows you to specialize and do better. and a lot of scrubs, stuff that's difficult to breed, difficult to acquire, is higher price and forces people to specialize. I mean, that's a good thing.

It allows or it forces people to focus in areas where they need to be focusing. And so it's kind of the money making the market in the way that the market needs to be made. Can I jump in there real quick before you know, over a couple of years, they're like, oh, man, you know, this cost me so much and they're not producing. So I better just move them on and they sell them, you know, and maybe one of them goes to some social media guy that wants a cool snake to take Instagram photos with. And then the pair gets split up and then those, you know, or, or it delays their reproductive success. And so, yeah, you might, you might say that, yeah, it would help people focus, but at the same time, um, with something that valuable and not having success, it sometimes would have the opposite effect and get them to dump that project on, on something, somebody else. So, um, Well, so I mean, okay, first I, I just,

I would kind of just at face challenge the idea that somebody is going to sell, you know, not have, certainly there are people who don't have success, uh, and sell a project. Um, now the idea that they sell that project and they piecemeal it all out and it goes to other people and it becomes a wash of a project, two points to that. One, I don't think that there's evidence for that. And I think that people who have something valuable want to see it go somewhere where it can still be valued. And so, you know, splitting something up doesn't necessarily have to be the way it goes. And then, you know, also, you know, just because something is going to somebody who uses it on social media doesn't mean that it's not going to be of value.

And I mean, I think that that's kind of one of those things where, you know, just because you're a social media person doesn't mean that you can't have success with things. And like I said, I'll go back and just say that, you know, the higher price causes people to focus because of the cost. And so, and because of the higher price, people are acquiring less of these animals, right? So there's really kind of less pressure on wild populations because the cost of wild-caught animals that are coming in is so much greater. And also, it forces people to deal with the stock that they have. So it, again, it, it, it all draws back down on people focusing. And I don't feel like I hit your social media portion of that very well. I don't know if you wanted to circle back on that at all, but yeah, I, I mean, I, I just, I, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not so sure that there's evidence that, you know, people who don't have success just split their projects up and piecemeal think oftentimes dollars speak more than, you know, what they perceive to be, you know, a good thing with their animals. So they're going to say,

you know, I need to get out of this. I spent this much on it. I need to recoup that investment. So, you know, they may not care where it goes to. There's a greater chance for that. I mean, yeah, you might have a couple, you know, people that might have those projects that they realize, okay, this is very important. I need to put this in somebody's hands that's capable. But for the most part, people are like, I need to make my money back. That's more important. You know, I need to make that 20 grand back rather than make sure that these end up in somebody's hands and I make less money on them. So I think, you know, money talks. And so they're going to, they're, you're going to have a hard time finding somebody that's altruistic enough to say, well, I'm going to take

a cut. I'm going to lose some money. And I just want to make sure these end up in somebody goods hands. You might have somebody like send them out on breeding loan, but you know, as the price rises, that's going to get less and less likely, you know? If you had something worth maybe a couple thousand. Yeah, sure. But if you've got, you know, somebody who's, whose spouse is saying, Hey, you know, you, I need that. We need that money back. You spent a lot of money on those snakes and you better not be giving them away to somebody or you, you better get that money back, you know, or they go through a divorce and have to liquidate because their spouse knows how much they're worth.

And so they have to sell them. And in some, you know, those, sometimes those fire sales due to divorce, that happens quite a bit as well. And they, you know, projects get split up. And I mean, I, I would probably say with, with, uh, I'll, I'll use I'll use Burt Langworth as an example. And I, you know, he's fresh on the mind because of Russ Gurley magazines and stuff. So really cool. Shout out to Russ Gurley. He did a good job. I'm excited to read this book. I have his first edition, the single volume, and it's really fascinating. But so back to the point, Bert bred, you know, how many thousands of Australian water dragons. And yeah, they, you know, they were worth, I mean, I think I paid maybe 150 a piece for mine, uh, back in the day when, when Bert was

producing numbers, big numbers. And, uh, and then Bert passed away and somebody bought, you know, a gamma international. And now it's, it's almost impossible to find Australian water dragons. And when you do there, you know, several, uh, you know, a couple, well, probably maybe four or five times the price that you used to purchase them for. Right. And so they're, they're rare. And now, um, you know, they're, they're hard to find where, where did all those thousands of animals go? You know, where did they all go? Where did all those thousands of animals go? You know, where did they all go? I know where mine went.

I sucked at brumation and I lost a few animals in brumation. I learned the hard way that I don't do very well with animals that brumate. But, you know, there's just very few out there, even though so many were found. Same thing with Burt and green uh, green basilisks and red basilisks, galleritas. I mean, they're almost impossible to find if, if not impossible to find in the U S there might be a couple people that have them, but very difficult to find those. Um, so even with common and fairly easy to breed species that somebody had very great success with, they're, they're almost impossible to find. So, you know, I, I think, you know, yeah, you know, maybe if they're

paying a lot of money, they're going to pay attention to them, but if they have to get rid of them for some reason, the likelihood is they're going to take the money and run. If they can sell one, they'll sell one, if they can sell them both. So it's not necessarily going to go to a good project or, you know, a person who's looking to reproduce the species. It could just go to whoever has that money in hand and, and we'll, we'll pay for them. So please allow me to retort. I mean, I, I, and, and so, and so okay let's let's play your argument and say that people do just sell them off and split them so i was just kind of you know surfing the internet before we had a chance to start this and and there's a a female uh malucan a class tulpis that's that's

on the market right now twenty five hundred dollars right it's just a lone female it's obviously an import um but nonetheless uh somebody who's trying to breed malukins and there's plenty of them out there um and there's not a lot not a lot it's a small group of people but that female will go to somebody and especially it'll go to somebody who has a male. Now, is that crazy money for an import class tulpus? Yeah. Compared to what I paid 10 years ago. Heck yeah. But that's where we are. projects or you want to get those hard to breed or hard to find animals into your collection, then that's what you have to do. Whether they're piecemealed or whether they're sold in pairs, they're still valuable and they're still hard enough to get that if you want to breed those hard to do things, then they are out there. They will happen. And whether they happen in pairs, which would be great, or whether they happen as a lone animal, there's malucan keepers who

are looking for that animal right now. So, you know, go ahead. Go ahead. I just was going to say, I guarantee if I sent that person a message and saying, hey, I want to increase my Instagram likes, I've got 2,500 bucks. You know, I want that Malukan. He'd say sold and give me the Malukan, right? He's not looking to put it in somebody's hands. That's going to reproduce it, even though it's very difficult to find those and they're not being imported. Um, and I just, you know, the, I think that false value that, that attitude of, you know, this animal is worth a certain amount of money is, is somewhat damaging to the hobby. Now, at the same time, you't, wouldn't that guy still spend 500 bucks for, to, to make his Instagram point or whatever, you know? I mean, it becomes less of a, of a draw, right? He's not, he's not driving a Lamborghini. He's, he's, you know, nobody's buying a Pinto to drive, you know,

to, to show off on Instagram. Nobody's buying a, you to show off on Instagram. Nobody's buying a Chevy Nova to say, hey, look at me, I'm cool. They're buying the Ferrari or the Porsche, that kind of thing. So I think if the animal's priced lower, then people who care about those animals are going to be the ones that are purchasing them, not the people who want to show off or to say, hey, look at me, I've got an expensive snake. I'm not sure. I'm not so sure I buy that. I mean, you're talking about you're talking about people who who who want to breed these animals and and and there's very few of them out there. So they're going to pay that money. And sure. Are there, are there wealthy people out there

with money who, who can afford to just throw it at animals? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I mean, I hear what you're saying, but I just don't think that you're making an argument. I mean, you're making a counter, but I don't think you're making a point. You know what I mean? I mean, anybody with money can spend it, right? And you're right. It doesn't mean that you're going to breed it. But who's going to spend, you know, I mean, who's gonna spend you know i mean who's spending eight thousand dollars for so on

again looking around there there's a male uh uh bolin's python that that's it's eight eight grand yeah um so who's spending eight grand you know who who's who's putting that money out there right very few people yeah and so you know i mean are there are there other animals that can be you know make a splash for way less money so and i guess my point is that the the people who are spending eight grand are seriously committed committed. And I think that, you know, to move on to that point, you know, doesn't that animal at that price work in favor of the animal's longevity, care, and best interests? Well, like I said, if people are looking at it as an investment saying, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to capitalize on this high priced animal. I'm going to spend 10, you know, 20 grand, get a pair, and then I'm going to breed them and make, you know,

60 grand and, and, and be the, be the man, you know, and then that doesn't pan out in three years and they go, Oh crap, I invested poorly. I need to make that money back. And so they're going to sell it to whoever has, you know, the most money at the most immediate time. And yeah, you might, they might end up in somebody's hands that's capable, but just as likely they're going to end up in somebody's hands that has money and wants to be cool and have an expensive snake. So it's, and, and those people who are serious, oftentimes, you know, they're, they're, you know, may not be willing to put up that much money because they know that how difficult the project is. They know if the snake's being moved around,

there's going to be less of a chance. And maybe they're saying, well, I'll just, I'll wait for prices to come down or I'll wait for something to change where, you know, I can't, I can't justify spending 10 grand. I don't know if this is a trend, if it's going to change where, you know, I can't, I can't justify spending 10 grand. I don't know if this is a trend, if it's going to continue this way or if, or if they'll loosen, you know, restrictions and more will be imported. But, and I, and I think, you know, the, the importers play a role in this. They, they see these kinds of things and they go, Oh, I know that these are worth more. So I'm going to jack up my prices, you know, even though I'm not paying more for them necessarily, but I can make a lot better money off of them. So overall, I, I, I don't know. I, I see it's, it's hard to sell expensive

snakes. I mean, you've had some stuff that's been pretty pricey. You bred some of the, you know, you've got, you've got some in your hands now, you know, or you're looking to make money off them or you're looking to put them in the right hands for, you know, if you have to sell them for less. Making money off of them is the last thing I'm interested in. I don't, I don't, it's not, you know, that's not the point for me, but. And I would contest that most, you know, responsible breeders who really care about the species are going to have that same attitude as you. And so what I'm saying is, um, a lot of people that, um, are just buying animals, they're not going to spend that 20. I mean, I don't know, would you spend if, if Tracy and you wanted to diversify your collection, would you spend, you know, 20 grand on them or would you

wait till a friend bred them and then trade them for babies or something like that? You know, I live in Southern California. I don't have a spare 20 grand laying around. I don't think anybody really does. Yeah, that's my mortgage and a bunch of other stuff. And reptile keepers, you know, they say if you want to make a million dollars in reptiles, you got to start with two million, right? That's how it goes. So it's not like, you know,

granted there's some people that maybe proved that wrong, but for the most part, you know, most, most people who specialize in these rare or difficult to find species are not the big breeders, despite my argument on the previous podcast, right? They're usually hobbyists and don't have an extra 20 grand to drop on a pair of snakes. So yeah. And once they're in capable hands and once people breed them, that's, that's a completely different story. Like you said, they're probably more willing to, to take less money, but make sure they wind up in the right hands and, uh, help to diversify the genetics of the population and important things like that, rather than I need to make some cash on these

things. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm the man now because I bred Tracy. Okay. So, so let's, let's clear that up real quick. If I get another clutch or two, I'm going to sell them for money and I'm going to make money off of them. But I want to make sure that we can shore up the U.S. captive population for them before I do that. So, I mean, don't don't misunderstand me as I'm not interested in money. Of course, I'm interested in money. I've spent a lot of time, a lot of effort, and I want to see them have success. And I don't think if I sold them for a premium leads to better outcomes. Now, that, you know, and so I think that's a natural thing. I think people protect things that they're heavily invested in, whether you're emotionally invested or financially invested. Um, nobody wants to lose a bunch of capital,

no matter which type of capital it is, you know? Um, so, and, and, you know, I mean, I think, um, in the same internet search, I was, I was looking around and there's a juvenile, uh, import, um, uh, um, amethystine or scrub, uh, that's, that's like $850. So even the price of imports is coming up and, and, and what's, what is driving that is, is the price of, uh, or the availability of imports and the price, uh price that's being commanded because of captive bred animals. Right. And so some of that really depends on how importation continues. If importation opens wide up, then you're going to see the captive market react because it has to. But at the same time, I don't think it's going to. I don't think we're in that place anymore where markets are going to open wide back up again. I think we're seeing a very marketed trend towards, you know, uh, conservation and restriction, uh, and freedom of movement of

animals across borders. Um, and so because of that, the higher prices to incentivize people to, you know, um, kind of make careful decisions and to focus and to do all those kinds of things that, um, will lead them to better outcomes for their investment, for their animals, for, for the, you know, what for what their goals are. I can see that to a point. I think the case with the bull and I went beyond that point. I think back in, they're an iconic species, so people really are drawn to them. They've been hyped up by certain keepers. I've, I've heard some people say they're just a black scrub, you know, it's all the fuss, but there's some people that just love them. You know, there's, there's no other species for them. And, and I get that,

you know, that's, that's fine. And I have species like that for me and thank goodness, they're not 10 grand a piece, you know, like that's, that's a hefty, hefty price tag. And, and I just, I don't see that working well for the species. You know, I don't think, I think to a point, you know, if they're, you know, maybe two or three grand, yeah, that's going to weed out the people who just, you know, who, who, who buy them kind of like a, a unplanned purchase or something, you know, if they're 50 bucks, then yeah, people are going to buy them at a reptile show without thinking about it. But if they're a couple thousand dollars, it gives people pause.

People don't spend that kind of money very quickly, but if they're 10 grand a piece, you know, that's where you're, you know, five figures, you're like, oh my gosh, that's, that's serious money that takes a lot of time and planning for, for, you know, 99% of reptile keepers, if not more. And, uh, so I, I think in the long run, those huge price tags are going to have the opposite effect that, you know, that you're talking about where, where, you know, they're, yeah, of course they're valued and everybody's going to say, oh, wow, they're the pinnacle species, but I can't afford them. Nobody I know can afford them.

You know, it's just these people who- Maybe not everybody should afford them. Yeah. But, you know, nobody, I mean- Well, not nobody. People can't afford them. You know, what's the point? Every animal, every Bolins that I looked at was already sold.

So somebody is buying these animals. Well, and that could be an availability thing. I mean, there's just not that many out there. So people get desperate, you know, mortgage their house to buy a Bolins or something with the hopes of it, you know, maybe paying off down the road. Or like I said, they could be people wanting Instagram likes, you know, they buy these expensive snakes and all of a sudden they have instant cred because they bought this expensive snake. So I don't, I don't, I don't think, I don't think buying an expensive snake gives you instant cred. I don't think that's, well, they're wrong. I mean, it's a flawed logic, but I'm not.

So is, so is thinking you're, you know, by having a big truck's going to make your, you know, nether region grow longer, but people still do it. Small people syndrome, I guess, but I'm just saying there, you know, that, that, that does occur. And that, that's human nature to think, oh, I bought this expensive thing. That makes me better than those around me or that makes me cool in some way. So I just think to a point, it has the opposite effect. And I think Bolin and I have reached that point. Now, the other scrubs, maybe not to that point. I mean, Malucan, $2,500, that's not that staggeringly you know crazy amount i think most

keepers could probably considering the the amount of animals that are in this country yeah or oh yeah even coming into this country that's a that's a that's a reasonable number and let's let's the wild caught that's a huge risk too i mean you could if that's an caught animal, I mean, if it's a long-term captive or something. What do you, what do you think those bull and I that are the seven, especially people who know how to keep and work with Boll and I, are going to make that risk. And so they're going to wind up in hands of people who don't understand the risk or don't understand how to keep Boll and I, and it's just going to be a waste of time. Or do understand how to keep Boll and I and do totally understand the risk.

I mean, I think your premise is built on the fact that these people are sensationalists do understand how to keep bull and i and do totally understand the risk i mean i think your premise is built on the fact that these these people are sensationalists and they have more money than brains and that's the that's the the lamb's share of where um you know these expensive animals go and and it and sure that's an avenue sure there's america's full of plenty of people with more money than brains i i mean we we we definitely have no shortage of that but i don't i don't think that that's a fair argument to make is it is it reasonable to say that that can happen yes it is but i don't i don't think categorically that is necessarily where these animals are going. I don't, you know, and, you know, the people who have approached me about buying Tracy, I are thoughtful, experienced keepers that if I was willing to let the animals go, i would be willing to let them go to those people

um i i haven't been approached by the sensationalist youtuber uh about you know so tracy i haven't made it to that now let's be honest i don't even think for bull and i i don't i don't think that a brown scrub python is ever going to reach that, that, that pinn expensive projects work out in the long run, in my opinion. I don't know. Sometimes they, you know, they usually don't have the patience and if they're not selling within a, you know, a couple of weeks, they're going to drop the price or, you know. Well, and look, man, whether you're talking, you know, wild caught monitors or whether you're talking wild caught similia, it's a long game. Acclimating wild animals and getting them behaving and feeling comfortable is a long game.

And so that $10,000 spread out over 10 years, it's- But how many are going to make it that long? If you have an imported wild caught bologna or tracier, how how many are going to make it that long you know if you have an imported wild caught bolini or traci how long are those going to last minor minor 2011 animals by guesstimation okay but i'm saying of all the traci you know about that have been in capable hands how many are still alive today? What percentage? Not a very big percentage, right? I mean, wild caught animals have a, have a bad track record. And so asking that much money, people are going to be, you know, have, have great pause and say, I'm not going to spend that much

money unless this is a prime clean, you know, long-term captive that's been in somebody's capable's hands for several years then maybe they're going to make that jump but if it's and isn't that good but but isn't that good for the market isn't that good for the keeper who wants to make that investment to say hey this animal needs to be clean it needs to be healthy it needs to be you know worth me spending that money so that what what i'm getting for my investment is so again an ideal world but how many times do you have animal good for the keeper yeah and and and listen justin live animals are risk i i mean captive bred captive born still a risk but but there's there's different levels of risk you risk. But there's different levels of risk. There's different levels of risk, like a captive bred animal versus a wild caught.

Well, if you're paying 500 bucks. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's my point. You're helping me. $500 risk versus $5,000 risk. Yeah, exactly. So if it's a wild caught animal, you're saying, okay, I can, I can risk, you know, a couple thousand dollars. I'm not risking $20,000, you know, on a pair. If it's, if it's a captive bred and born bull and I, that's a different story.

But to my knowledge, there aren't many of those being sold, right? There's not many of those around. And, and I would say that we should move towards that where captive bred animals are valued more highly, but we know that most keepers don't make that consideration, right? They're going to say, oh, I'm going to take this wild caught green tree python for $300 versus the captive bred green tree python for $1,000 every time, right? Because they're going to think, oh, I'm going to beat the odds. No, but look, you can look to the captive bred condor market and see those animals are fetching a premium. They're very, very expensive, more expensive than I think they should be.

But guess what? People are paying that, people are buying them, and the condo market is doing awesome, right? Yeah. Yeah. But how many people are having good success and how many imports are ruining that for the new keeper that says, oh, I'm going to spend what I can afford and buy an import, they still don't get that message of imports are a risky thing. And then they lose their import or they have to spend all this money on vet bills. And in the long run, yeah, they should have bought the captive bread. They should have spent the extra money. But they're not going to.

Because why? Because they're getting a better animal. Because it's better for the animal, it's better for the keeper. It's better for the keeper. That's not the argument. That's not the argument. The argument is the captive bred versus the wild caught. I'm saying if you had a wild caught that's a thousand dollars, are you going to spend that? Are you going to make that risk? Probably not, because, you know, the likelihood is that that animal is going to tank pretty high for, for, you know, to, to some extent. And I think that, and I think if you go into a pet shop and you see a green tree Python for a thousand dollars, that is going to cause that maybe less skilled first time keeper pause and they'll balk at that animal. And it, you know what? I mean, is that a bad thing? Is that,

I mean, if Burmese pythons and retics were all $1,000 and a first-time keeper had to walk into a pet shop and be like, dang, $1,000, mommy, I want that. Would that stop that sale? So what I'm saying is that that dollar value is a check mechanism for sales that maybe the market to make sure that the, that the investor, the keeper is, is fully invested in the animal that the animal gets what it needs. And I think, you know, it, it, it, it prevents overproduction. It can, it can cause you know, a trickle down almost effect in goods and services around those animals. If those animals are highly valued, then you can create highly specialized goods and services

that cater to those animals. And because they have such a value around them, people will invest in those, those higher goods and services to support that animal. So it actually grows the market. Um, and, and, you know, I think, I think it, it can be a good thing for everybody. Again. Yeah. I, I, I see that point and I agree with you there, but the, the, uh, to an extent, right. Again, if they reach that point where even the most dedicated keeper can't afford it or is not going to put up that kind of money for that risk, then you move past the, okay, here's the disposable animal price and we want to avoid that. And I think everybody's in agreement that that's not a good thing. That import prices and imports in general, I like to see the slow of imports. I like to see that kind of going down and maybe being replaced by

captive bred animals. And, you know, honestly, when imports stop, that's when you see the animals being valued for the animals and you see the price that the market can bear. The prehensile tailed skinks are a great example, right? Um, once the import stopped, they became not a $60 animal, but a thousand dollar animal. And only the people who really wanted to work with those were able to afford them. And it wasn't just like, well, I have 60 bucks in my wallet and that's an impressive lizard. So I'm going to buy it. You know, they don't do any research, that kind of thing. So you, you get past that. But if, but if she, you know, prehensile tailed skinks were $20,000, you know. So you, you get past that. But if, but if she, you know,

prehensile tailed skinks were $20,000, you know, then yeah, of course, nobody's going to work with them because they're mean and they're, you know, not, not that exciting. They're kind of boring or something. I don't know. Maybe there's somebody out there that would pay that, but very few people would. But if they're in the thousand dollar range, those people, you know, that's not an insurmountable amount of money. And so then you weed out the people who are making the impulse buy and you're focusing on the good people. And then once you reach that threshold of nobody's going to pay that, you know, it's a ridiculous amount, then the project suffers. That's kind of my point with uh well and so and so you know in in free market economics uh if you're asking too much for an animal that market will correct um and and do i think that bull and i are overpriced yes for for what is actually going on in the market right now for what the consumer is getting uh is that too much to pay for an animal yeah it is it absolutely is for the risk that that the keeper is going to assume taking those animals in all of that yes i

100 agree with you but nonetheless that that higher price is a good thing for the animal it's a good thing for the keeper if it'll'll, if, if it pushes back onto high quality, higher quality animals, um, and, and, you know, better care for the animal in the end. Um, which, you know, which I would, I would say that, you know, doesn't necessarily happen. It's, it's past that threshold. And, uh, we're, we're kind of in the, the, the, the area where it's going to have to correct or, or there's going to be serious consequences. So. Absolutely. Well, I mean, I, I mean, I don't know that there'll be serious consequences. I think there'll just be what there'll be is just people selling animals for less and having an advertised

price and the animals move for less. I mean, always under the table. Yeah, of course. That happens all the time. Yeah. No, not that it happens all the time. Yeah. We wouldn't want to imply that. Yeah. We can't help the real dealings in the reptile world. Right. Or if you have other valuable animals, you know, a lot of times these higher end projects actually, you know, result in more trades than actual cash. You know, if you have a high priced project or a rare project, a lot of times you get people come to you say, hey, I have this other high priced rare animal and I just produce some babies. You know, you want to swap babies and it gives you an opportunity to get into other other projects.

But, you know, if somebody saying, oh, I just want cash only, they're going to have a hard time or they're going to sit on that animal for a long time. You know, it'd be interesting to see, you know, how long these things stay on the market. And, you know, maybe they take them down and then everybody seems, oh, it's sold. Well, maybe not. You know, it's really, there's a lot of things that go into this and it's hard to know exactly what's happening. So, yeah. Sure. Sure. So just to move on, I think, um, you know, the, another potential avenue where higher priced animals, um, can, can be of benefit is, is you really see, um, you know, especially I think big scrubs are an example of this where, you know, if the price is higher, you're likely to get a more competent level of keeper, which reduces the

potential for kind of negative press associated with the reckless handling of that animal, which could potentially lead to less eyes on us, eyes on the hobby, and potential less legislation. So I think that's another avenue where that higher priced animal, which isn't able to be in every single person's hands, has a secondary benefit towards, you know, creating a little bit more of a potential for a positive image rather than a clickbait, sensationalistic news story around, you know, giant scrub bites man and ends up in hospital or something along those lines. Yeah. And granted, I mean, there's, and of course, you know, Americans are not going to want to hear this, but you know, there's some, some species that just the average keeper should not keep. Right.

Because a lot of that, regardless of the price, you know, I don't care if it's $10,000, some some species should just not be kept by the average person and they should not be bred in the numbers that they're being bred. And, you know, that's a tricky thing because some of these things do very well in the wild and retics are the great example, you know, and, and, but, but they're, you know, their importation is stopped and, um, you know, the high price is generally these days associated with morphs and that has definitely destroyed the retic market in in terms of being able to find a locality specific retic for those that are you know more more conservation or or you know kind of that

mindset of i want to preserve the species for the species. You know, you can't find localities hardly anywhere, right? There's maybe one or two people that work with a couple, uh, but show me, you know, a bunch of different mainland localities, you're not going to find them. And so that, you know, kind of destroyed, uh, because of the high price of morphs that pushed everybody into, into working with morphs at the, you know, the, the, the downfall of, you know, locality specific retics. And, you know, almost to, to this day, they, they probably would probably fetch a better price. You know, if you can get a locality, you look at the locality dwarf stuff that Garrett is working with and, you know, they're, they're commanding fairly nice prices.

They're locality specific and, and, you know, may not have any weird genes going on with them and preferably not because, you know, that means they were crossed with some other locality. So those kind of morph-driven pricing, I think, is very detrimental to maintaining locality-specific or pure lines, and it drives people to make poor decisions, such as hybridization. Or buying a retake when they shouldn't. Yeah, exactly. They see it as an investment rather than a serious, you know, uh, potentially dangerous animal. Um, so, so we might be able to agree. So we might be able to agree that morphs, at least being more expensive might keep people from making bad decisions? Well, I mean, to use your logic,

it's going to make them more valuable. They're going to be more excited about them. And so they're going to try to, you know, try their hardest to get those. And then once they get them, they're going to breed them to everything with the cloaca. So it's going to, you know, have a double-edged effect of them trying to make money off an animal, followed by, you know, breeding it to whatever they feel like they need to breed it to. So, well, but I mean, I think the hobby in my my opinion.

Well, I mean, you know, them being cheaply priced and readily available is to the detriment of the hobby, is it not? Well, yeah. So them being more expensive and harder for the average person to acquire means that less of them will be produced. I mean, you could make the- Initially, but you know what happens with the morph projects, right? They drop like a rock. five grand for some new shiny retic morph. But then in, in a year or two, it's going to be down to $500 and then down to $50 because nobody cares about that morph anymore. And you've got a bunch of giant snakes. You got to get off your hands. So you can move them quick, you know? But if you can't get a bunch of, you know, giant snakes, then those projects start to hold their

value more because they're not, you know, that's how morphs have worked because people jump into them. They overproduce them and then the prices fall. But again, if they have a higher, if they command a higher cost, and we're kind of talking about something that has a lot of stock in the U S if we're talking about something that doesn't have a lot of stock and it's a higher price, then there's fewer animals produced. And those animals retain their value longer, uh, because it's a, it's a supply and demand numbers thing. Well, that's what you tell the, you know, the people below you in the pyramid scheme, but I mean, do you not think that's true? If there is a species that's rare, yeah, they usually, and they're not imported, then they usually maintain reasonable pricing. And that's evident in anything from Australia

that's, we only have captive bred animals to feed the market. And, and it's a, it's a great model, right? Because there is kind of that, that point where it can't reach lower than a certain threshold and it can't reach higher than a certain threshold. You know, you have that kind of sweet spot in the middle where, you know, the animals mostly, uh, uh, and you see this go in cyclical cycles too. You know, sometimes are worth $1,000 and other times they're worth $150. It kind of fluctuates based on supply and demand. Well, but going back to your argument about, what was his name? He did the-

Yeah, Bert. And so he produced a lot of those animals, right? And they weren't worth anything. But when he passed away and there were a few of them, now they're worth a lot of money. Why? Because there are not a lot of them around. Yeah. Right. And so, you know, again, because there's not a lot of them around and they're valued at what they are people recognize them for the rarity that they are people who who see reptiles you know cheap and commonly they don't recognize them for the rarity that they are and we work with a lot of things that are extremely rare but they're not to us because they're fairly common right i mean they potentially are rare in the hobby, right?

Like rough scale pythons in Australia. Yeah. Once they fell, you know, were commonly bred, they fell to, you know, fairly low prices and people had a hard time giving away, but that that's rebounded now. And there's more keepers coming in and realizing, Hey, these are cool. And then they're like, who's breeding them? Nobody, because they weren't worth money. And that's, that's my, that's another, you know, kind of point I want to make is, is when we, when we have this free market surrounding animals, it's, it's detrimental to, to our hobby in the long run, because then we say, oh, if it's a low price, it's not worth anything. But if it's a high price, then it's

important and it's worth something and we should pay attention to it. But all these animals we're working with should have, you know, should be valued regardless of their price. And so that's, that's the other aspect of this is when we, when we value money based on their rarity or their price, that's when we get into trouble. And that's the problem I have with, with these expensive, you know, rare animals or, or these expensive or, or these cheap common animals, when we value animals and put a price tag on them, that's when we're saying, I mean, if it was me, if I could kind of control everything, I would say, okay, you know, pretty much every reptile, you know, let's, let's set a, set a price where people are not just going to buy it willy nilly, but

they're also going to think about it and plan for it and stuff. And that, you know, of course that's impossible to do, but I, I would like to see people care more about the animal and less about the money, you know, especially obvious breeders. Yeah. People have to make money and there's professional breeders that need to feed their families. But for the most of us that, you know, the 90% of keepers, they don't have to do that. They can pick, pick projects based on whether they like the animals or not, you know, whether regardless of their price. And, you know, sometimes we get unlucky and we like an animal like a bull and I, that, that swings up to 10 grand a piece, or we like shingleback skinks and they're, you know,

very difficult to find. And they're very expensive when you can find them, or maybe you're really lucky and you really get off on, you know, leopard geckos, wild type leopard geckos or wild type bearded dragons. And you can get them all day for basically free. And you have this army of them. Now, you know, when we, when we, uh, when imports stop some of these things, you know, and then people get really excited about them because they can't get them anymore. You know, like the, the, uh, basilisk is a prime example. So Bert bred a lot of basilisks, uh, green basilisks and, and they weren't imported and he was doing very well. People were buying them and then they started importing them and his sales went, you know, down by a lot

and where he was a professional breeder, he had to make the decision. I have to move on to other, other species because these, these aren't paying the bills anymore. And so unfortunately, kind of that, that import trashes some of these projects and it's very difficult to have a project as a professional breeder. Now, a hobbyist, we can get these so-called trash species and we can produce them captively and produce, you know, very healthy and long-lived examples. I think, you know, even if there's no morphs available, it's a revolutionary concept, I know. But I think there was, was it Yasser or somebody on the old Morelia pythons forums that said, you know, that made that suggestion that everybody should have a project that's worth nothing. You know, they work with it just because they love the species, not because it has any kind of monetary value. And that to me is kind of what, what brings joy to me in keeping reptiles. You know, I think when, when you think about selling stuff and

having to, you know, support, you know, or pay for stuff or whatever, using reptile money, you know, you have some stuff that you do that with, but hopefully everybody has a species that brings them no monetary benefit, but that they really enjoy keeping just for the fact of keeping it. Well, so, you know, I, uh, which, you know, is better. It takes, you know, it, it, it, it's good for the imports that they're, that they're valued greater. Um, and, and I think it probably leads to less throwaway imports, um, and which, you know, is a good thing. So, you know, uh, unfortunately um and which you know is a good thing so you know unfortunately what we're talking about is a market coupled kind of thing with live animals and that's not cool

yeah you know what i mean it's not cool yeah but but it is the it is the world that we live in um and and and you know we man we monetize human beings in this, in modern day society. So, you know, I mean, it sucks, but if I had to choose, you know, you know, a reptile that's valued higher or a reptile that's valued lower, I know what the outcome is on that reptile that's valued lower. Well, wouldn't that be cool if you could destroy that? You could destroy the import market where you could breed a commonly available species that's imported. But that wouldn't be good. Sure it would. No, it wouldn't.

Because you could get that importation to stop. You could have captive bred, clean, healthy animals that are going to survive longer. And you could still make some money off the project if you needed to. You might still have people that are impulse buying. But if you're the one that's ruining that import market, you can have those animals and they're going to do a lot better in the long run. So it's going to be better for the animals. But let's parse that out. Why is that bad, Chuck? Why do you not like that idea?

Why do you want these poor imports to suffer? Let's speak on it a little bit because it depends on what you're talking about. If you're talking about green tree pythons, yeah, importation, shutting down importation right now, right here, right now is not going to cause them to skip a lick. And it's probably just going to drive those already expensive animals even further through the roof. But if you're talking about Bolin's pythons or scrub pythons, then that will absolutely devastate the genetic diversity within the United States for those animals, because people are not producing them on a level to create enough genetic diversity and enough animals to maintain that genetic diversity. So those animals have to be slowly imported in order to create, um, uh, you know, a sustainable genetic diversity within us captive, uh, you know, collections.

And so I think if you completely shut that off, um, you, you, you choke, it's kind of the white rhino. You bottleneck those species and they become so inbred at some point that they're non-viable. So I hear you. I just think that valuing captive animals and allowing them to drive up the price of imports where imports can still come in. They can come in in fewer numbers and they're valued higher so that people have to make a good value judgment about the worth of that genetic diversity rather than look at that animal as an easy throwaway. Yeah. But if you're pumping out bull and I from a single pair and they're going to people that might breed them,

you're going to be able to acquire more diverse stock. You'll have the power to do that. From where? Well, from other stuff in the US. Do you think everything in the US is related to each other? It's all imported.

They're all wild animals. I mean, wild collected animals. So there is genetic diversity here, right? So if you were able to get other animals, it's going to increase the genetic diversity of your projects if you're successful with those. That's what I'm saying. So I didn't hear any of that because you skipped out, but here's what I'm going to say.

If they shut down importation and nobody's producing in the United States, it's a bottleneck and it's going to lead to a dead end genetic, you know, road. Well, depending. I mean, there's plenty of animals in the U.S. They're just spread out across the U.S., right? If we had a stud book, if we, you know, as a group, as reptile keepers kept stud books like zoos and adopted some of those practices, we could keep that genetic diversity and document that genetic diversity. And then that wouldn't be a problem. That's a good topic for discussion. Yeah, I think we ought to cover that topic at another time.

But we're not doing that. And we're too, you know, as an American society, it's just speaking for us Americans, we're too much of an individualistic society to do something like that. So, you know, I hear what you're saying, but if we shut down importation of something like Bolin's pythons, it's a fucking wrap. It's over. All right. Well, I think we've covered our hour here. I think we've made some good points on, on both sides. Let's maybe have a, have a wrap up argument or wrap up statement,

and then we'll call it another good topic there. Sure. I enjoyed talking about this with you, Chuck. No, it was good, man. I appreciate this. I think that, you know, kind of in summary, there's a threshold of how much value you can put on an animal, especially a high risk project like a bull and I, or, you know, even like a shingle back, I think it, it works to the detriment of the project when, when that threshold is surpassed. Um, you know, not to say that, that, uh, a high price on an animal is a bad thing, but a threshold, uh, exists where it becomes something that's

negative for the project. So that's kind of my, my main point with that. And it puts, puts the animals in hands where, where, you know, they, they're going to have a lower amount of success than a higher amount. So. Okay. Well, I mean, I, I think that, you know, just to re hit my points that, you know, higher priced animals, uh, lead to better care, um, because you're getting better care and you have fewer animals, you get less overproduction. Um, it leads to more focus keeping, um, you know, better care, more focus keeping leads to, uh, better, you know, uh, um, edu, not education, but, um, and the captive keeping of these animals.

And I said that the higher price for these animals in the keeping leads to better goods and services around those animals. So it allows some of these companies that support our hobby to specialize a little bit more, come out with some things that may be a little more higher priced, a little more, you know, fancy for, for those keepers who are really looking to, to create that next level of care for their animals. Um, and then, you know, I think with, with higher priced animals, you have lesser of them, they're in better hands. So it, it leads to a less of a chance of, you know, bad press, um, and, and, and bad press and hopefully better outcomes for the animals.

And I think that will lead to better investing in the hobby because people are so invested in these higher priced animals, they have to protect that. And so, if they're willing to spend big money on their animals, they need to be willing to spend more money on protecting their right to own those animals. And least we not forget that it is extremely important that a higher priced captive animal is going to lead to less pressure on imports and greater costs of imports, which not only benefit, you know, the higher prices not only benefit captive animals, but they also benefit import animals. So that's kind of sums up how I kind of, you know, see it and feel about it. I think, you know, it's a complex, nuanced argument like most everything we

do. But I certainly think, you know, if you're going to advocate for animals like we do, certainly paying more for that animal is only going to benefit the animal. All right. Well, that was a very thorough response. Thank you. You're a worthy adversary, Chuck. I feel like I'm getting better at this. I feel like you have beaten me enough that I cannot take no more shellacans so hopefully well hopefully we we continue to get better and and you know we can keep back and forth and i think uh you know um these are good these are good topics they're worthy topics and they need to be flushed out and and uh you know i i don't care what side you're on

and you don't have to agree with me or or or, or whatever, but, but the, the discussion is the important part. And, and we, as, as, you know, reptile keepers and hobbyists and, and people who are passionate need to need to start having these discussions and, and, and, you know, kind of thinking about where we're going. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully if you're entrenched in one side or another, you heard, you know, the, the other side, and maybe there were some points that convinced uh, convinced you that it's not as simple as, as may seem. So, um, you know, I'm, I'm curious to see where bull and I go and, you

know, other, other high priced, uh, projects. Um, but, uh, that's, you know, it's a tricky thing when, when you stop those imports and animals become less easy to acquire, it really requires some, you know, some thought and some planning and some care for the animals versus care to make a buck. And I feel like we're kind of in uncharted territory. I mean, this is, you know, if 10 years ago you would have said, oh, man, importation is going away. I'm like, yeah, right. Sure. Okay. Sure. Okay. Yeah.

But I don't, I don't, I'm not. I think it'll ebb and flow. I mean, you know, how many times has Madagascar closed down only to reopen, you know,

and import a bunch of stuff again. So, you know, it's possible that, you know, and, and maybe the regime changes or, you know,

the, the government of the country swatch it switches over and over and you get new government that doesn't care. And they say, yeah, go for it. Why do we stop that? That was a nice source of revenue for our people. And they open it up again. And then all of a sudden you've got all these, you know, this flood of imports and everybody's like, oh, I want bull and I, I want bull and I. But then, you know, then the price has to drop some extent, if you've got an influx of animals.

Um, I was, you know, there was a, what was it? Some morph project. And like, all of a sudden they realized that the, the super form was, was cooler than they, they thought, or they didn't know there was a super form. And all of a sudden they, and then they tried to increase the price and it's like, yeah, nobody's doing that. They're, they're already gone out at this other price. So, you know, you never know what the pricing's going to do once something like that happens. Maybe they stay high, maybe bull and I are always $10,000 animals from here on out. So, and that's a fair, but that's a fair point. You're right. I mean, uh, we, and I guess,

I guess that kind of is a little bit, what I'm saying is we live in a dynamic time right now. And as we move forward, there's more and more going on. And it seems to be crazier and crazier. Are Mexican black king snakes going to keep selling for $800? No, they're going to be back down to $50, $100, I would say before too long. It's a roller coaster. And we see this so many times. That's why I would just advocate, work with what you like.

Work with what you're passionate about. Don't work with what's worth money, you know, at this moment. Because that's going to change, you know. And if you work with something because you like it, chances are you're going to hit the high points of the roller coaster here and there. And you're going to, you know, make some money off your some money sure but but scrubs scrubs have never been common you know what i mean there's certain animals that have never been common yeah and probably rightly so they're angry they're to some extent you know some they're angry with you man they like me i'm fine with it i don't have a problem i just i just have a problem. I just don't try to reach into their

cage and grab them right out. That's where you get the teeth. I've never kept scrubs. I know that Ben Morrill kept some and he said he got tagged by a juvenile and it left a huge bruise on his chest. This was a little one. He's like, what happens when this thing's 15 feet long? You should see the size of my tracy eyes teeth oh yeah they're huge it's crazy they're huge so yeah not not necessarily a project for everybody but they hit really hard yeah really hard well my friend it's uh it's been a good one again and and uh thanks for for uh engaging and i'm glad you won the coin toss this time.

I think you picked the right side. You had some good arguments there. It might have been my saving grace. But yeah, man, thank you again. And another good topic. And just a shout out to the Morelia Python Radio Network and those guys, the Podfather. And, you know. Check out all the shows.

We got Morelia Pythons Radio, if I can say that right. Herp History, they had a great episode with Ron St. Pierre the other night. It was fantastic. Ron's a great guy. He's done so many cool things. Yeah. Some fun stories. Check that out. Herp History with,

uh, Ron St. Pierre the other, and, and all the guests they've had on there have been fantastic. I mean, it's, it, you don't get much better than Keith McPeak. I was, I was so geeked out being able to hang out with him and, and, you know, get to know him a little better. And I feel like I didn't, didn't even scratch the surface. You know, I could have used another week or two with him, uh, hanging out as long, along with some of the other guys there. I just really didn't, didn't even scratch the surface. You know, I could have used another week or two with him, uh, hanging out as long, along with some of the other guys there. I just really didn't feel like I, uh, was able to talk to him as much as I wanted to, but you know, some, some great people in this hobby, uh, carpet clip notes. If you're getting into Morelia, you're looking into different carpet pythons, check out that it gives you some good ideas ideas. The colubrid corner, we got Owen and Riley talking about colubrids, if you're into those.

Student of the serpent, that's really kind of a deep dive on different species. Carpets and coffee, every Monday they talk about lunchtime, talk about carpets and different things that are going on in the reptile world. Filled herbing podcast, I'm excited for more episodes of that one. That's, that's a lot of fun to hear about field herping, monitor keeping podcast, uh, humans of herpetoculture, um, and the Australian herpetoculture podcast, uh, end up the list here and from our, uh, reptile fight club. We're, we're happy to be added to that list as well. And we thank you for listening. And we'll look forward to doing another fight next week.

So stay tuned. Thanks, everybody. See ya. so Thank you. you