Contrary to popular beliefs, the most common reptile in rescue is not a giant. I see and receive requests to surrender more water turtles, primarily red eared sliders, than any other reptile. In fact, in one week I will get more requests to surrender sliders than I have received to surrender Burmese pythons in the entire existence of my rescue.

With Christmas around the corner, I am cringing. The wildly popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie will lead to a lot of impulse slider purchases. They are small, cute and cheap, and available at almost every pet store. They also live a long time, take a lot of care to set up properly and while the animal itself is inexpensive, a good set-up is not.

I have no problem with gifting a pet, but slider acquisitions are often made on impulse. Research will be minimal and the care sheets that are handed out are less than wonderful. The animals will come from a big box chain, and the likelihood that they have a chance to talk to an actual reptile person will be minimal.

The end result will sadly be people who talk about how horrible reptile pets are. This takes more than a blog post to fix. Reach out to friends who may be thinking of getting their very own "hero in a half-shell" for their children. Let them know the real commitment that a water turtle will take, and let us hope they do not follow the historical trend of movie impulse purchases.

There's nothing like really bad science and equally bad reality TV to make problems for reptile rescuers.

Discovery Channel, in their brilliant glory, ran a farce of a documentary last weekend where a man got into a snake proof suit, slathered himself in pigs blood and then pretended like he was going to be "Eaten Alive" to boost their ratings. Unfortunately, it's created a big headache for reptile resue groups like mine.

My first call was to find out if anacondas are able to live in Wisconsin. The answer is no. Despite the fact that we have a lot of rivers and swamps, as the caller pointed out to me, the temperatures are far too cold for an anaconda to survive. I mean seriously, it is 22 degrees outside right now.

Three emails followed that asking about anacondas. All three inquired as to if anacondas could really eat people and if they do all the time. It was about this time my head started to hurt and that is when I logged onto Facebook and realized that "Eaten Alive" had aired the previous night.

Several emails followed, all asking a variety of questions about large species of snakes and their deadliness to humans. By the end of Monday night, I had a pre-typed email as a response and was several beers into my 12-pack.

A call this morning also induced severe head pain (no, it wasn't a hangover!), but thankfully I was able to talk the person down and into keeping their pet. The caller had a ball python and wanted to surrender it because they ate meat. Not the snake, mind you, but the pet owner!

They were concerned because the "scientist" who appeared on the show used pig's blood, and since they eat meat, their snake would become dangerous. Thankfully, I was able to explain the reality of snake ownership and also touch on cleanliness issues relating to owning any pet. Monty still has a home tonight and the owner no longer fears her pet.

While the show claimed it was aimed at educating about conservation, it merely introduced a new level of fear for those who live among reptiles. It is time that the media on all levels let go of the hype and stick to the facts.

Photo provided with permission by Mike Pingleton

Is the albino cobra recently captured in Los Angeles a domesticated animal?

According to the dictionary, "domestication: means:

to adapt (an animal or plant) to life in intimate association with and to the advantage of humans

According to Wikepedia:

Domestication (from Latin domesticus: "of the home") is the process whereby a population of living organisms is changed at thegenetic level, through generations of selective breeding, to accentuate traits that ultimately benefit the interests of humans.

By all above descriptions the albino cobra is indeed domesticated. This animal, with its inability to blend properly and camoflauge itself is unable to thrive in the wild, and was bred in captivity to specifically as a pet.

Reptile keepers universally agree that secure caging is part of responsible ownership. Does this mean escapes will never happen?

Of course not. Dogs and cats escape daily by the thousands. Stray pets end up at shelters from incidents as simple as a cat sneaking out of the door while groceries are being brought in or dogs accidentally getting out of a fenced yard due to human error. These incidents are far more common than a reptile escape.

While stray animals of all types happen, the fact is for the number of reptiles owned in the U.S., the percentage of escaped pets is exceptionally low.

Yes, it's dangerous when a venomous snake escapes. However, a snake such as the albino cobra would have been easily preyed upon due to its inability to hide properly. This is a big reason the snake was easily captured.

In losing Carl Koch, the herp world has lost a friend. And so have I.

Back many years ago, when I had but one lone iguana, I, like many of us, began frequenting my local reptile friendly pet store. At the time for me, it was Pets N Things in Cudahy, Wisc. Every Friday I would find myself at the store at the same time as a local reptile guy named Carl. He saw that I actually wanted to learn more and introduced me to herp societies, books and, importantly to my future, kingsnake.com.

Carl was an avid field herper and educator in Wisconsin. He worked with the State of Wisconsin on a variety of field studiesm including most recently Butler's gartersnake population surveys. Carl spent as much time as he could field herping.

Over the years, Carl and I became friends. I still went to him for advice on captive care, called him when I knew an animal that hit my rescue might interest him, and invited him to help me at my many educational events. I relied on him as a friend and as a mentor. When I finally started field herping, I reached out to Carl to show me the way. He graciously opened his schedule to take me and a friend looking for timber rattlesnakes, even though the weather was all wrong. We were skunked that day reptile-wise, but we all became better friends.



Last year, when I wanted to actively start herping, I reached out to Carl. I asked for advice, locations, even more advice. Carl had a magic in the field. It is where his passion thrived and where he found great peace. For Carl, who suffered from anxiety and severe depression, that peace was greatly needed. Carl's widow would like everyone suffering to know that if you are suffering, please reach out to friends and family.

Carl leaves behind his wife Stacy and their two daughters. I will be honoring his memory and all he did for me over the years by ensuring that his reptile pets are taken care of. His friends have already lined up to help.

This weekend as you head out to herp, take a moment to think of a man who helped turn this deli cupper into a full fledged herper.

After years of problems from weather to oil spills, it appears that the Florida Loggerhead nesting numbers are booming!

Loggerhead nesting statewide was almost the highest since monitoring began in 1989, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said Friday. In total, surveyors counted 58,172 loggerhead nests on the state's “index” beaches, second only to the peak seen in 1998.

Just five years ago, nesting on those same beaches hit a low of 28,074 and prompted widespread concerns about the status of the turtle.

“We're pleased to see this increase, but we recognize that loggerheads, and other sea turtle species, still face many challenges,” Blair Witherington, a commission research scientist, said Friday.

The majority of loggerhead nesting in the United States — 90% — occurs in Florida, especially along the east coast.

The even better news is that nesting season is still going until mid-November. To read the full article, click here.

A group of juvenile Desert Tortoises has been released in Nevada in efforts to track their movements to make relocations more successful in the future.

"Habitat destruction is one of the biggest threats facing desert tortoises in the wild," said Jennifer Germano Ph.D., post-doctoral researcher at the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center. "Currently we are using translocations as an experimental tool to help minimize some of the impacts to tortoise populations. Tracking this group of young tortoises will allow us to better understand how these animals respond to translocation, which will help us improve recovery efforts for this species in the future."

A transmitter has been placed on each of the tortoises to allow researchers to track the movements and health of the juvenile reptiles (ranging in age from 3 to 8 years). Translocations have recently been recommended for tortoises impacted by regional habitat disturbances due to energy project development and as a tool to augment depleted populations. Through this effort, researchers hope to better understand what factors improve long-term survival for individuals and how they can improve the tools they use for the conservation management of this species.

To read the full article, click here.

And last, the grillnet industry is on a course to continue killing sea turtles despite the Leatherback's listing as state marine reptile in California.

Longlining along California’s coast has been banned due its high bycatch of non-target animals, including federally protected marine mammals and endangered species.

The California drift gillnet fishery targets swordfish and thresher shark using nets that stretch a mile in length. But obviously this fishing method collects life indiscriminately from the ocean, resulting in the death or injury (a death sentence in the wild) of more than 130 protected whales, dolphins, seal and sea lions and thousands of other sharks and marine mammals, according to the Sea Turtle Restoration Project.

Anything taken aboard other than a swordfish or shark is dumped back into the ocean – dead, alive or dying.

“Curtains of death, in the form of the California driftnet fishery, should be abolished in California waters and need to be phased out as soon as possible,” biologist and executive director of SeaTurtles.org, Todd Steiner said. “Sea turtles, sharks and whales are all being hammered by this fishery that targets high-mercury seafood species that are largely unfit to eat.”

To read the full article, click here.

Sometimes we think government regulators are out to get our hobby. But the more I talk with them as individuals, the more I realize some of them simply don't understand how we feel about our pets.

That word -- "pets" -- pretty much sums up the issue, in fact. While I was at the National Reptile and Amphibian Legal Symposium, I had a conversation with one of the US Fish and Wildlife representatives, who had listened to my impassioned comments on general pet owner issues relating to the addition of species onto the Lacey Act. It turns out she was flabbergasted to hear that we reptile people see these animals as our pets, and not as a commodity.

As government regulation and a bad economy combined to threaten the reptile community, we as hobbyists, breeders, and keepers did a pretty good job of talking to our legislators about the financial impact of bans and restrictions. That was a pretty smart thing to do, particularly with more conservative lawmakers who are very attuned to the plight of small businesses.

But we've done a terrible job of talking about how we feel about our animals, and that's hurt us.

Most people who own reptiles keep them as pets, not as a business. It's their beauty and personality, not any prospect of financial gain, that make them important to us.

In my conversation with the regulator, I could see she was really struggling to understand. So I changed "Burmese python" to "cat," and gave her the same scenario. She instantly realized where our passion and anger over the rule change came in. Just in an instant, the realization of leaving behind a beloved pet made all the world of sense.

Reptiles may not be dogs and cats, but to those of us that love and keep them, they are as dear to our hearts. That's something we need to keep talking about.