Two thieves in a Chevrolet Pickup Truck attempted to steal
this adult Galapagos tortoise from Gerry Fife's breeding facility in Arizona
At 2:30a.m this morning two thieves attempted to steal an adult Galapagos Tortoise from the tortoise breeding facility in Arizona run by long time tortoise breeder Jerry Fife. The breeder sized female tortoise, a critically endangered species, was severely injured in the process and the decision was made to humanely euthanize her. A reward is now being offered to bring the two thieves to justice and video of the attempt is available on Jerry's facebook page. It is hoped that between the herp community and the law enforcement community the miscreants can be identified and arrested. This is a devastating loss for Jerry who is one of the few successful private breeders of the species in the United States. Captive Galapagos tortoises, natives of the Galapagos Islands, can live up to 177 years in captivity and are the largest species of tortoise in existence. Some may weigh over 900lbs.

This is just one of a number of recent reptile thefts in the United States from outdoor captive reptile breeding facilities, causing many of those facilities to tighten their security.

For the first time since launching in February of 1997 kingsnake.com's servers were knocked offline several times for long periods during last weeks polar vortex. The servers, located in Austin Texas, were victims of state mandated rolling blackouts that impacted many areas of Texas. Though the servers were backed up by a large uninterruptible power supply and a commercial generator system, those systems themselves eventually ran out of power. Additionally upstream internet switches also failed due to power issues thus causing a double-whammy, so when power was restored the servers were still unreachable. Those systems have all been restored for several days now and operations are mostly back to normal. Kingsnake.com will be totaling up the downtime and offering our advertisers credit to their accounts once we have determined the extent the outage. We apologize for not being able to provide you the level of service that you have come to expect for the last 24 years, but the situation was beyond our control.

That being said over the last 2 months kingsnake.com has been upgrading to a new set of Dell PowerEdge servers that are bigger, faster, and more capable than our old fleet of PowerEdge servers. For the first time our servers will be "viitualized", utilizing the multiple cores that the more current generation of Intel processors offers. This has required us to upgrade the core software that runs our servers several generations at once, causing a few bugs here and there that need to be squashed. We have gotten most of them but every once in a while a new one unexpectedly crops up. If you hit one of those bugs please let us know by using our contact form.

This weekend we will be upgrading our classified ad server and you can expect brief periods of down time on Sunday, as well as a few bugs going forward. Next weekend we will be upgrading the main site including the blog, events system, business directories as well as other features. We have already upgraded the servers for the forums, forum archives, photo gallery, and banner ad system. We hope to have all our server upgrades completed by March 15.

It should be no surprise to the reptile and amphibian community that we would be impacted by the COVID-19 virus shutdowns. We will do our best to keep the herp community informed, here, on this post with the latest meeting and event cancellations. Most of these event cancellations have been mandated by state or local agencies and the event promoters had no say in the cancellations. In all cases it is best to check with the event promoter to check the status of individual events as some may not be listed here. If you are event or meeting promoter that needs to list a cancellation or postponement please send us an email at jeffb@kingsnake.com

List updated 04/20/20

• All Maryland Reptile Show - Havre De Grace, MD - 03/14/20
  
• North American Reptile Breeders Conference - Tinley Park, Il. - 03/14/20-03/15/20
  
• Repticon Birmingham, Irondale, AL., - 03/21/20-03/22/20
  
• ReptiDay Port Charlotte, Port Charlotte, FL., - 03/21/20
  
• Richmond Reptile Expo - Richmond, Va - 03/21/20
  
• Reptiles At The York Expo Center, York, PA 03/28/20
  
• East Coast Rept9le Super Expo - Oaks, PA - 03/28/20
  
• Repticon Charleston, Mt. Pleasant, SC,- 03/28/20-03/29/20
  
• Repticon Denver, Aurora, CO,- 03/28/20-03/29/20
  
• Repticon New Port Richey, Port Richey, FL, - 03/28/20-03/29/20
  
• Long Island Reptile Expo - Brentwood, NY - 03/29/20
  
• All Maryland Reptile Show, Havre de Grace, Md. 04/04/20
  
• Repticon Atlanta, Lawrenceville, GA, - 04/04/20-04/05/20
  
• ReptiDay Cocoa Beach, Cocoa Beach, FL, - 04/04/20
  
• ReptiDay Port Charlotte,Port Charlotte, FL, - 04/05/20
  
• New England Reptile Expo, Manchester, NH, - 04/05/20
  
• ReptiDay Columbus, Columbus, GA, - 04/11/20
  
• Northern Virginia Reptile Expo, Manassas, VA, - 04/11/20
  
• ReptiDay Tallahassee, Tallahassee, FL - 04/11/20
  
• Repticon Montgomery, Montgomery, AL - 04/18/20-04/26/20
  
• New York Metro Reptile Expo, White Plains, NY - 04/19/20
  
• Repticon Tulsa, Kellyville, OK - 04/18/20-04/26/20
  
• Repticon Chattanooga, East Ridge, TN - 04/25/20-04/26/20
  
• Repticon Hickory, Hickory, NC - 04/25/20-04/26/20
  
• All Maryland Reptile Show - Havre De Grace, MD - 05/02/20
  
• Reptiles At The York Expo Center, York, PA 05/16/20
  
• Reptiles At The York Expo Center, York, PA 06/27/20
  
• New York Metro Reptile Expo, White Plains, NY - 07/12/20
  
• 
  

kingsnake.com gallery photo
Police say a woman has been found dead with an 8-foot-long python wrapped around her neck at a snake-laden home 20 miles northwest of Lafayette. Details are sketchy at the moment and police have yet to point the blame at the Reticulated Python in question. The woman’s cause of death remains under investigation, with an autopsy scheduled Friday. About 140 snakes were found in the home, the woman owned about 20 of them and had visited the home about twice a week.

The reticulated python (Malayopython reticulatus) is native to South and Southeast Asia, including India, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaya, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The worlds longest constricting snake, some specimens are known to exceed 20 ft. in length. An ambush hunter, it waits until prey wanders within strike range before seizing it in its coils and killing by constriction. Its natural diet includes mammals and occasionally birds. Small specimens eat mainly rodents such as rats, whereas larger individuals switch to larger prey including deer and pigs weighing more than 130 lb.

A popular species among reptile hobbyists Reticulated Pythons are common in captivity and have been bred in many different color varieties.

Human fatalities attributed to large constrictors are exceedingly rare but do happen. kingsnake.com wants to emphasize that people working with large or venomous species should always work with a partner to avoid mishaps and injury. No matter how well you think you know an animal it only takes one mistake to have disastrous and sometimes fatal consequences.

For more information on this story please check out https://fox8.com/2019/10/31/indiana-woman-found-dead-with-8-foot-python-around-her-neck/.

It is with much sadness that kingsnake.com has learned of the passing of reptile industry pioneer Don Hamper.

I first heard Don Hamper's name mentioned by John Hollister in the late 80s while taking a roadside break while hunting for reptiles out near Langtry Texas. It was all "Hamper had those" or "Hamper bred those" or "Hamper can get those". In the days before the internet word passed from herper to herper about other reptile people across the country(and around the world). Don Hamper's name was prominent among them and it seemed that in some way all herp roads led to Don Hamper. I finally actually met Don Hamper at an International Herp Symposium in the early 90s, where most of the reptile illuminati would gather to listen to lectures and compare keeping and breeding notes. By then Don was famous for hosting one of the few regular reptile expos, the All Ohio Reptile Show, as well as for his pioneering work captive breeding many of the species commonly found in the trade today, and through his work introduced literally thousands of midwesterners to the reptile hobby. Don's pioneering work both in reptile breeding and reptile expos dramatically helped expand the hobby into a true industry and his impact can still be seen in the many reptile breeders that sprouted up in America's heartland in the 90s and early 2000s, many of which are still active to this day.

I would run into Don many times over the next 3 decades at symposiums and expos across the country and each time he greeted me like we were long lost brothers. kingsnake.com ended up hosting his web site for many years as well as helping him spread the word about his expos.

I will miss Don and his everpresent smile and kind word. He was a true gentleman and will be missed greatly by all that knew him. Kigsnake.com's prayers go out to the Hamper family and we ask that you keep them in your thoughts.

- Jeff Barringer