- I'm here
at IguanaLand,
Florida's largest reptile zoo,
and today I'm volunteering.
All right, Ty, so what am I doing today?
- Find Anna.
You're gonna feed some monitors.
- [Brian] Well, the first thing I'm actually doing
is feeding Arnold the Argus monitor.
And these guys will actually tripod,
just like that, which is really cool.
If this is the way the day's gonna go,
it's gonna be a good day.
Come on, buddy. Up again.
There you go, buddy.
You're doing so good.
This lizard is awesome.
Come on, bud. Up here. Up.
There you go, buddy.
Noah, you got your work cut out for you, dude.
- I know. - You gotta train
your Argus monitors a little better.
- I got no worries.
- [Brian] And they actually do this tripoding in the wild,
so that they can see over things for their prey.
Good boy.
And this is actually a training
that they're doing here to actually do it.
And you'll notice that the stationing is basically
like tripod, wait, and then feed.
And that's their reward.
And that's how you actually can get the animals
to do this type of stuff.
And this guy's actually staying in his tripod.
Okay. But I know not everything we're gonna do today
is gonna be as fun as feeding Arnold.
- We gotta get rid of a huge cactus.
See these two giant cactus over here?
- Yes. - There's too much in there.
So, I want you to move that one up front
and leave the one in the back.
The one with the spikes is the one you wanna move.
- How do you move a cactus?
- I got a knife. (raspberry blows)
- Axe, can you move a cactus?
- Do we have gloves?
- [Ty] I don't know if you could fit into these gloves.
They're my size.
- He felt so accomplished, but he ripped the wrong cactus.
- [Brian] I got this piece.
No, I can't get-- I can't any of them.
- Yo, this one is strong.
- Ow! That hurt.
This is great.
- Ty, do you have a machete?
- This is gonna be great.
Let's have a machete.
- I got this.
(shovel clangs)
(laughter)
- There's no way. This is not normal.
Oh man.
Oh, I hit my head on another one.
- He showed me.
- [Multiple People] Oh!
- Oh, my gosh.
(bystanders talking)
- [Axe] Oh!
- This is easy.
- Oh, Allie. How much I love you.
- Gloves.
Oh, my gosh. I'm getting poked everywhere.
Look. - We need gloves now.
- On the cactus. - Go.
- You know, for 33 years old, you look great, girl.
- You're doing it the easy way.
Take the whole thing out.
- Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- Hug it.
- Yeah, I wasn't going to do that. Do I have to?
- No, you aren't gonna hug it?
- I always had a thing for older women.
- [Axe] Ooh. - [Brian] Dangerous.
- [Axe] Look at that.
- [Brian] Oh! Oh, sheesh. (laughter)
- I wasn't ready.
- [Bystander] Watch yourself.
- Noah, here bud.
It's a cactus.
- [Noah] Hey. Hey, man. Don't move.
What are you doing down there?
(grunts)
- [Brian] Ow! Help!
Cactus gone.
Ty, monitors are all set.
- Awesome. So, next thing you gotta do is find Jacob,
and we're gonna have to clean up turtle enclosure.
- So, I'm here with Jacob,
and he actually gave me the low down
on how I'm gonna clean this fly river enclosure.
One of my favorite turtles,
so let's go ahead and jump in.
The first thing I have to do is actually pull this pipe out.
Gosh, this fly river is a beauty too.
I love fly river turtles.
Oh, this isn't as easy as I thought it was gonna be.
Here we go. Boom.
Now it's gonna start to drain down.
Once it drains down about halfway,
we'll be able to pull the turtle out.
Then I have to get all of this algae off.
You know, this Florida sun
creates a tremendous amount of algae.
You can see it all over here.
- Gloves.
(grunts)
- Ah, yeah, it's hiding.
Trying to catch some fish here.
Got him.
Woohoo. Time to get the fly river turtle out.
Look at this gorgeous monkey here.
Oh my goodness.
So, we gotta get this out and start cleaning
this whole muck up over here.
(upbeat music)
- All right. Get to work.
- All right. Just calm down, Mister.
Even on my days off, I gotta work hard.
(upbeat music)
- (sighs) Work is so hard, man.
Gotta feed 'em one piece at a time,
so their stomach doesn't bloat.
Got about 300 more to go.
- Go quicker.
- [Brian] I'm trying my hardest. Just relax.
(laughs)
It's slippery in here, you know.
- (dark laugh) - Cleaned up.
We're gonna put the pipe back in,
keep that water from flowing down there.
Turn the water on, get this sucker filled up,
and then we get the fly river back in.
Little work out in the morning.
Can't complain.
- Is that (laughs)
Is that clean?
- You get in here, man?
- I thought he cleaned that.
What is that?
- Man, that drained out real quick.
(laughter) - It's clean.
- So, every single person around here
is critiquing my cleaning job.
I'm sorry.
I did the best I could.
It's heavy.
- [Ty] Stop your complaining, Brian.
- All right. All right.
- I pay you enough.
I buy you lunch.
- Wait a second.
I'm not getting paid.
- I'm buying you lunch.
(grunts)
- All right, time to put the beauty back.
Ty, this is beautiful.
How long you had this?
- We had it for about maybe three years,
but I think it's like 30+.
He used to live in a 55 gallon aquarium.
- There you go, bud.
Now we're actually in the breeding part of a IguanaLand.
What do you have me doing now?
- Okay. So you're gonna feed our rock iguana.
This is something that we do five times a week.
Today is vegetable day.
- Vegetable day.
- [Ty] That's what you're gonna do.
- Who doesn't like vegetables?
And Joe's actually gonna show me how to actually do it.
What do I do?
- All right. So, we get a clean tray.
Two animals in,
so we're gonna do two nice hefty handfuls.
- Two nice. That looks like more than two handfuls.
And just put it right in here?
- [Joe] And we're gonna drop it right in.
- [Brian] Woo. And take a look at these guys.
He's starting to eat already.
This'll be fun.
We gotta feed this entire row.
Let's get started.
- Get a little sweat going.
Oh, my. (gasps)
Ty, can I get a water break?
It's getting a little hot out here.
- There we go guys.
(upbeat music)
- So, Joe tells me cage 18
is the one I need to watch out for.
So, I'm gonna get a couple big scoops of-
Oh man, I'm starting to get hungry.
Get a little bit of dressing on this thing,
you know what I'm saying?
Let's go ahead and see what's going on.
What's your name, buddy.
Have you ever watched my vlog?
Don't worry about it.
Whoa. What the heck is going on here?
No, your lettuce is over here, bud.
Your lettuce is right there.
Woo. Yeah, I can see why they say be careful with cage 18.
We still have a lot more to go.
(upbeat music)
Well, that's how you feed a bunch of rhino iguanas.
That was pretty awesome.
- I didn't do anything.
- It's got a little shed on his nose,
but I don't wanna grab it, - No.
- 'Cause I think it might rip my finger off.
- Take a look at this area quick.
This is a future rock iguana enclosures.
It's gonna be absolutely epic.
These are all gonna go all the way down here,
but look at how amazing.
First class zoo stuff as I've ever seen.
Well, I tell you what, I'm glad it's not done now,
'cause I'd be in there cleaning it.
- Rake this area.
(upbeat music)
(kissing noises)
- Little cutie.
Look at the little cutie.
Scratch the bootie.
- Joe, is this what they want,
or they want something else?
- I need you to start over and do a nice crosshatch.
No, I'm kidding. (laughs)
(upbeat music)
- I tell you what, a zoo like this is not easy work.
Everyone thinks you just play with animals all day,
but the truth is is that it's a lot of this type of work,
and I told Ty I would help him for the day.
He didn't hold back.
- Fired up, Gio.
- Ryan could never do that.
- [Woman] It's driving me crazy.
- [Man] How's your bicep feeling?
- [Woman] Hang on to him, Noah.
- I got a second pump of adrenalin.
- [Man] Try to get that shed?
- Yeah. - Oh, great.
- [Man] Oh.
- What?
- [Man] Smooth. - What? What?
(upbeat music)
- (gasps) This is difficult work, guys.
About 90 degrees out here.
The sun is beating down
like you can't believe.
Got this all raked up.
I'm only five hours into an eight hour day,
so I still have three hours left.
All right, guys, I'm not gonna lie to you.
I need to look at some animals,
so I'm gonna hide from Ty a little bit,
because he keeps putting me to work.
Look at these beautiful albino water monitors here.
This is the Anegada rock iguana.
Cyclura that are absolutely super rare.
I tell you what,
I should have probably just volunteered
to look at animals all day,
because Ty is really putting me to work,
but listen, it's worth it for a place like this.
And then these are the ricordii,
another really rare cyclura.
And then this whole wall here has all kinds
of really cool stuff.
We've got the gastropholis up here.
We've got the little spiny tails.
All the Ctenosauras.
Oh crap, there's Ty.
I'm in trouble.
- That's crazy. - Look at that neck, dude.
How it's just bending like that.
It's amazing.
- [Woman] Woo!
- Woo. That's a workout.
I think I blew my rotator cuff.
- So I don't know if you guys know about the photo war
that Max Strong and I have going on.
- It's a real thing.
- But it basically started at the Reptarium
with Brian Barczyk.
- And the outdoor area is looking absolutely amazing too.
Just getting a little bit of a break
in between all the hard work,
but I think I've got one more thing I've gotta do over here.
Ty wanted me to do some kind of backing
that needs to be screwed on.
So, I'm heading over there.
But in the meantime, just looking at this amazing place.
So, well, I tell you what, and it's cool,
IguanaLand is now open to the public.
I'm gonna put a link in the description
to all their social media, as well as their website.
If you want to come here, it's absolutely cool.
It's actually in Punta Gorda, Florida.
Absolutely wonderful down here.
Just take a look at this.
I'm just gonna give you guys a quick look.
I have a feeling we've got a bunch of work
to do on these here later too.
So, I tell you what, volunteering is tough.
(upbeat music)
(drill screws)
I have to basically go through
and every little area that doesn't have a screw,
all the way down, gotta put a screw in.
(drill screws)
Well, I'm working my butt off.
I'm trying to figure out where Noah and everyone else is.
Let's go find them.
What the heck are you guys doing, man?
I've been-
I'm sweating my butt off out there.
- Trying to kind of stay away from you a little bit.
(laughs)
- Yeah. - We're having fun over here.
- It seems like a drag, whatever you got going on. Huh?
- [Brian] Have you guys done any work today at all?
- Look at this. - This is it.
- Yeah. - You're looking at it.
- This is enrichment. - [Cameraman] I'm filming.
- This is hard work. - Enrichment.
- This is work. - Yeah.
- Training. - What have you been doing?
You just seem like you're just holding a camera
walking around all day.
I seen you on the iguana before.
- Woo!
- Drinking water bottle. - In some enclosures.
- [Man] Putting Go Pros all over the place.
- [Woman] I saw you eating.
- These freaking guys.
I gotta get back to work,
'cause if Ty sees I'm not working,
I'm gonna get in big trouble.
So, I have to actually zip the top ones with screws here.
Now, I could do one of two things.
I could try to reach up there,
or I could use a step stool,
but I think I'm gonna go with the ladder.
(upbeat music)
So, Ty, I can actually play with the perentie finally?
- You bet. - After. Okay.
- After you deal with ...
- All right, let's clip the nail.
(upbeat music)
Finally, I get to have a little bit of fun
with this absolutely beautiful perentie monitor.
Largest monitor lizard in Australia.
I mean, this thing is an absolutely incredible animal.
As a matter of fact, I have a tattoo
of a perentie monitor on my left arm.
That's how much I love these guys.
I mean, the pattern on that neck is unbelievable.
And, again, these guys do get pretty big.
In Australia, I've never seen perenties,
so one day, hopefully, I'll find one of these guys
in the wild, 'cause they are a dream animal.
And I tell you what, you're not gonna go very many places
to see these,
so IguanaLand is definitely pretty special.
- Brian, don't you have more work to do?
- [Brian] Oh, oh.
Look at this, guys.
Oh my gosh, of course, this is a giant mata mata turtle,
and they could actually get quite a bit bigger,
believe it or not.
But this is still about three times the size
of the ones we have,
and it is absolutely amazing.
It's an Amazonian turtle.
You can see just with the algae growing on it
and stuff like that,
this thing will camouflage.
If this is on the bottom of a river,
no way in the world, you're gonna see this animal.
It's got that long neck
and that little tiny appendage on the end
is actually its nose.
So, what happens is it stays underwater,
and it sticks just the top of its nose up for breathing.
Whoa! Did you see that little monkey?
I'll put you back.
I know you're not happy about it.
This is definitely one impressive pathway right here.
Side to side, all aquatic turtles.
Some of the rarer stuff you'll ever see.
I mean, just absolutely enclosure after enclosure.
Just absolutely amazing.
Well, I tell you what, this aisle here is really impressive.
- [Axe] Brian? Hey, there's some algae over here.
- I tell you what, Ty,
that was absolutely an amazing day.
I love it here.
I don't know if I'm gonna volunteer again,
but I will be back to see you.
- (laughs) That's great.
What a friend I have, really.
I really appreciate you coming.
- Thank you, man.
I appreciate you, brother.
Hope you guys enjoyed today's video.
If you did, there's a playlist
that you can watch all kinds of videos.
You can also hit that subscription button.
It would mean a lot to me.
Also, hit that like button while you're down there.
Have a wonderful day, reptile army.
Remember, be kind to someone,
and I promise I'll see you in the next one.
- [Ty] You did it easy way.
- [Brian] I'm bleeding though.
- Oh, that's a good thing.
Oh, I mean that's a bad thing.