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- What are you doing buddy?
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- I'm here at Tom Crutchfield's place.
Of course, the place that got broken into
actually animals were stolen and even killed.
So we're gonna meet up with Tom,
get the story behind it, as well as just find out
his philosophy about keeping reptiles
and the intelligence and the relationships
you can actually have with them.
Let's go check it out.
So, obviously here with Tom,
the legend in the reptile world,
can't thank you enough for letting us come over.
And obviously recently, I know you had,
we did a video about it,
about you having a break in here.
I mean, I know how much you love your animals
And how much they mean to you.
What happened and where are we at with that?
- Well, they broke in here twice actually
and came in and took animals both times.
And in addition they... - Both times?
- They killed animals both times.
- Oh my gosh.
- Just to be killing them for no reason at all.
With the iguana, I guess, to show me that they could do
what they wanted to do.
They smashed it's brains out
and left it on the floor of the cage.
But they opened up all the cages with everything
that they could break the lock on.
- So its like malicious right?
- It was, also come to find out it's not just me.
They've hit three or four other people,
Yep and we put pressure on them.
and in the whole area here.
And one of our animals that was stolen on the second robbery
that we did not report to the general public,
just, we reported it to law enforcement, that's all,
where they took a hybrid green tree,
crossed with a black tree monitor.
Probably the only one of its kind in the United States.
And a week after the robbery, or ten days,
once we put the pressure,
a person showed up here with his wife,
his name is Jonathan Perez,
and he brought us the hybrid tree monitor back,
but he said he didn't do it.
That his friend next door did it,
- Oh.
- Which we found out later,
we don't believe.
He was just scared, and he was trying to,
but all of the evidence,
according to law enforcement points towards Jonathan Perez
as being one of the main people.
And not just me.
- So he's been doing it to other people.
- He has.
- Now has law enforcement continued to check on with him?
- Well, I hope so.
But law enforcement here in the Miami Dade area,
they even took the stats themselves, the detectives,
they have so much on their plate with violent crime
has to be sort of like a triage in a hospital,
treat it like it is.
And it's, I mean, let's face it.
- Right.
- To me it's a very, very, very, very big deal.
- And of course we have the rhino iguanas running around.
Tom keeps his rhino iguanas
and actually a Lewisi over here, free range.
Just lets them run the place.
No enclosures whatsoever.
And of course, look at how amazing these guys are.
This is a really big male,
that's 20 plus years old right now.
And you can just see how absolutely docile,
but the thing that's so cool is the fact that
they're not in enclosures.
They have the entire yard to run around,
they could climb over the fence if they wanted to.
But obviously they don't.
He's been keeping them like this for years and years,
and it's just absolutely incredible.
It just warms my heart.
I always say, I love coming down to places
that have stuff outside.
I wish we could do that in Michigan
and wish I had a place that can do it,
but it's just so cool to see something like this.
Anything we could do to help?
- Well, you've helped me so much. I appreciate that.
- Well, no, it's amazing.
Well, listen, I know that the thing that's amazing
about your evolution in reptiles from, when did you start?
- It all started, I think, when I was five or six years old,
I remember this clearly,
running over a rock in my yard
and finding a ring-necked snake.
- Really?
- And I thought, "Wow,"
I was all for that.
- Right.
- And it just never stopped.
- And so your evolution has been so much
where, you've literally done everything from traveling,
to having one of the biggest wholesalers, to importing,
to now the thing I find so fascinating about your journey
is the fact that you're really starting
to unlock the reptile's intelligence and the relationship.
And we talk about that these animals
can have feelings and bonds,
and you're showing it.
- They have.
- When you come here, you can see it.
Can we just kind of, I mean, let's see.
The Iguana right behind us here.
- [Tom] There's Rhino on the ground
and he doesn't even have a cage.
- [Bryan] Doesn't even have a cage.
just kind of walking around.
- Yeah.
- And as we go back here.
- And also I want you to notice too,
now this rhino has absolutely no fear of people at all.
So she does not think that we have the right of way to walk.
Watch what she does when we approach,
she's going to twitch at us with her tail
- Yup. There you go.
- See what I mean?
- Yup, you called it. Exactly. Right.
I think that the thing
that you really touched on is fear, right?
It's the fact that if you can take away the fear
of the animals of us,
that unlocks what they really become.
- As long as we're not afraid of them.
- Right.
- But as long as we're afraid of them,
it won't work either.
- Right, so you have to have a mutual...
- Only when both the keeper, us, and the captive, them...
- Right.
- Both lose their fear of each other,
- Right.
- that the magical understanding begins,
not before.
- Right.
- Because if you're afraid
of the animal you're dealing with
will never see it as it is
because you're not letting it understand,
because you're protecting yourself subconsciously
from the animal the whole time.
- And it makes complete sense.
You're just starting to do that with all kinds of animals
that didn't really think about it, from monitors,
you did it with the iguanas obviously.
It's pretty amazing.
Do you feel pretty confident now that you're safe
from that whole mess of being broken is behind you?
- We hope that it is,
I will say this, without going into detail,
we have a lot of safe guards here.
And if they come again,
there's a really high chance that they would be discovered.
And if they do, it will not play out very well for them.
- Well I'm glad for that.
- And I want to say this directly to Jonathan Perez,
Jonathan Perez,
it's only over it when I say it's over.
When they took Jenny though,
we don't even have an animal in the cage
her cage is still vacant.
I love the lizard.
I had her for almost 10 years.
It's like taking your pet dog.
He's not above that.
And he stole pet dogs before, too.
In fact, he was arrested.
- Oh, well, there you go.
That guy has a history.
This whole bank here is,
now you're working on tree monitors, right?
- [Tom] Right, we're having some success.
So far out here we bred the green tree monitor,
which is perhaps the most common.
We successfully bred the blue tree monitor,
which is one that if they really looked at it,
it's probably critically endangered, right?
Just by because of where it comes from,
such a tiny little island up in New Guinea.
And we now have a yellow tree monitor eggs.
So they haven't hatched yet.
But being honest with you, they will hatch.
- But it's amazing.
The enclosures you have here, you're really providing.
Talk me through a little bit
about what you're looking to do here.
- Well let's look at this cage,
'cause this is the completed version.
Or we can look at this first.
This is a standard tree monitor cage.
At the beginning, it measures six feet by six feet.
And because it sits up,
it's actually almost eight feet tall at the top
because we have it elevated.
All of them are plumbed for water, pipe on the top.
- [Bryan] Drip, so they can drip right there.
- [Tom] And you can see also we have electric power
to each one, see the cord running up.
And if you look at the little retreat nest spots,
it's sitting on top of a Zoomed fiberglass heating pad.
That's all we do.
And inside of that, we have coco fiber,
which we keep moist like we like.
We just open it and feel it.
If it's too dry we open up the top.
Somebody else on the outside uses a hose
to just put water in it,
mix it up until it's the right again.
Can do that several times a week, so it doesn't matter.
Then we plant living plants.
And as you can see,
they haven't grown up in this cage yet.
But this is an older cage,
this has a yellow tree monitor in it
that's in there now that has nested.
This has adult green tree monitors in it.
And see the vegetation when it grows up.
- [Bryan] Yeah, when it grows up,
now they've got all this extra hiding spots
to make them feel comfortable.
Obviously you've got the dripping water.
- Yeah, the water runs down all of the time.
And the animal feels really, really secure
in this type of thing.
And honestly, if there ever was a recipe
for breeding green tree monitors, this is it.
- This is it.
- And then I pretty much, I think I could breed any species.
- Sure, absolutely.
Now how many do you keep in an enclosure like this?
- I keep one pair or one male and two females,
but for the best results, one pair.
- One pair.
- And even then when the female nests,
she will vigorously defend the nesting area and the eggs
for a while and won't let the male in the box.
And unless you have a lot of places for them to hide
and a big enough case,
you can end up in injury or death to the male.
- The male, not the female.
- We just move the male out of that case
with the yellow tree.
- Because it's doesn't have all of the hiding spots.
- He can't hide.
- Yeah, exactly.
You've got snakes outside.
You've got diamond pythons outside.
You've got boa constrictors outside.
You've had tremendous success doing it this way.
And it's something that you'll,
Every time.
- And we cohabitate all of them.
- Right. Exactly.
And you even have some enclosures
that have different species together, right?
- Yeah. We had up there,
we had him with the iguana delicatissima.
We also keep sheltopusiks, the European legless lizards
and then with a big pair of Cyclura Lewisi crosses,
we have a gorgeous pair of golden Greek tortoises in there.
- Yeah, just going to add to those.
- Yeah.
- Especially when you're talking about animals
that might be in the top and then on the bottom rack.
- They absolutely have no,
they don't care about each other in any way,
they don't compete.
- They eat different food.
Yeah, exactly.
- And this cage has adult Cuban boas.
- Oh that's right!
- And for years in this cage,
was two male and one female Cuban boa,
that lived together since the other female died.
She used to be two males and two females together
since the 1980s.
- Wow.
- These are old snakes. - Those are old snakes.
- I got them from Peter Tolson in the early 1990s.
- And you told me that,
I didn't realize the size that Cuban boas can get.
- It is the second largest, longest boa on the planet.
The only boa that is larger is Anaconda,
but they get longer than a boa constrictor,
maxes out about 15 feet.
Or either imperator or a constrictor.
These Cuban boas max out at least 18 and a half, nineteen.
- Wow. I mean that's amazing.
- Big, like retic size.
- You're producing them, you said you have babies.
- She'll have nine babies.
She has babies every other year and has for decades.
She's about 11 feet long.
She'll have the same number of babies every year.
And the babies are as big as baby anacondas.
- Exactly. That's what's amazing.
Because when you think of that type of boa,
you think of rainbow boas...
- They're always real small.
Yeah, that's amazing.
And again, it's cool to see this
I've been here at a dozen times
and every time you're changing and evolving.
What's in here?
- Monkey tail skinks. - Monkey tail skinks.
I can see one on the back wall here.
- And you can see growing in there is pothos
and that's their favorite food, favorite thing ever.
- So is there something else besides the pothos?
Or do they just eat the pothos?
- No, we supplement too.
We give them vegetables too.
But being honest with you,
if I didn't feed them anything it would be okay.
- Right.
They could eat the pothos.
- Every single year, like clockwork,
one of those females has twins
and the other one has a single baby.
- That's amazing.
- And we leave the babies in sometimes
for six or seven months
and they ride around on the parents
and it's amazing to watch.
- It's just a social group. They live in a social group,
which I find amazing.
Do you think that that's unique for lizards?
- No, all of them live in groups
and I don't know where Herpet culture got the idea
that reptiles are not social and live together.
When even if you take snakes,
let's just take a snake off the top
that people captive breed,
a Peruvian red tail boa.
Do you not think that the Peruvian red tailed boa
does not run into a lot of the same red tailed boas
all of the time that live in the same area it does?
Of course it does.
And with our rattlesnakes,
we know that the same ones see each other
year after year after year in hibernation
and they definitely select their mates and stuff
just the same as birds.
- Okay. And with your kind of philosophy on reptiles
and behavior and all this stuff,
where do you think we're going?
Where's the next?
You're pioneering, again, for the sixth decade or whatever,
you're pioneering the next phase of this behavior.
- I hope so.
- Do you think that the rest of the community
is going to catch on? How do we find that?
- I hope so because it's what I have learned
and as I have learned, I have evolved
and I've changed what I think or know to be true
when I find out it's not true.
- Right.
- Like science does or anything else does.
And the more I learn about these,
the more complex and impressive their mental capability is.
Even to the point of minor problem solving
and stuff like that.
Or even something like Roscoe and Rita, both,
will go to our bedroom door in the afternoon,
it sits right over there,
and if they hear us in the room,
they will go up and bump the door,
because if they bump the door,
they have learned, we'll go out
and he'll get a picnic and bring it to them.
- Wow, isn't that something.
And that's why...
- And sometimes they want to come in the house
and we just open the door.
And if they want to come in and they come in,
if they don't want to, we don't.
And when I let them do stuff like that,
it's when I see stuff that nobody else ever sees.
- And that's what we need to,
how do we get that message out,
beyond what we're doing now,
to other keepers?
- It's super simple.
If everybody took whatever they kept
and just downsized and got rid of the extra
to people that that could actually provide
and take care of them and take care of animals,
take care of your animals,
live in a lot bigger space per animal
and research what you're keeping before you do.
And I base everything I do here is not based on captive,
it's based on wild reptiles.
The entire Mangshan viper habitat that we designed
and had built and have such high hopes for this next year,
if it gets cold enough here,
is based on wild studies.
- What they actually would need in the wild.
- Where they come from in nature
and where they come from in nature has everything to do
and how they live in nature
and the climate where they live,
And the little small bio niches that they seek out
in this habitat,
because they're not found everywhere
in the mainstream.
The mountain's a specific type habitat.
We've tried to duplicate that.
- Duplicate that. And that's the way it goes.
And I couldn't agree with you more.
I'm on the same path that you're on.
Downsizing, making enclosures.
- [Tom] I think it's normal.
I think it's normal evolution.
- [Bryan] Because you start to realize that these animals
need this amazing...
And when you do see this as,
and you see their natural behavior, that inspires,
it gets you excited in the morning, right?
You wake up and you go, "Oh my gosh,
I can go see what this animal is.
Where's it going to be in the case?"
And you can see their pattern and their emotion.
I think it's amazing.
And I'm glad that again,
you can reinvent yourself
as you have you throughout your career
to become again, a leader in the next phase.
And you know, for you guys,
I hope that you listen because it's so important
not to just think that these animals are mindless.
I mean, it's amazing.
And just spending time today here at Tom's place
and seeing the interactions that you're doing,
it's even inspiring even more than I've been doing
at the Reptarium.
I mean, it's even better.
It makes me want to go home and do even more.
It's so cool.
And I can't thank you enough for just showing us the place
and, wow, it's so good to know you and you're a friend.
- Well, thank you.
We've been friends for a very, very long time.
I don't know anybody with a better heart towards reptiles
than you.
- Well, I appreciate that.
- And I don't know anybody that loves them
any more than you do, except for me. (laughs)
- Yeah, except for you, I agree with you.
Well, keep it up again.
Guys, do me a favor, show Tom some love over on his channel
as well.
He does great things and really can inspire.
So I'll put a link in the description to all his stuff.
Facebook, Instagram, of course, YouTube.
So please show him some love.
And you're going to learn a lot if you follow this guy.
- Yeah, mine is just straight information mostly.
It's fun, 'cause we show the animals doing stuff,
but it's a lot of just showing what we do here.
- Which is important.
- It's pretty amazing, actually.
- You're gonna learn things
that you aren't going to learn anywhere else.
So please go show him some love,
make sure you tell him I sent you
and I tell you what, this has been amazing.