- Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is incredible.
I'm not gonna lie to you,
this is gonna be one of the craziest videos
when it comes to like importance of the future.
You guys know that I've spent my entire life
really just working with reptiles,
whether it's breeding reptiles now,
having a reptile zoo, just getting people excited
about keeping reptiles,
looking at them as not this cold-blooded animal
that doesn't have emotion,
but really truly amazing animals.
And you know that we've had issues
with Florida trying to ban iguanas and tegus,
and of course we've had the bill here, in Michigan,
the 6455 that was really gonna probably destroy our zoo
in the future if it was to have passed.
Well, I gotta be honest with you,
buckle up guys, because we have some massive things
coming down the pipe across the country
that I'm gonna talk to you about now,
and I need you to not only listen to this video,
take action, but share with as many people as you can,
because if you guys love reptiles like I do,
the future of keeping reptiles could be in peril right now.
So please, buckle up, guys, it's gonna be a wild one.
Now you guys know that we actually just unboxed
Flapjack, the black throated monitor, just what?
A month and a half or so ago,
so we obviously ship a lot of these animals in.
You guys remember we've unboxed a ton of animals here,
at the reptile zoo.
And basically there's a couple of different ways
you can ship, right?
Sometimes it's to the airport,
that's the old way where you would literally have
to drive to the airport that's like an hour away,
go to the freight department, and pick the stuff up.
Now, the most common way to ship reptiles
is actually to just use FedEx, to be honest with you.
They come right to your door, it's super simple,
and we certainly have unboxed a ton of animals
for the reptile zoo.
And really the thing that changed BHB
is back when you were able to start shipping animals FedEx.
Because again, it wasn't practical to go to the airport
for most people.
It was hard even for us to drive an hour one way
to the airport.
Now you can actually ship these animals right FedEx,
and that's what BHB is all about, right?
I mean, we literally ship thousands of animals every year
to people, new pets and their forever homes.
I mean, it's an amazing thing,
and it's so absolutely beautiful.
Believe it or not, right now in New York State,
they are proposing a ban of shipping of all animals.
We're not talking about just reptiles here, people.
We're talking all animals.
This would include fish, this would include reptiles,
it would include hamsters, it would include dogs, cats,
you name it.
You could not ship a live animal in the State of New York,
couldn't ship it out, couldn't ship it in.
That would destroy the entire pet trade.
Not only the reptile trade, but the entire pet trade.
Can you imagine if, all of a sudden,
you couldn't get fish at your fish store?
You couldn't get rodents for your animals?
You couldn't get your new snake, you couldn't get anything.
I mean that is unbelievable law
that is being proposed in New York right now.
And I'm gonna continue to shout out USARK,
I'm gonna put a link in the description,
go to usark.org and you can find out all the information
on everything that I'm about to talk about,
and how you, personally, can get involved
to help make sure that these laws are not passed.
Because, much like 6455 here in Michigan,
we were able to kill that in committee, right?
So the fact is you want this to get killed
before it goes to the floor for a vote,
because if it goes to the floor for a vote,
there's a good chance it's gonna pass.
If you can kill it in committee,
that's the way you really destroy these bills.
Now 6455 was killed in committee here in Michigan,
but we saw this law a year or so ago come up,
so there's a good chance
we're gonna see it come back.
Now again, usark.org down below
is gonna have your action to actually take,
but New York has some bad legislation on it's pike,
and we've got to make sure we stop it.
Now, for some reason, tegus have been coming under
a lot of pressure lately.
Now, don't get me wrong,
down in Florida, they definitely have some invasive issues
when it comes to tegus, but for whatever reason,
a lot of other places are starting to really look at tegus
as a big time problem, and in South Carolina,
believe it or not, they are actually looking
at banning all Argentine tegus.
That's right, I mean, you know Tazzy is absolutely amazing.
Now, don't get me wrong, yes, I understand that
there's invasive issues, and we have to be
very cognizant of that, and we have to do our absolute best
not to let that happen, 'cause we don't want a population
of tegus running around in the wild.
Whether it's in South Florida, South Carolina, Georgia,
wherever the case may be,
but the fact is is that should you not be able to
keep a tegu because of the potential for invasiveness?
Believe it or not, in Florida, the FWC said,
if it can breed, we do not want it to be legal in our state.
That was the statement.
Literally, if it could breed in the wild at all,
any animal at all that it can breed in the wild,
but they want to make it illegal down in Florida.
Now that's kind of scary to me, now don't get me wrong,
I understand there's an invasive issue,
and I am completely empathetic to that,
and we have to do the best we can do
to try to help solve that problem, a hundred percent.
But outlawing everyone owning an animal
is getting kind of scary, isn't it?
I mean, isn't that the fact?
So that's right, Argentine tegus not available
in South Carolina if this law passes.
So what we need to do again, USARK,
there's a call to action, follow that call to action.
Now, when you do emails,
which actually has like kind of a template for an email
that you just have to enter your name and stuff like that,
you can email off, or you can write your own email,
or you could call, but remember, be very kind.
Listen, being mean to these people that are on the committee
or are passing this legislation, it doesn't help anybody.
I know we can all get emotional about this,
I get emotional about this, but you have to be level-headed.
You're gonna get a lot farther
when you're actually kind to somebody
rather than trying to attack them.
Let's not do that, right?
So again, call to action, South Carolina,
big one coming up, Argentine tegus.
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This next one is actually really personal to me
and it's in Oregon which is actually looking
at banning certain educational animals
when it comes to traveling shows.
Now we're not talking about a circus,
we're not talking about a zoo,
we're talking about educational shows,
for in particular, you got tortoises, monitor lizards,
a whole bunch of stuff that would no longer be able
to be taken out to schools or any educational thing,
no traveling at all.
And it's kind of personal to me,
not only is that a huge part of what we do here
at the reptarium, and a huge part of our future
of what we do here at the reptarium in Michigan,
but also I have a good friend, Brad, that has a place
called Brad's World that, actually, Steve Erwin himself
and Terry Irwin used to go visit all the time,
that's out in Oregon,
and their life is all made on educational shows.
They've been doing it for like 30 years,
traveling all over the place to schools,
and it's such an amazing thing.
To know that you might be taking his livelihood away,
or the majority of the animals he could take out,
it's just unbelievable to me.
I mean, we all kind of started our animal passion
oftentimes when we had that animal guy come to our school
and we could see animals.
I see it all the time when I go to schools,
and see kids' eyes light up and stuff like that,
and then they get really into it.
Can you imagine?
They wanna ban that in Oregon,
they wanna make it an outlaw,
not banning all educational,
but banning a bunch of the animals that we would take,
and again, I always say this, you might be thinking,
well, I don't live in Oregon,
I don't live in South Carolina, I don't live in New York,
I don't live in Florida.
The fact is that once these laws are passed in those states,
oftentimes other states will actually take
the same type of law and implement it in their state.
So don't think that you're safe
just because it's not your state, guys.
We have to act now, and we have to band together
as a community, and we have to spread the word
to as many people as we can so we can stop Oregon,
we can stop South Carolina, we can stop New York,
we can stop Florida,
because this is all about anti-pet people.
It's not really as much about protecting the environment
as it really seems to be.
The truth is that the agenda is being pushed
by anti-pet people and they're using,
whether it's invasive species,
or now you know there is a major issue
when it comes to pathogens and viruses,
they're using that platform to say,
hey we have to ban these animals
because they could potentially pass a pathogen,
or start a virus, which is,
I understand it's a concern that everyone should have,
certainly, but we shouldn't pass legislation
based on that alone,
because you've got to look at where the actual agenda
is coming from, and that agenda is coming from anti-pet,
not what they're actually making it out to seem to be.
So recently USARK won the iguana and tegu ban,
they actually won it
on the fact that it was unconstitutional,
but that doesn't mean that we need to sit down and go,
"Oh, everything's okay,"
because like I said, already the FWC is trying to go at it
a different way.
Like I've mentioned before, they're saying that
if it could breed in the wild,
they want to outlaw it somehow.
So again, iguanas, tegus, all those things
are back on the docket to be potentially banned.
We have to stay diligent, people,
and stay aware of everything that is happening
and try to stay ahead of it,
because this is coming at us faster than ever before.
And again, usark.org is really our advocacy group,
which is the United States Association of Reptile Keepers,
they're our advocacy group,
so we've got to definitely support them
and follow their lead, just try to stay on top,
and if you can help, it will be huge.
Because again, beautiful iguanas, yes,
invasive issues in Florida, a hundred percent,
definitely a problem, but should we ban them in places
where they aren't potentially invasive,
and even in the places that they're invasive,
should people not be able to keep them as pets?
I don't know that I agree with that,
and the fact is that a lot of the time,
this is again being passed, not on even the invasiveness,
but on the fact that now with the pandemic,
they're saying that these reptiles can cause pathogens
that can cause viruses,
which is just not the case,
and it's just causing fear-mongering
in order to pass the anti-pet agenda.
Now wait for this one, guys.
Alabama is proposing a law right now
that would prohibit the sale, the possession,
the transfer, the import, the export
of reticulated pythons, Burmese pythons,
rock pythons, anacondas, tegus,
non-indigenous venomous reptiles,
and a whole host of others,
meaning that you couldn't even keep your pet.
Right now if you had a pet reticulated python,
or any of the animals on this list,
you could no longer possess them, right?
I'm not talking about breeding them,
I'm not talking about selling them,
I'm talking about possessing them.
That's right, Alabama,
basically shutting down all of those animals
to the point where you would not be allowed
to own them anymore.
That is crazy, people,
and again, I don't mean to be a downer here, man.
I love to keep positive, and I love to keep upbeat,
but I have to be honest with you guys,
I'm freaking out a little bit right now.
These are some unbelievable proposed legislation
and again, it's the anti-pet people
that are really pushing this agenda,
and they're using the guise of invasiveness,
they're using the guise of potential pathogens
causing different viruses.
and that's just not going to help us in the end, right?
We have to be diligent, people,
because I'm telling you, if we don't do the things
that I'm asking you to do right now,
we aren't gonna have a reptile zoo like the reptarium.
We're not gonna have breeding centers,
we're not gonna have pet reptiles and pet shops,
we're not gonna be able to keep these animals,
and we have to do this for future generations.
I mean, listen, guys,
there are animals that are being captive-bred,
like crested geckos and rhino iguanas
that more animals are being bred in captivity
and there are in the wild.
As we go, there's less and less wild out there,
we are kind of the ark, right?
The captive the breeding, the reptile zoos.
We're the ark for the future of these animals
as the environment is just continuing to be destroyed by us
and less environment for the animals
to actually thrive in the wild.
We are their last hope, and we have to preserve that
for future generations,
and this anti pet thing is freaking me out right now, guys,
I implore you please share this video with everyone else,
please go down, follow USARK, follow those alerts,
and start being part of the solution.
So if you can donate to USARK, please donate to USARK.
Let's do this together, people,
because I tell you, reptiles means everything to me,
they are my life, and they have been my life forever.
I can't imagine a future without them,
and if these laws start getting passed,
and it starts to snowball
state to state, to state, to state,
we aren't gonna have reptiles at all, people,
and that's something that we just cannot settle for.
So again, guys, I don't mean to be a downer,
I mean, this is just a really important topic
and I felt that this entire vlog should be dedicated
to this one particular topic,
because this is the future, guys.
So again if you can just support usark.org right down below,
again at least follow their alerts,
if you can't donate to them, that's fine,
but if you could follow their alerts, that would be amazing,
because if we as a group can do this, it's really good.
You've got to remember that
just like with the bill here in Michigan,
that committee typically would only
have five, six correspondence with voters.
When they have a thousand people reach out to them,
that committee was like, wait a second this is a hot topic,
we don't wanna touch this, let's just bury this,
and let's not even go forward.
That's what we need to do now.
Politely inundate them with emails and phone calls,
so that those committees
that are potentially gonna pass this legislation
will say, you know what?
This is a bad idea, we wanna walk away from this.
So again, thank you so much for your support,
and thank you for following.
Again, please share this with
as many people as you possibly can.
If you enjoyed this video,
and you wanna just watch some animal stuff,
here's a playlist you can watch some animal stuff.
We'll get back to animal stuff tomorrow.
Right up here is a podcast.
I'll be talking about this stuff on my podcast,
so go check that out.
Over here you can subscribe to this channel,
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Please turn your post notifications on as well,
have been absolutely wonderful day.
Once again, thank you, be kind to somebody,
and I promise I'll see you tomorrow.