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♪ You ♪
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- Hey good morning everybody,
and welcome to the vlog.
I'm just spending a little bit of quality time
with my guy Elvis here.
I hope the start your day is absolutely incredible.
And you know, as we're working on like expanding
or thinking about expanding to 3.0.
You know, a lot of people come in
and mistake Elvis as a Komodo dragon.
And so I thought to myself,
maybe I would tell you guys what my wishlist is.
Some pretty reasonable.
Some a little bit of a longer stretch.
I'm not gonna lie to you.
And of course I'm gonna start with the fact that
I would love to add a Komodo dragon to 3.0.
I tell you what, I don't know if it's possible.
Usually it's only AZA zoos that have Komodo dragons.
But there are a couple private places
that do have Komodo dragons.
Not exactly sure what I'm gonna have to do to do it.
But I really have that as a high on my list wishlist.
One of the most incredible animals.
I mean, obviously the relationship we have
with our monitors like Elvis here is absolutely spectacular.
Can you imagine having an actual Komodo dragon?
So if anyone has any kind of ideas
how I can get a Komodo dragon, let me know.
They're actually readily available to zoos.
You know, zoos are always able to get them.
As a matter of fact, they get them for free.
There's an abundance of them.
Most AZA which is American Zoological Association zoos.
Which are all the giant zoos.
They actually won't even breed them
because they can't place them anywhere
because every zoo that wants a Komodo has it.
Well, I may not be in AZA zoo,
but I am a little zoo and I want to Komodo dragon.
So that is definitely number one on the wishlist.
Speaking with monitor lizards.
But to be honest with you.
This monitor lizard is pretty much more attainable.
Still not very common.
And it reminds me of Santana, the Savannah monitor.
But it's actually a Black-throated monitor.
They're kinda like a jambo version of these guys.
They obviously have a little more black,
hence the name Black-throat monitor.
But they're kind of the same type of feel,
the same type of thing.
And definitely really mellow like Santana
and most Savannah monitors.
The thing is they get big.
They get as big as a water monitor.
They can literally get six foot long
and they're absolutely incredible.
They used to import them a lot
and used to be able to get them.
But now Black-throats are pretty uncommon
to be totally honest with you.
But that is definitely on my quest
for new big monitor lizards.
Because again, Elvis is amazing
and so are all of our monitor lizards.
But a really big huge tan Black-throat monitor
that acts kind of like Santana here.
Just chills out.
You can just kind of throw him up on your shoulder
and he'll just hang out with you and do basically nothing.
That's something that water monitors don't really do.
They're always on the go.
So a Black-throat monitor is something I think we can find.
And I think we will find.
So if anyone knows any of those,
I mean we asking you guys a lot of favors this time.
Hopefully we can get an opportunity to get a Black-throat.
Whether it's a little one or a huge one that is docile.
Because that's going to be a great education tool
and a cool exhibit here at the zoo.
Finally got this room painted a little bit.
What I could, there's still so much stuff in here
that I could only paint so much.
So I painted this wall and the wall over here.
Now I can actually start moving racks into position.
And as I'm moving rack from this side over to this wall.
Then I can start painting the rest of the room.
I know it sucks.
Wish we just add a blanker and we could start from scratch.
Well we have to do what we have to do.
So Kluvered room really almost will be done
by the end of the day.
I mean, there'll be a little bit of work to do.
But for the most part you guys are getting an opportunity
to see what this Kluver room is gonna look like.
Minus of course moving some junk and stuff like that.
So what I have to do right now is move all of these racks
over to this wall which is always fun.
So let's just go ahead,
get our little beast on and start moving some racks.
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As I'm looking at a cage like this
which is the communal cage with snap
and pop the Black-headed pythons.
This is a very similar environment
that I would like the next animals to go into.
And that is course the really blue blue collared lizards.
We can have a whole colony of them.
They only stay small.
They're a lizard that is amazing.
Matter of fact I think that there's a line
that's called Blueberry line.
That stay super super blue.
Of course the males are really beautiful.
Females aren't quite as blue.
But still absolutely incredible.
Again, only maybe a four inch lizard.
So it's not like a really big lizard.
But you could have a group of them here
and they'd be all over the terracing and stuff like that.
I think that would be really cool.
Not every enclosure you have
has to be a huge giant impressive animal.
You can have these communications and lots of movement
and a lot of cool animals just how basking.
That would be really cool.
So again, looking for some really cool
high high blue colored lizards.
Definitely for 3.0.
I have a vision for Bowser's enclosure right here
to be totally honest with you.
Bowser is probably going to get moved to a new enclosure
in the new expansion.
And we wanna add a Fly River to our lab.
You ever seen them?
They're like Freshwater sea turtles basically.
From Australia. Amazing animals.
And a friend of mine up in Canada actually has one
that's 27 years old.
He wants to donate to the zoo.
And basically we would raise the water level higher,
almost up to the top here.
And it would kinda just cruise around.
They're really active.
Super tiny.
They'll literally come up for pets.
You can pet it on its head.
You can feed it like apples and bananas and stuff like that.
Really cool environment.
Always have loved Fly River turtles.
I actually spent some time in Australia swimming with them.
It was absolutely incredible.
And I think this will be a great exhibit
for a Fly River turtle.
For kids to be able to see.
And then we can take Bowser and put them into a new exhibit
on the other side.
Which I think will be even better for him.
Something that is gonna be even cooler for Bowser.
So we are not gonna get rid of Bowser.
We're just gonna move him over
and then put this as the Fly River turtle exhibit.
I think it's gonna be absolutely amazing.
And again, that's actually gonna happen
maybe even before we do 3.0.
Not sure yet. We're just working on the paperwork.
So that is a definite,
but definitely a dream animal of mine for sure.
Certainly one of my kinda dream animals
you guys know as you do
when it comes to Australian monitors,
was the Bells Phase Lace monitor.
And Beetlejuice is getting much better.
I mean, he's definitely still not as tame
as we want him to be.
But you can see he's definitely not a hyper crazy maniac
that he was before.
There's no doubt about it.
But there's another Australian monitor
that would be definitely a dream one.
And that of course is the Parentie monitor.
Perentie monitors are the largest monitor in Australia
and are absolutely wonderful.
As a matter of fact my friend tied down at Guyana land
just got a couple in.
I tell you like I was so jealous of him.
There's not very many Perenties in the private sector.
But it is something I think we can get.
So Perenties are definitely high on my list.
They're the giant ones.
They're beautiful as can possibly be.
And I tell you what,
I would love to one day have a super tamed Perentie monitor.
Just like we're starting to tame Beetlejuice here.
I know we could tame a Perentie
and that would be incredible.
Definitely high high on my list.
And one that I think we can obtain.
This is the first aisle.
Again, this is the shortest aisle.
The other aisles are being much longer
that go down all the way through here.
But basically what has to happen is because of the way
that we're painting things.
So we have to set this up because I now have to paint
the ceiling over here. But I need to move a bunch of racks
before I could paint the ceiling.
I'm not gonna time left to this because last time
this camera actually got painted white.
You can kind of see some of the freckling
and it took us a while to clean up the lens.
So we'll get done with this just like.
And we are basically done with the painting.
This is basically one of the Klover aisles.
It is looking pretty good.
We're gonna have some more lighting in here
so that it's a little bit brighter.
Clean the place up a little bit.
And then over here, we've got some racks
that still need to be cut to be put up on top of here
and clean this.
But this will be a long aisle right here
leading into the new Caledonian room.
So you're basically getting the idea.
Again, some more lights just to brighten the aisle
and stuff like that.
So this will be the new hibernaculum
where we brew made our calubrates
as well as where we're going to keep them full time now.
So again, not exactly perfect but getting there.
We have some work to do but got some progress done today.
This should be wrapped up by next week for sure.
I would say if there's one thing that we're weak on here
at The Reptarium, in my opinion is amphibians.
You know, we do have some frogs and stuff like that
but we definitely need some more amphibians.
And the amphibian that I really wanna get the best.
And this gonna be hard because I'm sure there's going to be
a lot of paperwork.
If it's even possible.
I haven't looked into it. Would be a Giant Salamander.
I love Giant Salamanders.
When I was over in China at the Beijing zoo,
they allowed me to actually hold
some of the pie giant salamanders as well as the big giant.
I mean literally like four foot long.
They almost look like giant newts or giant salamanders.
Unbelievable animals.
And I would love to get permits to be able to put
a cool display of a Giant Salamander in here.
Again, is it possible? I don't know.
I'm just telling you the things that I want to do
and I'm gonna at least pursue them and in hopes
that I can figure it out.
And again, maybe one of you guys is watching and going,
guess what Brian.
I have a way for you to do that.
Again, everything on the up and up legal permits,
everything like that.
I'll jump through every hoop I need to jump through
but I won't go around everything.
It's gotta always be a hundred percent legit.
If I can get one, I would love to have a Giant Salamander.
'Cause they are absolutely incredible.
You guys know that we added this little cute Uromastyx
and I absolutely love them.
I do wanna add some more species of Uromastyx as well
because they're cool.
You can get big ones like this aegypticus
that can get like you know, two and a half foot giant.
They're not super colorful. They're kind of dark.
But also there's something that's really similar.
Almost like the North American version of the Uromastyx.
At least in my eyes.
I know some people are going to be like,
no Brian, they're not like it at all.
But they kind of look a lot like it
and that's the Chuckwalla.
And they get huge. I mean, they're super cool.
You can find them in the Southwest part of the country.
And they're kind of like a Uromastyx.
They have that same kind of body type.
You know, kind of big fat short nose and stuff like that.
But they get really really big.
And I've always loved Chuckwallas.
So I think that a really cool desert display
with a handful of Chuckwallas in there
would be absolutely incredible.
And again, that is a lizard you can actually obtain.
So that's something that I'm definitely going to put
on the list to add when we do the expansion.
Of course we have this Southern white lipped python.
We also have a Northern white lipped python named ACE.
Which are really cool.
These are actually of the genus bothrochilus.
And there's actually another bothrochilus
that I really wanna add.
Something that I worked with when I was in my early twenties
and haven't had in a while.
And that's the Bismarck ringed pythons. That's right.
They're a little bit similar to the D'Albertis pythons.
In the sense that they're about the same sizes.
Kinda have that same darkness color, but as babies,
they are unbelievably incredible.
I mean just black and orange with Halloween coming.
Trust me they are the most Halloween snake
you will ever see.
That is absolutely for sure.
But just absolutely incredible animals.
So I'd love to add an exhibit with some of those guys,
as I'm adding the Southern and Northern white lips
to the expansion as well.
To get these back on because they are super cool animals
and the Southern white lips are more black and really large.
They can get like eight, nine foot length.
Whereas Ringed python are typically maybe a six foot animal.
Again, like I said, I bred them a bunch when I was younger
and then just got out of them
and now I want to get back into them.
The thing is back then they were relatively common.
Now you can hardly find them.
There's only a couple people in the entire country
that breed them these days.
So getting them isn't going to be as easy,
but I think I'll figure out a way to do it.
And they'll be a really cool thing to add to The Reptarium.
All right. This is from Richie.
- Archie.
- And from Iowa. Archie from Iowa.
Thank you so much.
I've got a letter and I've got.
Whoa Jesus, that was, that freaked,
that literally freaked me out. - It did. It did.
- I was like, did he send me a snake? It's a Rattlesnake.
Oh my gosh, this is a legitimate real Rattlesnake.
- Is it a real? - It's a real Rattlesnake.
- 'Cause that was I said. It looked real.
- It is literally,
it's like a freeze dried real rattlesnake.
That's crazy.
Actually. I think--
- [Man] I think it rattles too.
- It is actually really cool. - It is real.
- [Man] How cool is that? - That's actually really dope.
To be honest with you.
My name is Archie, my family and I came from Iowa
and we see The Reptarium a few weeks ago.
So thank you for coming.
I had this Rattlesnake for a while now
and because you went out of your way
to let my son hold your two headed turtle.
Which I remember that.
I thought in return, I'd give this in generosity.
Thank you so much.
I'd love to hear the backstory of this
because this is definitely a real Rattlesnake.
I'm assuming that maybe it passed away.
- Its been taxadermeid.
- And then its yeah, been taxidermeid.
And it's got the buttons and everything.
- Be gentle.
- That's crazy. I mean, that's wild.
I mean, I'm gonna. It's very cool. Thank you so much.
And I hope that you guys will come back
to visit us sometime.
So as you can see, we have a lot of dream animals
that we wanna add.
This, this is a, at least there's a list
that's a lot longer.
But these are the ones that I hope I can somehow figure out
or navigate my way around to finally
putting them in The Reptarium.
When we do the next expansion.
We'll see how it goes.
Let me know in the comments what your dream animal is
and what you'd like to see us add as well.
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