- Captain's vlog day 10, welcome to the vlog.
And I hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible.
You guys know that I have traveled all over the world,
and I love to go to as many reptile zoos as I possibly can
to give me inspiration, and all kind of stuff.
But there's been one reptile zoo that has been high
on my list for a long time.
And that's right, it's right here in South Dakota.
So, but before we go in, I do have a little thing
to talk to you guys about.
(upbeat music)
So here's the deal guys, I mean, I hate to even start
the vlog this way, but I wanted to take you guys,
on the entire journey.
And I wanna be honest with you guys,
about everything that is happening.
So, I have literally worked so hard to try to,
make sure people respect what we're trying to do,
in particular with The Reptarium and,
build this kind of new image,
the fact that, we're trying to change
so many people's minds about reptiles.
That's what The Reptarium is all about.
And we're so hard at that.
Well, we started this trip with my friend Desiree,
at her place.
Well she's from South Dakota, so she flew in today,
and she grew up here, and literally she's friends
with the people that run Reptile Gardens here.
And she was gonna line up a behind the scenes,
and all this type of stuff.
And we were gonna go see this amazing reptiles,
which I have been so excited to see for at least 10 years.
And she end up calling, and talking to the guy
that runs the place, and unfortunately he said that,
I'm not welcome here.
That he didn't even want me to come, he was not gonna allow
me to film behind the scenes, was not gonna show me anything
and wouldn't even let me in the place for free.
Now, I am not bragging, but I probably paid one time,
in the last 20 years for any zoo of any kind.
Because every zoo I go to, they invite me in,
and I get to do all kinds of cool stuff.
He did say he can't stop me, from paying to get in.
So I'm gonna pay to get into Reptile Gardens,
because I wanna see the place, and I'm not gonna let
one person's opinion of me, stop me from doing something
that I've wanted to do for so long and see this place.
I am bummed, I'm extremely bummed that someone
that is in my field, a peer of mine,
would have such a terrible opinion of me.
I don't know why he doesn't like me,
but he just basically said that,
he doesn't wanna have anything to do with me,
and that he prefer me not come.
Now again, I don't know if we go in and we're filming,
like anyone would go in, we're gonna pay our entry fee,
and go in there, I don't know if they're gonna stop us,
or if they're not gonna allow us.
I don't know what's gonna happen,
but, I wanted to be honest with you upfront,
we're gonna go, we're gonna enjoy it.
And much like this trip, I'm not gonna let anything
kind of stop me from fulfilling my dreams.
And one of my dreams was to come here,
and to see this place, 'cause I've heard so many amazing
things about it so (sighs)...
So yeah, I'm a little bummed, I'm not gonna lie to you.
But, I'm not gonna let it ruin this day.
And we're gonna have an amazing day,
we're gonna go see some amazing animals.
We may not be able to touch, or get close to 'em,
but we're going to see 'em ,
and I wanna take you guys along on the journey.
I hope you guys don't mind that I'm sharing this again.
I just always wanna be honest with you,
and I felt that if I went in there, it wouldn't be genuine.
If I wasn't telling you why we're not behind the scenes,
and why we're not able to do the things that we usually do.
So, so there (sighs) yeah, that's it.
So let's go ahead and make the best out of this day.
(upbeat music)
And like I mentioned, I am meeting up with Desiree here.
We started this trip with her,
we're ending this trip with her.
Thank you for coming in-
- Heck yeah - And take a look.
This is actually the start of Reptile Garden,
this is the Perentie Monitor, oh my gosh.
This is like a dream animal.
- My favorite.
- I mean (speaks faintly)
- Yeah Ive held these guys. This one's on display here.
- Oh my God, that is so crazy.
- Yeah they're incredible.
- Oh yeah again, these are the largest monitor lizard
in Australia, unbelievable.
That is definitely an animal,
I don't know if I'll ever be able to obtain one,
but I totally, if I could get a Perentie,
I would probably faint.
Definitely my favorite Australian lizard by far.
This is impressive, I tell you what.
It's nice, it's warm in here, the sun is coming through.
It's beautiful with all these plants I mean, wow.
I tell that this set up is dope.
I'm not gonna lie to you, wow.
It's incredible that all the animals,
are along the walls here.
Then you got the overlook here.
I have no clue what's down there, but we're definitely gonna
take a look down here too.
(water babbling)
Wow, big waterfall.
(water babbling)
Definitely very beautiful.
This actually a skeleton, of a big Burmese python.
And for those people that always are like,
do snake have bones?
Well, there you go.
That tells you how many bones a snake has.
It's basically a spine, and ribs, and all muscle.
I mean, that's a lot of bones. That's awesome.
Of course one of the things that I wish I could add
to The Reptarium, but you know I'm not gonna be able to,
'cause Lori will never, ever, ever allow it,
are venomous snakes.
This is a really cool Baja rattlesnake.
Beautiful little face, nice little buttons on it,
looks pretty awesome.
Oh, I wish I could see it better, but that's okay.
I've got a hey, I got a swap right, that I won that battle.
I love these pythons right here.
These are actually Timer python,
really an interesting Python,
that you don't see hardly ever.
I mean, it's kinda like the mix between like a Rainbow Boa,
a Carpet python, an Olive Heli python.
They're very interesting, kinda unique animals.
Something again, you don't see very often,
so this is a pleasure to see it.
I didn't realize these guys had such a great
rattlesnake collection, I mean, they have all kinds of
really cool rattlesnakes here.
I'm gonna head to my friend,
at the Chiricahua Desert Museum sometime.
He has every species of rattlesnake out there,
and it's amazing.
I mean, rattlesnakes are so diverse, so incredible,
such beautiful animals, you think of like,
Eastern Diamondbacks, Western Diamondbacks,
but the truth is, there are a ton of species
of rattlesnakes, like the Mitchellii,
all the speckled rattlesnakes are incredible stuff.
Definitely cool to see all of them here at Reptile Garden.
And interestingly enough, my favorite rattlesnake
of all time, are the Uracoan rattlesnakes.
I think it's because I almost bought a pair when I was a kid
and I was right on the cost of trying to get them,
just so beautiful, but ever since,
I've been in love with them.
I mean, they're just, they're probably one of the more
unique looking rattlesnakes, but they don't look like the
other ones right?
So, absolutely incredible, love this dude here.
So my first impressions of being here,
for just a very short while, is this place is amazing.
I mean, it really is. It's shocking, it's cool.
It's a little bit more of the traditional zoo type, right.
With everything kind of behind the glass,
traditional type of setups, but I like it.
The animals are, I mean, there's a lot of variety here.
I mean, this is pretty cool.
Look at the giant Burmese python over here,
and with the giant Reticulated python,
I mean, those are some big snakes.
One of my favorite of all the mambas,
are actually the Jameson's mamba.
I mean, they've got that kind of Black Mamba look,
but then they have a little bit of that Green Mamba in them,
just a really cool animal.
Again, these guys are from the Western part of Africa.
Absolutely stunning.
I love these guys.
I've never had an opportunity to actually be up and close
to one, other than seeing it through a cage.
Hopefully one day I'll find someone that has one of these,
that I can play with, because mambas are absolutely
incredible, super flighty, super fun, but at the same time,
really something to be admiring.
Oh my gosh, I love it.
Actually rough-scaled python, absolutely amazing.
These are a Carinata, I love these guys.
For a long time, they thought they were actually extinct,
because there hadn't been a specimen found since I think
the 40s or 50s, and then a friend of mine actually
found these guys in the wild, for the first time
probably about 15 years ago.
So absolutely incredible that they're now out here.
And I believe that Reptile Gardens was the first place,
to bring them into the country.
Now they're being captive bred in private collections
as well, which I think is pretty awesome.
Definitely one of the largest King cobras I've ever seen.
Now, King cobras are the largest venomous snake
in the world, can get 15 foot.
I think this one is every bit as big
as she can possibly get, it looks great.
Of course, King cobras are typically snake eaters,
and even when they do eat rodents,
you don't wanna feed them too much rodents,
because they can actually not digest them quite as well.
So this guy's probably getting a steady diet of some like,
maybe Ball pythons or something like that.
Absolutely super impressive.
Take a look guys, a baby Orinoco.
We were actually in Phoenix, we saw the big ones.
Now these guys are critically endangered,
absolutely beautiful animal,
they get absolutely huge, really cool.
Of course they have slender snout, is basically
'cause they typically eat fish mainly in the wild,
but absolutely a wonderful thing, that you get a chance
to see it. I mean how cool is that?
- (screaming) I'm so excited right now.
- Oh my God, that is beautiful.
I kind of, that is a treat 'cause there's not very many
captive Orinocos in the country.
And they need to be produced because of,
their endangered quality. Absolutely stunning.
I just wanna tell you guys, that I just ran into the guy
that runs the place, that had this really negative
opinion of me, and we had a nice talk.
We talked for about 15 minutes.
I hope that he will give me another chance.
He expressed some of the things that he just didn't like.
And I told him, I understood, I understood that.
And I said, "people change."
And I think that what we've done over the last five, six,
seven years, has shown this radical change to something,
that is more not just sensational, and about the animals,
and getting people to love animals, 'cause you guys know
that's all I care about, is loving animals,
and getting other people to love animals.
And so, it was a very nice talk, I appreciate that
you took the time, and came over and talked to me.
I was a little worried they were going to kick me out
of here (laughs), I was not the first,
but he was very level-headed, very nice, had a great talk.
So, I wanna thank him for at least
taking the time to talk to me.
It makes me feel a lot better, and again, I'm gonna have
a great time looking at the rest of this place.
Definitely some cool animals here.
We're in crocodile world, of course we've got
all kinds of beautiful snakes.
And again, she said that this is like the most
diverse collector reptiles on the planet, right?
- Yeah, yeah they're in again (indistinct) records,
in having the most species, I think it's like over 200.
- Over 200? - It was like 250 (indistinct)
- Oh my God.
(Desiree speaks faintly)
200 plus species.
How many species do you have?
- 94.
- 94 yeah this is under, she's underway.
She's still in there.
- I think actually no, I think it was 97 last time.
- Oooh.
- Now I think it might be 98,
coz we did get some new stuff today.
- Oh yeah, they just got new stuff today.
So alright, so she's gonna have 200 species in no time,
I'm sure of it. (Desiree laughs)
Absolutely incredible stuff though, loving this place.
And now we're talking,
we've got some freshwater crocodile Johnsoni.
These guys are amazing.
Again, the two giant crocodiles in Australia,
are the saltwater crocodile, and the freshwater crocodile.
And these are the freshy's.
These guys don't get quite as big as the salty's obviously,
but still get really, really large,
and they're absolutely stunning.
The Cuban Crocodylus Taurus, is definitely one of my
favorite crocodiles, most agile Atlantic crocodiles.
Now, do these have outdoor pens during the summer?
- [Desiree] Yes, yeah.
- So this is their indoor enclosures.
- Yeah those doors right there-
- Oh they open up and they go out to the south side?
- Outside.
- So they can come in and out when they want?
- Yes.
- Oh my God, that's so cool. What a setup.
- That's what I'm setting up (laughs)in the Indiana.
- Yeah that's how you gonna do it?
- Yeah.
- Oh my God, that is so cool.
Remember when we started this trip,
we were at Desiree's place,
and we held the Siamese crocodile, the little one?
Well there it is. It is a bigger one.
A little bit different than when it was a little one,
(laughs) that year old.
Oh my gosh, you're gonna have so many cool big crocodiles.
- Yeah.
- Just had another half hour chat with Terry.
Yo, I gotta show you my face.
I'm brimming, smiling because it's so good to see,
that someone that maybe had a bad opinion of me,
realizes that I've changed so much, in that,
all he cared about, was the fact that we were portraying
animals in a positive light, and he was a little concerned
about some of the stuff that I done in the past,
which is rightfully so, understood that maybe,
it wasn't the right image that the Reptile Gardens
would wanna be next to, right?
But, he realizes that, he just didn't realize,
that I had changed so much, and not made about sensation,
getting bit, and this and that.
And he was like, wow, you have changed as a person.
And it was just a great talk.
I mean great, great talk, I respect him so much,
and I want him to respect me so much.
And after these last two talks, I'm just brimming
with happiness right now, because I was so pumped.
This is like a pinnacle place for me.
And to think the person that runs it didn't like me,
was, it was so difficult.
But, yo listen I've gotta earn his respect,
and I'm gonna earn his respect.
It's just like, I've gotta earn all your respect.
So, let's just have fun and keep looking at animals.
Oh my goodness gracious, I've seen some big
Galapagos Alabras in my life, but I have never seen,
I didn't...
Did you guys know they got this?
- I'd never seen anything like this, it looks like a box.
- [Man] It looks like a Volkswagen beetle.
- I've seen like, 100 year old tortoises,
that are still 30% less than these, these are giants.
Oh my good...
Look at this.
Holy cow guys.
- Its hard to even show on camera guys, by the way,
just so you know like.
- I mean just look at this.
- Like that's, I have a big hand (laughs).
- Oh my goodness gracious.
I mean, this is like five times the size of Matilda.
I hope that she gets this big one day,
that would be incredible.
That animal there, is so impressive.
Wow, this is their gift shop.
Wow Lori would love this, oh my God (laughing) .
This is so incredible.
This is just the half of the gift shop, wow.
I (speaks faintly) definitely one day,
when we have a much bigger place, we need to have
a gift shop like this, because this is impressive.
Well, guys the day started out a little bit crazy,
I was feeling pretty down about the whole situation,
but it ended great.
Terry and I have had a handful of talks,
definitely means the world to me,
because I respect him and this place so much.
I mean, this is the pinnacle of reptile zoo,
started in the 30s, and I wanna be in a position
where I'm friends with them.
So, I am so thankful and really quite emotional,
about how this day turned out.
And I'm glad that you guys came on the journey.
If you ever come to South Dakota,
definitely pay this place a visit, it is amazing.
We're gonna be back in the summer, so we can see
everything outside too, but we had a great time.
We have one more day on this adventure,
we're gonna go see Mount Rushmore, hopefully some dinosaurs,
maybe some bears, I'm not sure,
and then we are heading home.
I tell you what, I love it, I hope that you guys
are enjoying this, matter of fact I'm gonna make
an entire playlist that I'll put up right over here.
Just far as if you wanna see this journey,
please check that out.
If you want, you can actually subscribe
to my podcast channel right up here.
We're gonna be talking about this adventure a lot,
I'm sure of it.
On this side, I hope that you're subscribed
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please hit that subscribe button.
Turn the post notifications on.
Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember be kind to somebody.
I promise, I'll see you tomorrow.