- Hey good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is really truly amazing.
Now that the opening is behind us,
there's been something I've wanted to talk to you guys about
for the last week and a half or so.
But I just wanted to kind of
mentally put it off for a little bit
and some of you may know this.
You know my good friend that's been on the vlog
a thousand times, we've traveled all around,
Forrest Fanning.
Ready, ready for this, Forrest?
- Yeah, I'm ready.
- [Brian] It's your first big flight.
Guess what?
Forrest lost our car!
Good job, Forrest, where's our car?
- These guys are actually going CITES Appendix I,
so they're not gonna be able to import these anymore.
But this is the only one in the world.
- [Brian] That is awesome.
Huh, Forrest?
- It's totally awesome.
Who would have thought man,
we'd get over here at John's place
and we'd get to see captive, born and bred Varanus prasinus.
I never thought we'd come to South Africa
and be able to see basin.
- All right, the boys are loaded
and we're ready for this flight.
- This is crazy.
- [Brian] Look at where we're at here guys,
we're in the middle of nowhere.
I mean this is as rural as it gets.
Look what Forrest caught!
Is this thing cool, what the heck?
- Try to find the biggest nile crocodiles.
You grab every species we can
and try to preserve and have a place
where we can learn about these animals.
- And a lot of you may know this by now
and there's no really easy way to say it
but Forrest passed away about a week and a half ago
and it's pretty, it's obviously very difficult
and I wanted to bring it up to you guys
and really celebrate his life
because he was such an amazing person
and he inspired me so much,
I've known him for 20 something years
and we've done so much together
and had similar dreams.
For those you guys that know him will know that
his name on social media was Zoodreams
because he dreamt about owning a zoo one day
and we had some amazing adventures together.
One of our journeys here in South Africa
is to try to find a huge crocodile for Forrest
and we're looking at this animal here
and it's absolutely enormous,
but it's not big enough for you, right.
- As a collector, I wanna get my hands on
the biggest one I can out there.
- The biggest one.
- And there's another zoo that wants one, too.
So I'm out here kinda hunting for the both of us
and there's rumors of an Ethiopian bloodline of niles
that's supposed to be the biggest crocs in the world.
- [Brian] Forrest slept a bunch is all.
He's all giddy, he's all like, happy
and he's like, "Yeah, this is great!"
Good news is we found our car
and we are on the road to Durban.
Bad news is is that we have like
a five hour drive ahead of us,
but it's gonna be an ah,
Forrest almost just killed us!
Oh my gosh, Forrest!
- Was I not supposed to go?
(laughs)
- Forrest just...
- A taste of things to come.
He's so infatuated with the phones
and when we're taking selfies,
he can see the reflection of himself
and just seems to have some sort of recognition
of what's going on, it's really cool.
- It's awesome to be out here in Africa
catching wild snakes.
I mean, this is like freaking awesome!
Oh my gosh.
That thing is cool, isn't it?
- It's unreal.
Unbelievable day.
- [Brian] Settle down!
Oh, don't, don't, don't kick!
Don't kick!
So...
(laughs)
Where ya at?
- [Woman] I don't have your phone!
- [Brian] Stay behind him, stay behind him.
That's it, that's how you get an emu.
Forrest got an emu!
Good, good one Forrest!
- This is just the most incredible experience in my life.
I can't believe this is happening.
- With opening up the new Reptarium,
Forrest was supposed to be here a couple days before.
He was gonna be on our podcast
and I was so looking forward to him
being able to see what we accomplished here
because again, he was so proud of the things that we did
and I knew he was trying to do similar things,
you know, his dream was to open up a zoo
and I was as excited about having Forrest, Desiree and Lars
up and seeing the new Reptarium and getting their reaction
'cause I knew that they would be so happy for me
and I knew that they wanted to do it their self
and I was excited to spend time on the podcast with Forrest
because we experience things together
that no one else experienced, you know, traveling.
As a matter of fact, I was excited for this one story
that myself and Forrest shared
when we were in South Africa together.
And it was just me and Forrest,
and it was the closest that I ever came to being killed,
I mean literally, we were
almost killed in South Africa by some guys
and Forrest and myself were the only ones there,
and we experienced it, and I wanted to, you know,
talk about it on the podcast because
looking back on it now, obviously it was scary
but it was a memory that I will have forever
and he was the only one that experienced it with me.
When we left Jared's place,
his dad had told us
if you break down or get a flat tire, do not stop
because literally on the sides of the roads here,
people will come and kill you and take your money
and he said, it's very, very dangerous,
he said, "If you get a flat tire,
you drive on that flat tire till you get to a thing."
And literally Forrest drove over something
and it literally busted our gas tank.
Gas is all over the place,
broke down on the side of the road,
thankfully we were right here, close to a station
so we're able to walk literally across.
We had to jump a fence, we had to get over here.
Hopefully Jared's dad is gonna come and hopefully pick us,
we're like an hour and a half away from him,
we're still like three and a half hours from Joburg,
we don't know what we're gonna do,
we're literally broke down in Africa
and like he said, on the side of the road,
people will literally come and kill you,
so this is very serious.
I'm literally, I'm freaking out right now guys.
But fingers crossed this thing is gonna work out,
I hope we're gonna get somewhere tonight.
I don't know if we're gonna
go back there or go to Joburg,
we were supposed to go look for
a big crocodile tomorrow at seven in the morning.
I'm, my heart rate's up guys,
this is by far the most dangerous thing
that we've done this whole trip.
I hope this works out.
We were sitting down
and three guys were kinda circling us,
and then kind of broke off
and they started getting closer and closer,
so we went inside of the building, the actual gas station,
and they stood outside just looking at us,
and then one guy came in and kept circling around,
and you could just tell
something really bad was gonna happen.
Now there's no 911, there's no emergency calls,
you are just stuck there.
Now fortunately, Paul, Jared's dad,
literally, I got him on the phone
and he was gonna drive an hour to come get us.
Not to mention he phoned a friend
that was a local that had a tow truck,
so literally within 10 or 15 minutes
we're gonna have a tow truck there
and then Paul was coming,
it was an amazing thing that they did to me
and honestly, I cannot thank them enough
for even warning me, because if they hadn't warned me,
I wouldn't have known,
I wouldn't been had my ears and eyes open
and I may have gotten killed, stabbed,
who knows what would have happened.
And I think why Forrest and myself became such great friends
was the fact that he was so
passionate about everything he did,
and he was a walking reptile encyclopedia.
He was, he knew things about reptiles that I didn't,
there's no way I knew,
a lot of times I would call him up
to ask him questions about things
and I could always rely on him to know
the things that I didn't know,
and he was so utterly into these animals
and really everything he did
that that was inspiring to me,
I mean he literally put his body on the line all the time,
I mean he got chomped
and got a ton of stitches by a caiman once.
He had tree monitors that
ripped him up constantly and bit him,
he didn't care because he loved the animals so much
and that was the thing that I loved about him,
I mean you could see in his eyes,
you could spend hours and hours and we did,
talking about animals and business and life and the future
and he was a one-of-a-kind.
And people say that about people that pass but,
guys, it's everything in me right now to not cry because,
and I've cried a lot the last couple weeks.
He was amazing and I wanted him to
experience this with me and his family
and just, it really I wish there were
more people like Forrest
because there's a million memories
that I will smile on the inside to celebrate his life
for the rest of my life.
- [Forrest] This is literally as rare as it gets.
Did you know.
Oh, took a little bite.
So did you know, that there is literally
as little as 250 of these in the wild?
So just stop and think about that for a second.
There's only a few clutches away from extinction.
This amazing crocodile from
the Orinoco river in the Llanos is almost gone.
This is actually Ctenosaura alfredschmidti
named after German herpetoculturist Karl Schmidt.
And you can see just beautiful coloration,
there's a lot of variability in them.
- Just to give you guys an idea,
I mean Kilo is just hanging on,
just kinda running around
and look at Bruce's arms
and of course, Forrest always stands a perpetual...
- [Forrest] Yeah.
- [Brian] Cut-up arms.
I mean that's just part of it.
Are you okay, Jessica?
- Yeah.
- [Jessica] It's the hair, the hair.
- So it's so important to keep these guys
desensitized to people handling
because even with them being super tame,
they're still gonna give you a good scratch
and everything like that.
- You go and hold a broad-snout
and he slipped right when he got in there
and the camera came back
and just punched me right in the face, so.
- [Brian] Dude!
- Yeah.
- Go get yourself fixed up, you're leaking, man.
- Yeah, I'm leaking.
(crocodile growls)
This is a pygmy freshwater crocodile.
One of the rarest crocodiles in the world.
I get to show you guys something
that's been a project in my heart for over a decade
and really how I came up in the game
and what drove my love into
these rare and endangered species.
This is a non-profit facility,
it's not open to the public,
we exist for one reason
and that's preserving these
rare and endangered species in captivity.
- Just for you guys know, take a look at your hands.
- [Forrest] Yeah.
- [Brian] All my arms,
this is what tree monitors are about right now.
- [Forrest] Yeah.
- [Brian] Wow, that's dedication,
that's putting your body at risk there, so.
Wow.
- [Forrest] Oh yeah.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh.
Are you kidding me right now?
- Absolutely incredible.
- This animal literally was in a box,
got shipped here, came out,
played with these guys for what,
an hour and a half or two hours,
and then ate something out of your hand.
- Yeah, and it already knows the hand that feeds it
versus the prey item, look at that.
I mean that's the same finger
that was just touching the prey item
and he's not going, he understands.
- Of course this enclosure is always gonna be special to me
because Forrest was coming up this last week
and was gonna bring up a croc monitor
and this enclosure was made for that croc monitor.
Lori and myself are gonna be
visiting Desiree and Lars in the next week or so,
maybe the next few days, I'm not sure
and they're gonna put the croc monitor up here
and I'm gonna dedicate this cage
and I'm gonna have a plaque on this for Forrest Forever.
And every day that we get to work with this croc monitor,
I'll be able to celebrate Forrest and think about him.
Not that I wouldn't anyways,
but this'll be even more special to me
and he had an unbelievable passion for croc monitors
and I can't wait to, and I feel very
blessed and honored that they're gonna allow me
to work with this particular animal that was his animal,
a captive-bred crocodile monitor that he had from a baby.
Now a year and a half or two years old,
so I'll take you guys down to Indi
to visit with the family and the collection
and kinda keep you updated on how they're doing,
obviously it's unbelievably tough times,
I'll talk more about the help I need
from you guys in a minute with that, so.
This croc monitor cage will be one of
the most special enclosures for me here and The Reptarium.
Forrest's passion for animals
really transcended the kind of commercial side for sure,
I'd like to think
guys like myself and him and so many others
don't really care about the financial side,
I've talked about it a million times
and Forrest really showed it with his passion,
in particular for abronia, which are an alligator lizard.
He had probably one of
the greatest collections in the world of them
and really was passionate,
not because they were financially a good investment,
because I'm sure they weren't,
but because they were threatened in many cases
and there were localities of abronia
that literally come from little pockets of the cloud forest
that once that pocket is wiped out, they're gone forever
and he was committed to saving those species,
the conservation side.
Not only of abronia but crocodilians
and so many other things.
It was truly inspiring.
One of the really, the most rare room
in all of herpetoculture if you ask me.
- Yeah, I mean it's up there.
I mean these are some of the rarest lizards in the world
and we've managed to, you know,
get anything we could from anybody here in the USA
to grab every species we can and try to preserve
and have a place where we can learn about these animals
and establish captive breeding colonies.
- [Brian] And you've done really well with production.
- Yeah, this year was really good.
We produced several species this year,
they're not easy to breed.
Babies are really difficult to take care of,
they're very sensitive to volatility and temperatures.
It's very difficult to give them the right size cage
where they can find their food, that's another problem.
And then hydration is a problem because they're so small,
you want the sphagnum to get damp
but if it's too damp then it's too cold.
- And this room is much cooler than your other reptile room.
- Yeah.
- [Brian] About what size...
So again guys, I'm sorry to have kind of a downer vlog here.
It's important for me to celebrate Forrest's life
and also support
his wife Desiree and his son Lars moving forward
and this is where it's important to me
to ask you for a favor,
and I know times are crazy right now
with the Coronavirus and all this stuff
but if you could find it in your heart,
I'm gonna put a link in the description to a Gofundme page
for Desiree, his wife, and Lars, his one-year old son.
This was started by his sister, so it's legit.
And I just wanna know if you guys could help the family
so if you find it in your heart
and times are okay for you guys,
I'll put that link in the description.
Go over there and hopefully together
we can help them financially.
I certainly will be apart of that
and I hope that you guys will too,
and together we can help Desiree
and the entire Cold Blooded Cafe and Zoo Dreams future
to keep going and allow them to fulfill his dreams,
because I know that's what's in her heart
is to continue going and make that zoo dream come to reality
and all the things that he had a vision for
to come to reality
and financially you guys can help.
We can help to try to help her and encourage her
in this unbelievably devastating time
that the family is going through.
And I can promise you guys that not only will I be
celebrating Forrest's life
and trying to live the best I can for him
but I will also continue to push forward
like I know he would want me to,
I know he'd be proud of what we do
and I'm gonna try to live his legacy the best I can,
educating people, conserving animals,
growing this zoo dream of my own
and I know that he would be so proud of me
and I will miss him every single day for the rest of my life
and again, I'm sorry this was a downer vlog,
I have to get this out, it's time to start healing
and I appreciate you guys,
I know that you will miss him as much as I will,
there will never be another Forrest Fire out there for sure
and he was such an amazing person,
so thank you guys for joining me,
thank you for all your support with me
and of course, Desiree and Lars and the family.
You guys are amazing and I know
he loved you as much as I do, so thank you for that.
I'll put a link in the description to everything.
And remember to just hug your loved ones,
'cause you don't know how long you're gonna have them.
Just try to have the best day you can,
be kind to someone today.
I promise I will see you tomorrow.
(sentimental music)