Daily Reptile News

Accused poacher jailed in Jacksonville on charge of killing alligator without a permit

A 51-year-old North Jacksonville man remains in the Duval County jail on a charge of illegal killing of an alligator following his Monday arrest in Nassau County.

John Michael Bennett of the 16000 block of Blyler Road was booked on $5,000 bail after Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers picked him up in Nassau County on a warrant and transferred him to Jacksonville, according to jail records.

Bennett is accused of killing an alligator illegally in May. An investigation determined he had skinned it and removed its meat, allowing for a warrant for the charge, according to commission officer Jeff Summers.

American alligators are classified by the state of Florida as a species of special concern and can only be hunted by people who have the proper licenses and permits. Under state rules in place since 1988, alligator harvest quotas are established that allow Floridians and non-residents to kill up to two alligators per permit. Applicants who are awarded a permit must pay for two tags and an Alligator Trapping License, since a state hunting license is not required.

Daily Reptile News Announcement



Daily Reptile News

Ok so by now I think pretty much everyone has heard the announcement. I know I have communicated with several people about it in the last 12 hours. Here is the bottom line, just to lay it out there if I dont figure out a way to at the very least pay the cable bill “internet” next month that DRN in its entirety will be gone for good. Because I own my web server if the connection to the house is cut that means the website will be gone, the ability to update it and upload the show will be gone as well. A had a few fail safes just in case but unfortunately my server is fairly advanced and the backup servers at other locations are not. That being said my fail safe was to move the entire site to one of these other servers for free and host it there until I could figure things out,. As I said though they are far from run of the mill and the site will NOT function on them.

It pains me to see the project that I have been working on for 12 months now start crumbling apart. Making the decision I made to back off on it was in my eyes the ONLY way to try to save even part of it. Most of you know I own a business. While this business is not doing very well right now it is still making money. My hope is that by backing off from DRN and focusing on this business I not only will be able to put more time into it to raise revenue but it will be what not only saves DRN but also saves my house.

When I lost my job I did not see it as a bad thing. At that time I was doing DRN for about 10 months and things were almost growing faster than I could keep up. We were starting to become a driving force, things were happening not because we worked for it to happen persay but because we just picked up the phone and asked for them to happen. People were jumping on board left and right not because of what we were doing or how we were doing it but just because we were doing good. I digress though. I saw loosing my job as a great thing. I could not take 2 things I had a passion for “Reptiles and filming” and make a career out of them. I intensified the work I was doing, taking advantage of every opportunity I could I had to do it, I could not see going back into a career that I did not like.

Now after all this time I look at the following that has been created and still cant believe the did as well as it has but unfortunately things have not worked out the way they were suppose to. I sat and watched people that did not put in nearly a tenth of the work I have pass me up like I was standing still. A lot of promises were made for things that could have greatly helped DRN become much much larger that never happened. Part of me is extremely disappointed in this. I have done every single thing I set out to do and never went back on my word no matter how hard it was to follow through and it panes me to think if one of these things would have happened we could be telling a much different story right now.

For those that follow me and my vlogs very closely you may remember some time ago I talked about a plan, back then I told you if it worked out we are shooting for the stars but if not its over. Well clearly that plan did not happen or has yet to happen so I have held on much much longer that I planned on in the first place. All this being said though this decision is not anyone’s fault. I dont blame anyone for me losing my job and not being about to support this adventure anymore.

When I lost my job my household lost about $4,000 per month of income that we need to make ends meet. I need to now find a way to make that income back up and my #1 priority is to make sure I continue to provide for my family the way they deserve to be provided for. I am taking a huge risk by telling you this as its strictly forbidden but I think you need to see the whole picture to completely understand what is happening. In the past month DRN has made $7.53 there is just no way it is sustainable at that rate. I can live from a %50 cut but before going into this I made that every few minutes so there is no way its a sustainable project at the current schedule.

I have looked for outside sponsors. The website and video alone generate about 3,000 people per day. The videos have been watched by nearly 100,000 people since the started and website has attracted 41,000 page views in the last month. Not long ago I started working on a 30 minute anniversary show and put out the work for advertisers for that but all this has equated to no responses from anyone.

All this being said the game is not over yet. I have until mid January to make this work and when I have the time I am going to be kicking it in the ass to keep it going. We have come to far to just walk away now. The only difference is my public appearances “videos” will be less as I work behind the scenes to try to save what we have built. I wanted to make this announcement now though so if come mid January things have not changed you guys will understand why and not be so shocked if the plug is all of the sudden pulled one day.

I greatly appreciate the help I have gotten and love all the people I have met in the past year and will never forget anyone. I hope to god that something changes very soon so I am able to continue trying to change the world.

Below are not guarantees but are ways that anyone can help DRN

Buy a shirt:  http://www.foothillherps.com/news/?page_id=2788

Donate: On the website on the upper let there is a donate button.

DRN Weekly Hard Copy: I have a poll on the website for people interested in a paid weekly hard copy of DRN for their home or business. I am still taking votes on who would be interested in getting this. I am not sure of the cost but because of low volume printing costs I am thinking it would cost about $5 per week. Unfortunately we would need as much as 50 paid subscriptions to make it a viable option

There is one MAJOR way people can help which costs nothing but unfortunately its is a violation of the Adsence TOS for me to tell you how “hint hint”

Alligator worries neighborhood

PALMETTO – They don’t mind sharing a community pond in Heather Glen subdivision.  The problem is the unwelcome guest just won’t go away.

“He’s our new neighbor and we’re not real happy about him,” said Leisa Lewis.

“He’s been here for three weeks. He’s monstrous,” added Cathy Engles.

Ever since a nine foot alligator appeared, some people don’t feel safe at home.

“You just run, it’s like everybody get in the house,” explained Engles.

The gator doesn’t seem very afraid of people either.  That’s why Lewis called for help.

“I called Fish and Wildlife and reported him and got a case number and they said we had to have permission from the property owners association to access the common area around the pond. The president has declined to give them access,” she said.

That means unless the gator leaves on his own neighbors are stuck with him.

“I don’t understand the thought process of our homeowner’s association, how they can not do something about it,” Lewis said.

We asked Association President Bill Neville about that.  He wouldn’t speak on camera but says he blames the residents for attracting the alligator by throwing bread crumbs to birds and fish.  He feels getting rid of the animal is pointless because another one will simply take its place.

“I think (the alligator) was here before he knew that there was any bread being thrown out.  I think he’s here to check out what there is to eat,” Lewis said.

That’s a frightening thought in a neighborhood with children, dogs and cats.

“We can’t see him over the bank. He’s right there. I was probably fifteen feet from him and didn’t know it,” said Cassandra Engles.

Neighbors hope to work something out with Fish and Wildlife.  They say if the alligator is found on an individual’s property rather than in the pond controlled by the homeowner’s association then they’d be free to remove the animal.  The fear is that once the animal’s that close someone may get hurt.

Israel sonic booms ‘making crocs randy’

JERUSALEM — Sonic booms created by Israeli warplanes speeding across the sky are having the unintended consequence of launching hibernating crocodiles into mating mode, the daily Maariv reported on Sunday.

According to the newspaper, each time warplanes break the sound barrier over a crocodile breeding farm in the Golan Heights, the randy reptiles begin emitting their ritual mating cry.

“The powerful squealing noises, reminiscent of the sound of a car braking, can be heard from hundreds of metres (yards) around,” David Golan, head of crocodile breeding at the Hamat Gader park, told Maariv.

The calls appeared to be a response to the sonic booms, which seemed to convince the crocodiles that other males had begun making mating signals, the newspaper said.

There are around 100 crocodiles at the park, which is underneath airspace used by the Israeli air force for training runs.

A population boom is not expected, however, because the male crocs are all bark and no bite.

Despite issuing their signature mating calls when the planes break the sound barrier, there has been no uptick in actual breeding — and the “official” mating season does not begin until the summer.

Kentucky man ‘milks’ 600 to 1,000 venomous snakes a week

SLADE — Having been bitten by venomous snakes 18 times, Jim Harrison knows better than anyone that snake venom — which can cause people to lose a limb or a life — can also save a limb or a life.

Harrison, assisted by his wife, Kristen Wiley, “milks” 600 to 1,000 venomous snakes a week at the Kentucky Reptile Zoo, near Natural Bridge State Resort Park.

The venom is then shipped all over the world for use in medical research and to make the antivenin to counteract the effects of bites.

The zoo has about 1,300 snakes representing 100 species, from exotics like cobras and mambas to U.S. pit vipers like copperheads and timber rattlers.

Harrison’s most serious bite happened in May, when a lance-headed viper from Brazil sank its fangs into his left wrist.

He spent six days at University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital in Lexington. “And then I had abscesses form in my hand and they had to open up my hand up and take the abscesses out,” Harrison said in an interview last week. “So I ended up in the hospital for three weeks. … I’m just now getting back to where I have strength in my hand.”

Harrison sold a video of the bite’s progressive worsening to an Animal Planet show called “Fatal Attractions” in order “to pay the co-pay for my bills.”

Shortly after that incident, he was nipped again by a copperhead, “which was not life-threatening,” Harrison said.

But Harrison’s hands testify to other close encounters. Half of the left middle finger was lost to a bite from a desert horned viper. Cobras bit his left thumb and right pinkie. His right index finger — well, it was crushed in a weight lifting accident.

Dr. Edward Otten, director of toxicology at the University of Cincinnati Department of Emergency Medicine, calls Harrison “a hero.”

“He risks his life every day in his job,” Otten said. “And what he does with the venom that he gets saves people’s lives all over the United States and the world. You would be surprised how many people get bitten by cobras in downtown Detroit or Cincinnati or Chicago.

“People buy them on the Internet or something and they don’t know how to handle them and they end up getting envenomated by them, and they come to a hospital and they expect to be treated,” Otten said.

During a recent December morning when the temperature was in the single digits, Harrison and Wiley climbed the snow-covered wooden steps into a one-room building kept at near 80 degrees Fahrenheit for the comfort of its occupants: dozens of western diamondback rattlesnakes kept in clear plastic storage tubs. The simultaneous buzz of tail rattles sounded like steaks sizzling on the grill.

Moving with purpose and concentration, Harrison lifts each serpent out of the box with a long hook. Their tongues darting, each snake writhes and tries to move away from him and toward a corner. Harrison can use the hook to pin the heads of the smaller ones of about 2 to 3 feet in length. For larger individuals, such as a dark-faced rattler of about 6 feet in length, Harrison uses a sturdier-looking triangular device with a handle called a pin stick.

Then he carefully lifts each snake to a 4-foot-tall metal podium where a glass funnel is suspended over a vial. He puts the snake’s head up to the funnel, where the fangs puncture a thin waxy membrane and inject the venom. The whole process takes less than a minute for each snake.

“The hardest part is letting go, because the snake is irritated and you’re obviously in contact with it,” Wiley said. “So he has to be sure he lets go and gets his hand out of Dodge.”

After milking 10 to 15 snakes, the 20-milliliter vial is half-filled with yellow venom and replaced with an empty vial for a new round of extractions. This particular batch of venom will be used for a vaccine to help protect dogs against snakebite.

The liquid venom is then freeze-dried, and shipped to pharmaceutical companies and university researchers in the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa. Prices for venom vary according to the yield produced and the reptile’s rarity.

Venom from a coral snake, a small serpent of the southern states with red, black and yellow bands, costs $1,000 per gram.

However, “to get a gram of coral snake venom takes 300 to 400 extractions,” Harrison said.

In addition to making antidotes, venom has been used in the research for treatment of strokes, osteoporosis, blood clots and heart disease.

Copperhead venom has been used in trials for the treatment of breast cancer. Enzymes from cobra venom have been investigated in the search for cures for Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Proteins from certain rattlesnakes have produced blood-pressure medicine. Ingredients from red-necked spitting cobras have been researched for possible treatment of leukemia — an avenue of exploration in which Harrison and Wiley want to know more.

“We’re trying to find a researcher here in the United States that might be interested in doing that because we have a bunch of those snakes,” Harrison said.

The zoo operates as a nonprofit and has one full-time employee and an intern. Some people think of snake venom as “liquid gold,” but it’s not necessarily so, Wiley said.

“It’s not a profitable business unless you do a huge volume,” she said. “But the problem is, to do a huge volume, you also have to have a huge number of snakes. So you’re overhead is gigantic. So our heating bill — you don’t even want to know, it’s astronomical in the winter. And it’s not low in the summer, either, because we have to keep them from getting too hot.”

For his part, Harrison, who receives a pension from his days as police officer, said: “I do this to save lives. I don’t do this for the money. There’s a lot simpler ways of making a living than doing this.”

Fisherman Feared Eaten By Crocodile

A 66-year-old fisherman who went out to catch prawns in the Samarahan river near here early Saturday morning is feared to have been eaten by a crocodile.

OCCPD of Serian DSP Jamali Umi said that police were carrying out a search for Sidi Samat from Kampung Reban with the help of villagers who reported him missing at about noon.

Sidi’s son, Musa, said his mother had become worried when at about 9am his father had not returned home from where he usually caught prawns some 25 meters away.

At about 11am one of the villagers reported seeing a crocodile about 18 feet long near the spot.

Musa recalled a crocodile attack at the river in 1993 when a 12-year-old boy who was accompanying his fisherman father was devoured.

Zoo’s winning name for snake is familiar

It was a no-brainer to name the next big snake at the Columbus Zoo after Jack Hanna – and that’s not to say anything about the character of the zoo’s emeritus director.

But it was such an easy connection that two people proposed the name “Hanna” at the same time on the zoo’s Facebook page in a contest to come up with a moniker for the daughter of Fluffy, the zoo’s late, famed python.

The results of the contest were announced yesterday.

The snake now called Hanna is a reticulated python and is smaller than her mother, who was the largest of her species before she died of an apparent tumor on Oct. 17. Fluffy was 24 feet long and weighed 300 pounds, which is 6 feet longer and 100 pounds heavier than her daughter.

But Fluffy’s offspring, brought to the zoo weeks after her mother’s death, is still growing.

“Fluffy’s size was kind of rare,” said zoo spokeswoman Patty Peters. “But it’s possible she could get that big.”

Reticulated pythons grow throughout their lives and typically reach 10 to 20 feet.

The naming contest began Nov. 30 and website visitors bombarded the zoo’s Facebook page with more than 1,000 posts suggesting names. The two winners posted the name “Hanna” a minute after the contest began. They received free zoo memberships after their entry won the most votes on a Facebook poll.

Hanna (the human one) said only two other animals had been named after him – a jackass and a giant rabbit – and that he was honored to be associated with Fluffy’s offspring.

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