Keeping on the "20 years or more" topic

[MDT]

The Thread by CND Blood got me thinking. Who really impacted my interest in the hobby? I remember reading "Thrills of a Naturalist's Quest" by Raymond Ditmars when I was in grade school. That book has stayed with me all of these years. In fact, I found an old copy on Amazon and bought it and have recently re-read it. Ditmars was the man.....a true pioneer in herpetoculture even in the 1930's.

So, who/what impacted your love of herps?

[Jlassiter]

Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom

Every Sunday......

Poor Jim got the raw end of the deal all the time......Jim had to wrestle anacondas, alligators and monitors while Marlin would supervise and say things like, "hold onto him Jim. Don't let him get you."

Hahahahahaha

[SSSSnakes]

Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom

Every Sunday......

Poor Jim got the raw end of the deal all the time......Jim had to wrestle anacondas, alligators and monitors while Marlin would supervise and say things like, "hold onto him Jim. Don't let him get you."

Hahahahahaha

I would agree that that programs as well as others back in the day, got my interest in snakes going. But a man I admired for his work with venomous snake was William Haast, creator of the Miami Serpentarium.

[Jlassiter]

Yep...RIP Mr. Haast

[CDN_Blood]

I'd have to say that Tom Hough was an influence on me back in the day. He was the top dog in Canada at the time, his word was law and he was rather particular about with whom he'd associate, so I consider myself unbelievably lucky to have known him.

The guy once travelled 160+ miles in one of the worst storms of the winter (and trust me, our winters here are nasty) to attend a meeting of the local Reptile and Amphibian Association which I was hosting. He also volunteered to be an expert witness for me at a court affair we once had when our landlord wanted to evict us for having snakes in our unit, so to me Tom was an all-around good guy (if you were on his good side) and a strong influence on my entire philosophy about keeping herps. He was a terribly serious guy and I don't think I ever heard him laugh, but he sure knew what he was doing :)

[LISA127]

I was 28 years old when I started keeping herps. It's not a who that got me interested though. I did not own my own home yet at the time. Because I rented I was not allowed to share my life with a dog (my first love), so I got a cat. Never having lived with a cat in my life I did not know that I was allergic to them. At one point I ended up in the emergency room on a breathing machine. My doctor started harrassing me about living with a cat due to my breathing issues. At that point I was crushed because I'm a huge animal lover and cannot imagine not living with animals. It was at that point I got my first couple of reptiles because I figured it was the one pet I wouldn't be allergic to. Little did I know I would fall madly in love with all things herp. Of course I at some point did by a home and now I share my life with both reptiles and dogs.

[botis]

Three names come to mind, instantly. Steve Irwin, Mark O'shea, and Rom Whitaker. I had an interest in herps from a very young age, but these three really exposed me to some of the more exotic reptiles.

[snake man12]

I found a northern water snake 2 years ago and then I realized I need to have herps. That's it

[Terranaut]

For me it has been my kids.
When I was a kid I would catch wild snakes and keep them at home for the summer then release in the fall. I would simetimes even recat h the same snakes as the year before. Then at 13 ish I discovered girls and that was the end of herping for me. At least until I had kids if my own. When my sons asked my wife for a snake I laughed. I thought she would never go for it. She did and we bought one small snake. Then another. Then a couple adult snakes. And so on. So I thank my wife and kids for getting me back into herps.

[Lankyrob]

I held (part of) a burm when i was a kid at a school zoo visit and fell in loe with snakes, but it wasnt unti li met an old member of this forum and he introduced me to ahis snakes that i thought of owning my own.

[bigsnakegirl785]

I've always loved snakes, when I was young I didn't get to watch very much TV due certain circumstances it wasn't important. But most of the time when I was younger I would read about them, and most of the states I lived in I never saw a single one. So I decided when I moved back to NC, I wanted my own snake. I was happy with my ball python for about 5 years, then I wanted another so I got Cloud my boa constrictor.

[MDT]

Man... If they had TV shows like Crocodile Hunter, Mark O'Shea, Austin Stevens, etc when I was a kid.....dude.....
It was strictly "Wild Kingdom". You had to endure about 14 crappy weeks of water buffalo and flamingo episodes before you got to see Jim get his butt handed to him by the anaconda!!!!

[StudentoReptile]

Hmmm...most of the people who influenced me were local folks that I doubt anyone on this forum would know.

I will say that I have probably learned more in the past 5 years than I did in the previous 15. I owe a lot of that to sites and programs such as Reptile Radio, The Reptile Report, Herp Digest, Urban Jungle Radio, The Reptile Living Room, and many more. Just so much networking of information I still can barely keep track of it all. I want to read every article, book, blog post, listen to every podcast, everything...

[Jlassiter]

Student.....
Not trying to be an *** or anything but how do you think the authors of those books, articles and papers learned?........not from the interwebz....it wasn't invented by Al Gore until the 90s......lol

The best way to learn is from the animals themselves.......but others' opinions are surely noteworthy information.....

[millertime89]

My first reptile related memory is of seeing a big albino burm, a king cobra, and giant tortoises at the Reptile Gardens when I was little. That started my fascination with them. I caught toads, salamanders, and garter snakes in the fields near and the wells around my house when I was younger before the fields were turned into suburbs. Every visit to the zoo it was the herps and birds that fascinated me the most, I didn't care too much about the other animals. I read loads of books during my elementary and middle school years about herps as well.

[marvelfreak]

After i got my first Ball python given to me I bought "Pythons and Boas" by Peter J. Stafford. While reading it i fell in love with BRB, Diamond Carpets, and Blood Pythons. I been hooked every seen.