A few photographs of my critters - part 1 - Page 8

crocdoc · 02-07-12, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BarelyBreathing

He's going in August. I'm not sure he knows where he's going yet, though.

Do you know who he's working with? Is it Tim Jessop?

BarelyBreathing · 02-07-12, 11:06 PM

Wow, one heck of a story!

Andrew told me who he was working with, but I can't recall the name. I don't know if this means anything to you, but he will be with a bit of an international team, and they plan on studying the venom vs. bacteria contents and I guess something about which is more deadly. My brother used to basically test whether or not a cure for different things would work or not, and I believe he will be doing something similar here (although I'm not really caught up on all the details). Does any of this make sense to you?

crocdoc · 02-07-12, 11:24 PM

He may be working with Bryan Frye, although I suspect a lot of people will be working on the venom thing, now.

BarelyBreathing · 02-07-12, 11:37 PM

I know who Bryan Frye is. It wasn't him.

**millertime89** · 02-08-12, 01:22 AM

wow... that's now the third time I've heard of "Snake Palace"
if you have Netflix find "dangerous encounters" with Brady Barr, he goes twice, once he finds a 20+ foot retic, its one of the better episodes.

crocdoc · 02-08-12, 05:26 AM

Grrr... I had typed out a long response but it seems to have disappeared.

I'm not a fan of Brady Barr. I was aware of his program on the cave, for I recorded it on TV shortly after I returned from Indonesia a few years ago. It's the only program of his I've recorded and one of very few I've watched. I watched it while I was recording it and one of the guys from the trip was on the phone with me during ad breaks, laughing at the way Barr was carrying on. The reason I recorded the program was a scene in which you can see the deep guano, so I could show other people.

We had the same guide as Barr. Really nice guy. What irked me most about the Nat Geo program is that they didn't list him in the credits, not so much as a 'thanks to'. I know that it would have been really difficult for them to organise their film shoot in the cave without his help and that he doesn't get paid much for what he does. You can see him in one of the sequences after Barr got bitten by the snake (a well deserved bite, too, for he seemed to have no idea what he was doing), as he rushes in front of the camera to offer his help.

crocdoc · 02-08-12, 05:27 AM

Grrr...first my long post disappeared, then my second one appeared twice.

jarich · 02-08-12, 08:49 AM

This is an awesome thread man, thanks for all the pictures and stories! That cave experience sounds both amazing and disgusting. I bet getting out into the fresh air never felt as good at any time in your life!

crocdoc · 02-08-12, 07:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jarich

I bet getting out into the fresh air never felt as good at any time in your life!

Got that right! But getting into the stream was an even more unbelievable feeling. After lying down and letting the water rush over me for a while I didn't want to sit up, but had to to breathe.

**millertime89** · 02-08-12, 10:42 PM

He's annoying but his show is, at the very least, entertaining and relatively informative. What about it bothers you other than it giving 0 credit to the guide.

If I can get a decent job post-graduation would you be up for another trip up there with a retic enthusiast?

crocdoc · 02-08-12, 11:58 PM

I'd happily head back to Flores and hope to later this year, anyway.

Re his program...Where do I start? To be fair, I hate all personality based animal shows (I refuse to call them documentaries, for they are anything but), so he's already off to a bad start there. Any show that has a lot of talking head or views of someone's butt as they jump on an animal just doesn't interest me. I disliked crikey's show for the same reason. There's a lot to be learned from watching an animal behave naturally in the wild and I try to do as much of that myself as possible. There's very little to be learned by watching someone jump on one.

Secondly, his show in particular annoys me because of the handling techniques used. I'm not a fan of tongs. Fine for offering a large reptile food or picking up groceries from a high shelf (their original purpose) but I flinch when I see someone taking tongs into the field with them for use with wild snakes, especially a place like Australia or Indonesia where a large number of the snakes one will encounter may be slim bodied, fast moving things like elapids (the cobra family). If you can hold one in your tongs and it is unable to get away, its ribs are toast. They may be okay for slow moving, thick bodied snakes like rattlers, but even then hooks are better. Tongs for pythons - why on earth would you bother?

Also, large crocodilians are easily tired out and it can be dangerous to tire them to the point of exhaustion. If lactic acid levels build up high enough, they can die a day or two after capture. Going out and capturing numerous crocodilians for the sake of measuring them and pretending one is doing 'science' for TV, or simply to boast that one has captured every species of crocodilian in the world, just doesn't sit right with me. I often wondered if any of those crocodilians he captured died afterwards (and I'm not the only one that's wondered that).

For what it's worth, I wouldn't watch crikey reruns, that program with the annoying German or South African guy trying to extract venom (can't recall his name) or any of the other talking head animal shows, either.

**millertime89** · 02-09-12, 03:37 PM

Huh, that's really interesting, I never thought of it that way. I come from an enthusiast background, not really a biologist background so some of those things never even entered my mind.
Guilty pleasure: Croc Hunter reruns, I always loved it when i was little and din't get to watch it very often, so I've been recording it and watching it now that I've got the ability to do so.

BarelyBreathing · 02-09-12, 03:44 PM

I was (and still am) a huge fan of The Crocodile Hunter. It was his enthusiasm for reptiles that made him great. I used to bring kids to my house to watch the show, and after that they would be less afraid of snakes. I think we need somebody with his devotion to helping people overcome their prejudices towards reptiles around today, as our hobby is under more and more attack.

crocdoc · 02-09-12, 04:09 PM

I do apologise, but I have to admit that I laugh when I read statements like this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by BarelyBreathing

I think we need somebody with his devotion to helping people overcome their prejudices towards reptiles around today, as our hobby is under more and more attack.

It seems most people in the US aren't aware that he was against the ownership of reptiles by private keepers. It's fairly well known here.

What irked me most about crikey was his insistence on using the word 'aggressive' while holding a snake by the tail. "Look how aggressive it is! It wants to TAG me". Gave people the wrong idea about snakes, in my opinion. People watching his show that aren't snake enthusiasts walk away thinking a species is far more aggressive/dangerous than it really is, which is bad in a country like Australia. That's how I found out about his show to start with: A good mate rang me and said "I had no idea (I can't recall the species of snake) were that dangerous" and when I asked "who said they were?" he told me about the show. I watched a couple of episodes and that was enough for me.

BarelyBreathing · 02-09-12, 04:15 PM

That wasn't what I was talking about. He was out there every single day advocating that reptiles aren't the bad guys.