Reptoman

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   Nov 15

Schildi the bionic tortoise is on a roll

Veterinarians in Germany didn’t just treat the injuries on an injured tortoise brought in to a local animal shelter after being inured. They raided the toy box and built him a prosthetic wheeled leg.

From The Local:

“First we fitted a double wheel but it was difficult for him to turn corners so we replaced it with a single wheel and that is much better for him,” Dr Panagiotis Azmanis told The Local.

He works at the Birdconsulting International veterinary practice of Marcellus Bürkle in Achern in Baden, and ended up raiding the toy box of the practice manager’s daughter for wheels and spacer blocks.

Initially though the focus was on saving the tortoise’s life. “He was in pretty bad shape when they brought him to us. The lower part of his front leg was missing, and the upper part was very bad, with bone showing, and maggots in necrotic flesh.”

One the animal had been stabilized, the vets amputated the injured leg at the shoulder and treated him with antibiotics and fluids, as well as giving him pain killers.

Then came the question of lifting his fourth corner so he could move around.

“Tortoises need to run free in gardens, so he needed a prosthetic,” said Azmanis.

Read the full story here.

Photo: DPA …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Nov 15

Harp the turtle goes home after rehab

By Herp News

The crowd greeted the 140-pound loggerhead turtle like a rock star Thursday — a collective “awwww” swelled up as she touched beach sand for the first time in 106 days.        

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   Nov 15

After 106 days on land, 20-year-old turtle goes home

By Herp News

The crowd greeted the 140-pound loggerhead turtle like a rock star Thursday — a collective “awwww” swelled up as she touched beach sand for the first time in 106 days.        

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   Nov 15

Harp the turtle goes home after rehab

By Herp News

The crowd greeted the 140-pound loggerhead turtle her like a rock star Thursday — a collective “awwww” swelled up as she touched beach sand for the first time in 106 days.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 14

Splash! Sea turtle site shells out info on iPad Mini availability

By Herp News

You're probably asking, why would a site devoted to the protection of sea turtles launch an iDevice tracker? Here's why — and how it might survive a challenge from Apple. Originally posted at News – Apple

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 14

Sea turtle site shells out info on iPad Mini Retina availability

By Herp News

A Web site devoted to sea turtles has set up a Web page that shows which Apple stores have the new iPad Mini in stock.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 14

Angkor Achieves Third Strategic Transaction: USD$700,000 for Blue Lizard Prospect, Oyadao South Tenement, Cambodia

By Herp News

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — ANGKOR GOLD CORP. (“ANGKOR”) is pleased to announce that it has closed a Purchase Agreement with Mesco Gold Ltd. (“Mesco”) which extends their existing …

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   Nov 14

Climate change is super-sizing reptiles, shrinking mammals

A Florida paleontologist says climate change may turn back the species clock to a day when mammals were tiny and reptiles huge.

From NBC News:

“You see the size of these animals dancing with the climate,” said Jonathan Bloch, a paleontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Bloch delved into the connection between body size and global temperatures, particularly during a hot time known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, on Monday during the ScienceWriters2013 conference here in Gainesville. Like so many facets of global change, the lessons from the distant past don’t make the far future look all that sunny. Super-snakes, anyone?

Read the full story here.

Photo: Artist’s conception of the largest snake the world has ever known from Jason Bourque / University of Florida. …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Nov 13

Airport Alligator: CCTV Images Reveal Suspect

By Herp News

Security cameras record the mystery woman holding and petting the reptile on a train hours before it was found at O'Hare airport.

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   Nov 13

Dinosaurs in the news

Considering they’re still making news 66 million years after going extinct, dinosaurs are clearly one of humanity’s favorite animals. Here is a round-up of dino-centric stories from the last week:

From National Geographic:

An enigma for decades, a giant dinosaur known only for its brawny arms actually towered over the local tyrannosaurs, paleontologists report. It also ate plants and perhaps sported a surprising sail or hump on its back.

The dinosaur Deinocheirus mirificus (which means, essentially, “terrible hands that look peculiar”) had been a stubborn fossil enigma for nearly 50 years.

Nothing except the dinosaur’s eight-foot-long arms, tipped in three huge claws, and a handful of other bone fragments had ever been found.

But at the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference held in Los Angeles last week, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources paleontologist Yuong-Nam Lee presented a wealth of new fossils that make Deinocheirus stranger than anyone had previously imagined.

From Discovery.com:

A nursery of bizarre-looking dinosaurs known as therizinosaurs has been found in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

The nesting colony contained at least 17 clutches of eggs.

“Not only is this the largest colony of nonavian theropods, but this is the best documented site,” said study co-author Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, a vertebrate paleontologist at Hokkaido University in Japan, who presented the findings here at the 73rd annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference.

The finding suggests the odd little creatures were social animals. Read more…

From NBC News:

Paleontologists on Wednesday unveiled a new dinosaur discovered four years ago in southern Utah that proves giant tyrant dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus rex were around 10 million years earlier than previously believed.

A full skeletal replica of the carnivore — the equivalent of the great uncle of the T. rex — was on display at the Natural History Museum of Utah alongside a 3-D model of the head and a large painted mural of the dinosaur roaming a shoreline.

It was the public’s first glimpse at the new species, which researchers named Lythronax argestes (LY’-throw-nax ar-GES’-tees). The first part of the name means “king of gore,” and the second part is derived from poet Homer’s southwest wind. Read more…

Photo: National Geogrphic

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Read more here: King Snake

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   Nov 13

Locally extinct birds in the Amazon slowly flock back to forests when trees regrow

By Herp News

Some good news out of the Amazon rainforest: given enough time, deforested land can rebound enough to host bird species that had previously deserted the area, according to a recent study in The Auk. When people abandon deforested land, the rainforest slowly reclaims it. Eventually, birds begin to use the clumps of secondary forest as corridors between thickets of old growth.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 12

Turtle rehab center moves to bigger digs

By Herp News

Sonny Fernandez and volunteers put Lefty, a loggerhead sea turtle, in a pool at the new Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Surf City last Thursday. The new building is 16-times larger than the old facility used since 1996.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 12

Asia’s ‘unicorn’ photographed in Vietnam

By Herp News

In 1992, scientists made a spectacular discovery: a large, land mammal (200 pounds) that had somehow eluded science even as humans visited the moon and split the atom. Its discoverers, with WWF and Vietnam’s Ministry of Forestry, dubbed the species the saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis). Found in the Annamite Mountains in Laos and Vietnam, the saola is a two-horned beautiful bovine that resembles an African antelope and, given its rarity, has been called the Asian unicorn. Since its discovery, scientists have managed to take photos via camera trap of a wild saola (in 1999) and even briefly studied live specimens brought into villages in Laos before they died (in 1996 and again in 2010), however the constant fear of extinction loomed over efforts to save the species. But WWF has announced good news today: a camera trap has taken photos of a saola in an unnamed protected area in Vietnam, the first documentation of the animal in the country in 15 years.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 12

Alligator found at O'Hare Airport recovering in care of local herp society

The Chicago Herpetological Society is caring for a two-foot alligator found under an escalator at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

From the Chicago Tribune:

The group has about 500 members, including about 30 in the Chicago area who open their homes, bathtubs and backyards to reptiles and amphibians who need a place to stay or recover. While by many accounts this was the first alligator found at the airport, it’s not the first Floridian reptile found in Illinois that the volunteers have taken in.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources confiscates a dozen to two dozen alligators every year, said Scott Ballard, the department’s expert in herpetology, the branch of zoology that pertains to the study of reptiles and amphibians.

No one in the state, other than zoos and licensed facilities, should have one. Because the reptile is protected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Endangered Species Act, a permit is required to own one in Illinois. The state stopped issuing permits for people to keep them as pets about a decade ago, Ballard said. While violators can be convicted of a Class A misdemeanor under the state’s Endangered Species Protection Act, a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department said there is no criminal investigation into the abandoned animal at O’Hare.

Read the full story here.

Photo: Chicago Tribune …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Nov 12

Kids’ stories and new stoves protect the golden snub-nosed monkey in China

By Herp News

Puppet shows, posters and children’s activities that draw from local traditions are helping to save an endangered monkey in China. The activities, which encourage villagers—children and adults alike—to protect their forests and adopt fuel-efficient cooking stoves, have worked, according to a report published in Conservation Evidence. Local Chinese researchers, supported by the U.S.-based conservation organization Rare, designed the campaign to protect the monkeys.

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   Nov 11

Tortoise Capital Advisors Announces Distribution Dates and Amounts for Closed-End Funds

By Herp News

Certain closed-end funds managed by Tortoise Capital Advisors declared the following distributions today:

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   Nov 11

Loggerhead Turtle Rescued From A Coconut Grove Canal

By Herp News

Rescued just in time. An injured loggerhead sea turtle was pulled out of a Coconut Grove canal by Florida Fish and Wildlife Officials after receiving a call from a good Samaritan of a turtle in distress.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 11

Aircraft carrier saves trapped sea turtle

By Herp News

Sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman rescued a sea turtle that was tangled in a makeshift fishing net last week. “They called away, 'man the port davit,' because a lookout saw some containers attached to a net in the water, and there was a sea turtle trapped in it,” said Lt. j.g. Lillian Bean, who served as the boat officer for the rigid-hull inflatable boat used in the …

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   Nov 11

Tortoise gets Lego-wheel prosthetic for missing leg

By Herp News

Schildi the tortoise is back up and running now. (Credit: Bird Consulting International) Schildi the tortoise was found in rough shape in Germany. He was abandoned and missing part of his front leg. What was left of the leg was in such bad condition, it had to be amputated at the shoulder. German veterinary clinic Bird Consulting International took care of Schildi, but had to figure out how to …

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 11

Flying Lizard Announces 2014 Program

By Herp News

SONOMA, Calif., Nov. 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ – Following a decade in the American Le Mans Series and coming off of a team championship clinching GTC class win in the final ALMS race at Road Atlanta, Flying Lizard Motorsports today announced that it would join the new TUDOR United SportsCar Championship with two cars to be run in the GT Daytona class for the 2014 season.  The team will continue to …

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 11

GT: Flying Lizard swaps Porsche for Audi

By Herp News

Long-time Porsche sportscar squad Flying Lizard will switch to Audi for the first season of the United SportsCar Championship in 2014

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 11

Turtle Creek, Cross Gates, River Oaks subdivision updates: Military Road

By Herp News

The Turtle Creek Garden Club has selected the property at 316 Applewood Drive as its November Yard of the Month. The lovely property, owned by Jennifer and Jason Andrews, was selected for its variety of color, texture and for being…

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 11

Green poison-dart frog varies mating call to suit situation

By Herp News

In the eyes of a female poison-dart frog, a red male isn’t much brighter than a green one. This does not however mean that the mating behavior of the green and red variants of the same species of frog is exactly the same.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 11

Herp Video of the Week: Living Art!

Check out this video “Living Art,” submitted by kingsnake.com user phiff1.
Submit your own reptile & amphibian videos at http://www.kingsnake.com/video/ and you could see them featured here or check out all the videos submitted by other users! …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Nov 10

Breeders showcase pets at Scales and Tails Reptile Festival

By Herp News

THE thought of cuddling with a crocodile or wearing a snake like a scarf might terrify a lot of people. But not reptile fans like Calum de Mezieres.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 10

USS Harry S. Truman sailors free trapped sea turtle

By Herp News

Reaching the turtle was the first step in what turned out to be the difficult process of freeing it.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 10

Lizards always on the defense

By Herp News

Horned lizards are a collection of eight southwestern reptile species that are often referred to as 'horny toads' because of their chunky bodies. / James Cornett, Special to The Desert Sun

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   Nov 09

UFO hunter spots 'fossilized iguana' on Mars

By Herp News

The lizard-like object was snapped by Nasa's Mars rover Curiosity.

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   Nov 09

Reptile training for Long Island law enforcement

By Herp News

Law enforcement on Long Island are getting some trained on handling reptiles, many exotic and some poisonous. In September, Suffolk cops and SPCA officers uncovered 850 snakes, including Burmese pythons, in a home in Shirley, part of an illegal reptile business.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 08

Reptile Training Under Way For Suffolk County Officials

By Herp News

Suffolk SPCA chief Roy Gross said the training is crucial, given the spike of reptiles turning up on Long Island.

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   Nov 08

Judge allows comptroller to intervene in lizard lawsuit

By Herp News

A federal judge has granted Comptroller Susan Combs the day in court she hoped for to address conservation of endangered species in Texas.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 08

Dolphins, bats and the evolution of echolocation

By Herp News

A dolphin swimming through the world’s oceans after fish, and a bat flying through the air with its membranous wings to catch insects or eat fruit: at first glance, it looks like no two creatures could be more different. But it turns out they share a superpower – they hunt prey by emitting high-pitched sounds and listening for a returning echo. A recent study published in the journal Nature Letters has shown that the regions of the genome responsible for this ability are strikingly similar between these very different mammals.

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   Nov 08

Snake invasion lawsuit time!

Tenants in a Georgia apartment complex are suing over what they call an invasion of snakes on the property — indoors and out.

From WSB TV:

Shawn Davis told Channel 2’s Tom Regan she spotted one slithering down her hallway and another in a fruit bowl.

“The first was a baby copperhead; the second was a rat snake. My husband said since the last two snakes, he found two more. But he didn’t want to tell me about it, cause I’m a nervous wreck,” Davis said.

Residents first contacted Channel 2 Action News about the problem in September. They reported sightings of a half-dozen snakes, including a six-foot-long copperhead that was trapped in an apartment breezeway and killed.

Davis and her husband, Paul Patterson, said they repeatedly reported their concerns to management and requested moving into another building but were told that was not possible.

Earlier this week, they filed a lawsuit accusing apartment management of negligence in failing to control the population of venomous snakes. The suit seeks unspecified damages.

Read the full story here.

Photo: kingsnake.com user mrtigger …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Nov 07

Frankie Tortoise Tails – Frankie, Purgatory and the Smog in China


Seven days until Frankie’s Big Move.

If you’ve been counting you’ll notice it’s seven days and not three days due to one little word not appearing on one piece of paper of many, many, many papers to close our new house in Mobile. That’s right. The closing of our house was cancelled at the last minute because Greg’s name didn’t appear on an insurance paper that had NOTHING to do with ownership of a house.

Yes, I am in House Closing Purgatory.

Poor Frankie was the primary victim of one little word. Once we closed on the planned Friday date we would promptly run to Lowe’s and buy fence posts and cement and for an entire weekend put up Frankie’s new privacy fence. The completion of said fence would take the entire week but those all important fence posts needed the attention and dedication of four persons. Once posts are up the pickets could be completed during the week after everyone got off work.

In the mean time I would be back in Birmingham packing and preparing Frankie for the big move.

That everything would work like the Boulder, Colorado’s Atomic Clock is denying the very real existence of HouseClosingPurgatory. Closing was postponed to Monday.

So Frankie’s Fence was not going to get done in time. Four adults of which only one is a Frankie Expert try to decide on a solution.

My favorite is the one where Frankie will live in our friends’s screened porch for five to seven days.

If that idea didn’t cause you to drop to the floor and laugh your arse off then you don’t currently own or have ever owned a 100 pound sulcata tortoise.

Another idea involved putting up a temporary metal fence.

Really?<span style='font-family: Times New …read more
Read more here: Turtle Times

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   Nov 07

Three-legged tortoise gets Lego wheel prosthetic

By Herp News

BADEN, Germany, Nov. 7 (UPI) — Veterinarians in Germany said a tortoise that lost a front leg is successfully moving around with the help of a Lego wheel.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 07

Male lizards prefer more-feminine lizards to ‘bearded ladies’

By Herp News

Mating-behavior studies of lizards in three southern US states have revealed which females male lizards find to be the sexiest. The research provides insight into the evolution of male-female differences.

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   Nov 07

Could camera trap videos galvanize the world to protect Yasuni from oil drilling?

By Herp News

Even ten years ago it would have been impossible to imagine: clear-as-day footage of a jaguar plodding through the impenetrable Amazon, or a bicolored-spined porcupine balancing on a branch, or a troop of spider monkeys feeding at a clay lick, or a band of little coatis racing one-by-one from the dense foliage. These are things that even researchers who have spent a lifetime in the Amazon may never see. Now anyone can: scientists at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park have recently begun using camera trap videos to take movies of animals few will ever view in their lifetimes. The videos—following years of photo camera trapping—provide an intimate view of a world increasingly threatened by the oil industry.

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   Nov 06

Quail Run Elem. students adopt Sgt. Rex the tortoise

By Herp News

TUCSON – The community came together to help Quail Run Elementary adopt a desert tortoise.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Nov 06

Ancient Baby Shark's Last Meal: Baby Turtle

By Herp News

LOS ANGELES — More than 70 million years ago, a baby shark may have bitten off more than it could digest. A fossilized hunk of poop from an ancient baby shark has revealed the tiny predator's last meal: a baby turtle. “It's a case where a newborn shark ate a newborn turtle and died,” said study co-author David Schwimmer, a paleontologist at Columbus State University in Georgia.

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   Nov 06

Florida man arrested for torturing, killing rattlesnake

In a world where “rattlesnake round-ups” are considered good family fun, the arrest of a Florida man who tortured and killed a rattler comes as a refreshing change.

From Tallahassee.com:

According to the weekly Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission law enforcement report for Oct. 25, in mid-September, Ward Lee Waff “taunted the pygmy rattlesnake continuously … kicked the snake into the roadway, attempting to get a car to run over the snake,” and then shot it repeatedly with a .22 caliber rifle, sending it flying off the roadway.

In the video, Waff, 45, asks the snake if it would “bite one of my dogs. Would you bite one of my children?” before capturing it and holding it before a number of braying dogs in the back of a truck. He can be heard laughing as he torments the reptile.

[…]

In the report, Waff is described as having a criminal history with FWC and is “currently on probation for fish and wildlife violations that were committed in the past.”

Read the rest of the story here.

Photo: kingsnake.com user SalS …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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