Responsible Reptile Keeping: Banning spider ball pythons and boas? Cash machine? Thought bubble?

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🚀 Visit the website resolvereptiles.com
Responsible Reptile Keeping is supposed to be a worldwide organization promoting education, integrity, evidence based research, and welfare standards for animals.
But is it just a cash cow?
All of the same actors are involved: "ethical keepers", JTB, AAHN, AHH, Arcadia, ReptiFiles, HappyDragons, and more just make a circle of thoughts, a facade of science, and a cash machine.

[@Groundx1]

Oh boy... Dude, I am not affiliated with any reptile product or supply company. 1) I understand that RRK is the British analog of US Ark; (2) It is pretty cool that British businesses have formed REPTA; (3) A lot of keepers and hobbyists respect Tony and Chaz (Snakes n Adders); (4) Is Mariah the best? Okay, maybe not, but she is helpful for beginners. (I shall reserve judgment on your plagiarism charge I until learn more) For me, I learned from actual books (deVosjoli, Barker, Love, McKeown, Zimmerman, etc.); (5) My own personal ethics? I think it is cool to recommend against certain morphs; I also don't like pugs, telescope goldfish, roosters w 30' tails... This is not a straw man, there are UA-camrs who still claim there is no problem with spider balls (and you know who are they are).
But I will say this: Of course, it is a circle! We are an interrelated community (maybe not what an anthropologist would call an "endogamous community," but we are fairly closed). I do not reflexively disagree with you, but your tone does seem a bit condescending. Let me ask you straight up: Do you have a problem with Clint, Adam, Josh Halter, Roy, Phil (I know you like Dav). Why not go on Happy Dragons and have a civil debate?
My bigger gripes are: 1) How some people are now accorded a degree of near papal infallibity. For example, Clint claims that water dragons are difficult, but that rosy boas are easy. Well, he is Utah, where it is rather dry. We in NYC do not find rosy boas easy, and we consider water dragons an easy/intermediate lizard--it is ^%$@! humid here. Would it not be more useful for Clint to discuss this? (2) A second example is the 14 month now they're FB experts--how every herp will die by the end the month without uvb, how aroids will kill your lizards, no herp can cohab--oh please...
Seriously, rather than rant, how about a civil, moderated discussion?
P. S.
I'm a professional horticulturist, I know all about insulating layers (In da Bronx, 7B, we are a "heat island.") I do not keep any cool environment species (e.g., Gastrotheca, Salamandra) but don't people use basements and garages for cool rooms?

[@ResolveReptiles]

Hi. Oh boy is that a great wall of text.
Low hanging fruit first:
- If you don't believe the plagiarism accusations about Mariah and ReptiFiles then you can absolutely go verify on the wayback machine that wikipedia articles were vandalized quoting ReptiFiles as the source of things like DNA tests. This is absolutely not great ethics. That's simple to verify and inarguable once you verify the same thing I illustrated.
- Chaz is great and more beneficial to the hobby than ReptiFiles will ever be. Given the opportunity, Mariah would simply rewrite Chaz's content because it's actually good and from an experienced keeper willing to share great information.
- The reptile hobby is very small but it's not a circle by any means. People who go buy animals from department stores or local shows probably don't even go on UA-cam to learn anything about the animals. The "hobby" is pretty much splintered - one side is blissfully pet enjoyers, another side is ball python breeders and "dietary supplements", yet another side is spider champions, yet another side is people who have owned "rescued" leopard geckos for 6 months and plan to "prove" something, and on and on and on... No one knows the difference (which really there isn't any...) between a Zoomed lamp and an Arcadia lamp. Arcadia can't even get the spectrum illustration on the side of the box correct ffs - and no one notices except people *outside* of the reptile hobby.
- How do you "know" I like Dav? I've met him 3-4 times and bought some snakes from leonis from him that I reviewed Chaz's material for. That's a circle.
- Clint is one of your spider people and I believe you probably know this... he also has some "special" thoughts on UV for being a biologist.
- BioDude (Josh Halter) is tangent to ReptiFiles, etc, publishing articles references human studies and claiming that vitamin D prevents impaction. The accepted leading cause of impaction is most likely dehydration. Josh Halter is selling reboxed Arcadia bulbs. The conclusion there is pretty obvious. I once bought biodude substrate that was "best for hognose snakes" and found what seemed to be very fine silica. I was told it was diatomaceous earth and I asked about that supporting bioactive (because that wouldn't) - so then I was told it was sand. How would you not know the difference between the two? In both cases, keeping in mind it would be very fine silica and aluminum, it would not be healthy for my little hognoodle. Josh's Frogs substrate does not have the same concerns and if I need to add sand for drainage I can wash my own.
- etc
The biggest difference between the content creators that you have mentioned and "keepers"/"educators" like ReptiFiles is that the content creators you have mentioned have actual experience based on empirical keeping (disclaimer: empirically proven keeping is not always great... but understanding it allows for reasonable expansion not based on sunlight myths). When it comes to Mariah, JTB, Liam Sinclair, etc you have people quite literally LARPing - from JTB eating calcisand and claiming coco is the "deadliest substrate" to Liam Sinclair claiming temp guns shoot lasers and then excusing himself because he says people aren't smart enough to understand....... it's bad. It's really bad. RRK will, and currently is, promoting this kind of "thought" in the reptile hobby for a cash grab to pay their friends. It's not useful at all. It's quite literally a setback. All it's made for is to try to arm "ethical" keepers with complete nonsense to pick fights on the internet - much like my video, they'll only be participating in aggressive rants. You can claim you're "educating" people but if you "educate" them that they should stare into the sun to "cure" disease then you aren't actually educating them....
Come to Happy Dragons and have a civil debate? There will be no such thing. I will show up and question why people think Vitamin D "disinfects the enclosure" where I'll be inundated with completely irrelevant articles like the one Josh Halter (BioDude) used to justify selling a reboxed Arcadia lamp (which is just another reboxed lamp from ATI, iirc). Liam, Roman Muryn, and Baines will show up to tell me Vitamin D cures the recent pandemic (this is false per the CDC and many, many, many follow up studies). People will tell me corn snakes have denser bones just like their gramma and it's "obvious" - but if you look at a recent 20 year study it seems like vitamin D and calcium in senior adults is not helpful at all. Not even the attempts at human analog stand up to any sort of educated review. On the flipside, I invite you to join World of Ball Pythons on Facebook and (to be clear, I am unassociated with this, am not an admin, and don't really support a lot of the thought here but for the exercise...) tell people that MorphMarket is unethical and try to argue with Drollinger - that will be quite the show.
Happy Dragons is a front and you can easily go look up stores in MorphMarket that mach Happy Dragons and link over to Facebook, etc, and see all of their geckos in tubs. TC Houston raised blue tongues in bins in a rack made from wood and chicken wire - people get upset to see other content creators use tubs for leopard geckos.... "Ethical" in this hobby is only a false dichotomy to create insults and nothing more. To be clear, I'm not calling TC a bad keeper but he is being used as an example here for the very painfully obvious hypocritical nature of "ethical" and "responsible" keeping.
RRK can put its proverbial money where its mouth is and sponsor things like micro nutrient studies in the boas they casually discuss over coffee to record a clickbait video about. Responsibly and ethically, if we are subjecting these animals to artificial UV lamps in a small contained space knowing that it's very possible to injure them... and also knowing that these lamps, when used unnecessarily, cause a significant amount of waste... and also knowing that "dancing in the sunlight" is a long disproven crap theory from the 70s.... the micronutrient study would go much farther than copypasting ReptiFiles' spam. We know that won't happen, though.
Hop on over to the Resolve Reptiles discord if you want to chat. Invite your friends. I'll make you your own channel to troll tf out of me with irrelevant articles about vitamin D destroying bacteria in a petri dish when it is established animal science practice to use accessible and simple disinfects from mechanical washing to quaternary ammonia to steam - no harmful UV (and yes, the full UV spectrum is harmful - not just UVC) or natural sunlight required.
You are a professional horticulturist. You know all about insulating layers - that means basements are used as cool spaces and warm spaces because those insulating layers keep a very consistent temperature. That means that burrows (real ones, not a just a hole in the ground) are, in fact, warmer than the surface. Unlike a basement, you would have composting material in these burrows that would actually heat it - find out where bees and other insects go in the winter. Once again, this means that these areas are indeed warmer than the surface. This is the same "debate" as the "ball pythons live in termite mounds" thing from decades ago - people scoff at the idea of a termite mound because it isn't a 4x2x2 Dubia Roaches enclosure but the fail to understand how delicate those structures are and the animals that they support **naturally**. It's not the cramped space of the termite mound we should be emulating. That's the kneejerk "ethical" rant about ball pythons living in trees and hunting with UV vision - something Liam Sinclair argued. We have molecular studies of ball python eyes. The idea of hunting a bird with "UV vision" is pretty ridiculous.

[@ResolveReptiles]

Double post, but important to be separate from the other material. You mention the "ethics" of people like spider beep champions and also mentioned Clint should be cognizant of the environmental difference of where he lives versus where you live. More important than this is the idea of medical support for these animals. Obviously not in a study, but very obvious in animal science in general, disease is a ridiculously ignored topic by all of the people you mentioned. Here in the US we have tons of imports all cramped into wooden crates (look up the Mack's PetSmart incident as an example) where we have biosecurity nightmares and cross contamination. Nidoviruses are on huge example of a completely ignored problem in reptile keeping. People that struggle to keep veiled chameleons might benefit from knowing there is pervasive nidovirus in that species - causing them to die of respiratory infections. From what I understand, mycoplasma is a big problem over there and I am not sure why it's not bigger over here. Cryptosporidium is a massive problem and, because that organism also infects humans, we have a lot of information about managing cryptosporidium. Nidovirus (now serpentovirus) is pervasive through ball pythons. Literally the only reason there's a nidovirus article on ReptiFiles is because of **drumroll** - me. I'll send you the email thread.
"Ethically" and "responsibly" do you think RRK and Arcadia are **EVER** going to do anything other than claim Arcadia branded UV bulbs cure all disease? What about those "five freedoms" people always toss around? Molecular testing is cheap and easy - poke around the channel and you'll see I've even done it in my kitchen. Screening and education on medical support is more important than any faked "debate" about tubs - as long as I've been in this hobby I've never actually seen any private keeper keep an MBK in a tub **other than** Liam Sinclair. The supposed uneducated masses buying animal from PetSmart are not throwing them in tubs. It's a vain and pointless attack on the hobby for attention and nothing more.