Please share your experiences in Tampa

As some of us are not that lucky to live in Florida, I would appreciate if those who attended the Tampa show this weekend could give a synopsis of the ups and downs of what they saw there.

Thanks!

The Good:
There were some good vendors with nice animals including Suncoast Herp, the Bell's, Cypress Creek Herps, etc.

The Bad:
- I'm personally not a fan of mammals being sold at Reptile shows and there were several. (marmoset, sugar gliders, chinchillas, etc.)
- The petting zoo, camel rides and "get your photo with a tiger" booth make the show feel more like a circus than a reptile show.
- I was surprised to see a vendor selling puppies out of a cardboard box. They were cute but c'mon, what happened to Tony's strict vendor standards.
- There were several vendors selling fresh WC's. Some were outwardly healthy but others were obviously not.
- Aline Reptile's tables were probably the worst as far as odor and overcrowding goes.
- Several vendors were complaining about poor sales and the turnout seemed a little less than I've seen in the past.

Obviously, Tony has the right to ban whoever he wants but when he picks on one person while allowing several others to do the same and worse, it just doesn't seem right.

I agree completely. I also would like to see Tony move away from the "Circus-Like" atmosphere. In his defense however, he does have that all set up in a separate room from the actual show. I think his intention is to try and draw additional traffic to the show. If the kids want to see that type of thing, the parents will obviously be along as well.

As far as the show itself, despite an excellent job of advertising, I think the traffic was a little down for this show. Saturday was alright, but Sunday was pretty miserable. A Bucs home game may have had some impact there.

As stated above, and I believe this is true of any show, there was a vendor mix consisting of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". I think that Tony is trying to police it as best he can, but you never really know what your going to get from show to show with some of the vendors. I didn't spend a lot of time wandering the show, but there were some questionable animals there.

It's generally pretty easy to pick out the vendors that take the extra time to demonstrate their professional attitude toward, their animals, their displays, and their customers. These are the vendors, who year after year provide the absolute best to the hobby.

All in all, I think the show went well. Although the sales were a little slower then anticipated, I think that everyone had a good time. It's always great to see everyone and spend a couple of days enjoying the hobby with like-minded people.


Thanks,

It was a good show for us and we did suprisingly well but, should have gotten more space...A few vendors did well a few complained but, it's that way at every show. I only have one complaint.... A customer at the show came to us and stated that a vendor had some import ball pythons that had ticks on them. When they pointed it out to the vendor the reply was ..."it's and import what do you expect." I'm not going to point the dealer out..they know who they are. The customers will just support someone with better ethics, morals and care for the specimens. I know Tony can't watch everyone... he was very busy. It's just a shame. On the whole a good show decent prices and some very high quality specimens. Thanks Ray G. HBR www.herpbreedingresearch.com

I always look forward to this show as so many we know do attend as vendors, but imagine my surprise to find out a day before that a new breeder who just started breeding bearded dragons that has an active outbreak of Yellow Fungus Disease was going to make his first show ever appearance there with his dragons!!!

To me that was an act of total irresponsibility.... he endangered not only the animals the potential buyer has at home, but also any vendor in the show! We tired to talk to him Friday night at set up prior to the show opening Saturday, he still elected to sell that weekend. His only response was he has to many mouths at home to fed and needed to move some.

Yellow fungus disease is NOT species specific, it has been verified in not only bearded dragons, but in chameleons, monitors, corn snakes and boa's that I know of and that one species passes it direct to another or someone handling one can pass it to another.

He states he does not think the ones he bought have been exposed to it, but then he stated the same thing two months ago and several more have developed it since........... along with serious coccidia problems. (they seem to often have both)

Just unacceptable to me and ruined the show for me and others. We had planned on displaying some of the dragons we imported there with a another friend that we were helping, I kept them behind the table and took them back home that night. I did not buy any animals there, which is a first for me, its not worth it to risk bringing something back into my home that is fatal in most cases. Even good caring dealers are at risk as someone looking to buy and handling their animals could have handled his prior. We always met several people there and help them pick out animals, this time we advised them not to and why. Tony needs to stop vendors that have problems like this from setting up or it will effect everyone's sales. Many people we knew that come both days did not even bother to come back Sunday although they had VIP passes too.

Anyone else notice the signs up by several vendors that no animals were to be touched until purchased? there was a reason why.... better to lose sales than to lose your whole colony! ALso, what if someone bought from you and them, then a few weeks later have this show up in all they bought and call you complaining the animals they got from you is sick or died..... and you had nothing to do with the problem..... just irresponsible!

Cheri, did you mention this to the vet or to Tony? And if so, what was thier response? Also could you post a link to some info on yellow fungus disease, I've never heard of it.

I did email Tony at the Tampa reptile show email, but it was late Thursday night. I don't know if he got it before the show. I went up Friday night for set up and could not find him, actually did not see him all weekend. I never saw the Vet either there Friday night. It was a bit disorganized this time to say the least. This was why I tried to talk to the vendor that night, I had hopes he would pull the animals out of the show on his own. And also wanted to make sure he understood how contagious this is and that what risk he was putting others at.

Dr Jean Pare, had isolated, identified and studied one type of Yellow Fungus Disease (YFD) in chameleons, it has also been found in captive brown tree snakes, corn snakes, boas, the salt-water crocodile, monitors and just this year identified as the cause of many YFD in bearded dragons when some were sent to him to study. The chameleon and brown tree snake were published prior, the others have about 8 papers about to be published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association and were presented at the ARAV and AAZV joint meeting last month. He had been studding this in Chameleons, until it was identified in bearded dragons and is thought to be more often found in them so there are grant funding request for this now. This is an emerging serious problem.

For the past two years bearded dragon breeders have joined together, collecting data and histories, contacting researchers and sending lab samples and dragons to them, as we knew something was hitting some collections hard and fatal in most cases. What we found was that there are many types of fungus that appear the same, but some are yeast based and those are having good results now with treatment, and we hope avoiding it to begin with. The mold based one that was just identified this summer is often fatal and extremely disfiguring, highly contagious and can affect any species of reptiles as far as we know.

The only place I can send you online to read about this right now, is to the Yahoo Pogona_diseases list that started collecting the data from owners and our website were we have put what information we have until research is completed and published by professionals...... who have verified much of this information.

Yellow Fungus Disease: Possible cause & effect

Yellow Fungus - Symptoms & Possible Treatments

Yellow Fungus-future research

So the vet never came by your table for the inspection. Wow! Thanks for the info.

although I did not attend the Tony show in Tampa, I do frequent other shows in So. Fla. , and they may not be as large, but they are a very similar microcosm. Reptiles, cats, birds, and whatever they can get that will attract people. The problem is the wrong kind of people seem to be attending these shows, if that is what you are looking for in a "reptile show" . I fear that the situation will get worse before these shows disappear altogether.

The reasons are varied and probably have economic underlying reasons why vendors, at least the better ones, or breeders at least the better ones, seem to bow out of these shows. So I am not surprised to see Camel rides! Traveling to these shows have also produced alot of problems for the vendor, who for the most part has to use a car. Airlines are tightening the noose on animal movements, and the day of carrying your inventory in your knapsack is over with all the high tech security. So some vendors are reluctant, and I dont blame them.

Eventually, Tonys shows, may go by the same route as the So. Fla. Reptile show, and fade away from lack of sponsorship by the herp community. The internet will become if it has not done so already, the highway to Herpdom. JERRY TRESSER