GET OUTDOORS EVENT

[Brandonmarsh29]

As some of you may know northern Colorado recently started our own chapter of the Colorado herp society. It started in march and we have been doing very well so far. We are working on creating more of a structure for our educational events but still our events we've done have been awesome...
On Saturday 6/14/14 we got involved with an event called Get Outdoors day at city park in Ft Collins Colorado where we set up a booth and allowed people to come by to see the animals we had. We had some animals up for adoption as well. This event was a huge success for us with alot of positive exposure for us. The kids especially were awesome coming up to the booth they had so much enthusiasm and asked alotta questions and alot of em petted even held the animals. One of my best memories of that day was this young girl probably 1st or 2nd grade she had talked about being afraid of snakes she started off petting the animals eventually she was holding my 55" red bull snake. Then later on she was encouraging the other kids to come pet the animals she was trying to help other youngsters that may hav had their own fears and I just thought that was so awesome! Maybe one day shell be attending our meetings with her own little ball python or kingsnake maybe a bearded dragon haha��.
It's been an amazing experience already just a few months into this chapter and I'm really looking forward to seeing where we go with this group. I can really see us having a positive impact on the community. Once we get a bit more structured with our presentations I feel every one of us in this group plus the future members we hope to gain can all bring something extremely valuable to the table with the wide range of interests we all have and the variety of animals we all own and love. We have a great group of ppl ranging from young first time owners to experienced keepers and breeders so I know this last weekend is just the beginning of some great friendships and fun times as well as raising awareness of these great animals of both their important roles in nature as well as what amazing and rewarding pets they can make.

 

[RidesNherps]

Sounds like a great event and a great chance to educate people!!! I'm involved with an event every March that's held in Conroe, Texas, called the East Texas Woods and Wildlife Festival (or something like that...seems they change the name every few years). It has lots of outdoor-oriented booths, and lots of activities for kids. I work for the US Forest Service (I'm a wildlife biologist) and we have a booth there to provide info about the National Forest. I bring a number of my native Texas snakes for display, including several local venomous, and also bring my big gentle gopher snake for people to handle.

The snakes are a magnate for people, and the kids LOVE the gopher snake! Even kids who start out terrified of him usually come around...I can almost always sweet talk them into reaching out with a finger to touch his tail. Once they've done that, they are emboldened and will start stroking him more. It's so cool to see a 4 or 5 year old child go from being afraid of him to holding him entirely. And then later bringing their friends by our booth to meet him. He's probably the most photographed snake in the state of Texas, since all the parents are wildlife snapping pics of their kids with him. LOL Events like these can go a long way toward educating people about snakes. I'm always thrilled when I hear about others doing what you're doing. Keep up the good work!

We also converted a family to snake owners this past December. Our farrier (horse shoer) was out doing our 12 horses in mid-Dec and he and I were talking about my snakes. He mentioned that his wife had been bugging him for the past 6 months about wanting a pet snake, and he was thinking about getting her one for Christmas...he asked what was a good kind to get and where to get it. I told him the usual corn or king snake. But then I said if he was serious, that we had a 4 ft. striped California kingsnake that a friend had given us a couple of years ago that we'd been looking for a home for, and that he was welcome to have her. I gave him a list of what he'd need for a set-up, husbandry tips, dos and don'ts, and we agreed to meet a couple days before Christmas to hand off the snake. He bought the tank and supplies, we gave him the snake a few days before Christmas, and his wife and two sons (ages 2 and 4) were thrilled to death with "Lucy" as they named her. We also gave him a bag of frozen mice and told him to let us know when he runs out and we'll give him more. We see him every 6 weeks when he comes to trim and shoe the horses so get regular updates. The only problems they've had is reminding the two boys that they need to not handle Lucy for a few days after she's eaten. They play with her constantly and are the hit with their friends. I'd say we've successfully converted a family (and their friends) to snake ownership!

 

[Brandonmarsh29]

Thanks Dawn! Those types of events are such a great thing. Perfect timing too it was this chapters first major event to be involved in and we all feel like it was a success! We've also started visiting a senior living facility actually its a independent living place but they hav a cafeteria and a day room too. I'm pretty sure we'll be doing regular visits there. We started last month and we are going again this month��
Congrats on the biologist job too I'd have loved to been in that field if I wouldn't have made alot of the choices I made when I was younger I'd have been able to have a gig like that but I'm making the best of what I have now.
I really feel that this herp society is going to be a very positive part of the exotics community here as well as awareness and education about their role in nature. Its always been a goal of mine to share the positive impact these animals have and not just exotics either I have a great love for all animals another example of sharing with other ppl the truth about misunderstood animals that I'm trying to get more involved in is with dogs. I hav a pit bull and have always felt strongly about them and what amazing, loving dogs they really are so it started in my neighborhood I got alotta my neighbors thinking a little better about them after meeting my best friend! So I love these clubs and events that kinda serve as a channel for helping ppl understand the reality of the majority of these beautiful animals instead of taking the media's ignorant word and instead see for themselves. It would be nice to see more people with a better understanding of them instead of following some idiots newspaper article or tv report trying to turn one incident into a generalization for every animal of that species. Like the dog issue every attack is a pit bull and when you see the pics alot of them aren't a bit related to one its just what catches society's ignorant eye so that's what they say it is...
I even got that little girls dads contact info because he was talking about how if she stays interested after being afraid so long he might get her a pet. So we exchanged numbers and I have some corn snake eggs incubating I offered to give them one for free once they are eating.

 

[RidesNherps]

That's awesome Brandon...LOVE your idea of visiting the senior center!!!

I remember years ago I had a big 6 1/2 foot bull snake I caught as an estimated 1 yr old in west Texas...I took him to speak to a group of Cub Scouts. When I got to the point of pulling "Pecos" out for them to see, I was rushed by about 20 little boys. Good thing Pecos was so good natured and used to being mauled by kids...he took all those little hands in stride. <G> Pecos finally died of old age (I'm assuming old age) at 26. Kids and herps just go naturally together, if they haven't been "spoiled" by adults. And if they have, we can usually "save" them if we get to them early enough and undo the misinformation! If we all take it upon ourselves to never skip an opportunity to share our love of herps with people when we can, we'll slowly make a difference!

 

[snowgyre]

When you guys go out herping, please take identifiable "voucher" photos of all the herps you see and report them to Herpmapper.org! Bird folks already have their own citizen science program called Ebird.org where they can submit bird sightings and have scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology analyze all the data that are collected. We've been learning some really awesome stuff from the bird side of things, but herps are still pretty poorly studied. I've been submitting records for two counties in Minnesota that nobody has ever formally tried to herp in before. It's fun!

In addition, all locality information is kept secret by the website. The finest resolution the public can see is county information. Administrators have access to the GPS coordinates of the sighting (which is calculated for you using a built-in Google Maps program), and the data are only released to validated researchers.

To create a new record, you first have to create an account, then upload photos to your account. Once the photos are uploaded, then create the new record, select the "Choose Vouchers" button, and click which photos are for which report.

 

[Brandonmarsh29]

When you guys go out herping, please take identifiable "voucher" photos of all the herps you see and report them to Herpmapper.org! Bird folks already have their own citizen science program called Ebird.org where they can submit bird sightings and have scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology analyze all the data that are collected. We've been learning some really awesome stuff from the bird side of things, but herps are still pretty poorly studied. I've been submitting records for two counties in Minnesota that nobody has ever formally tried to herp in before. It's fun!

In addition, all locality information is kept secret by the website. The finest resolution the public can see is county information. Administrators have access to the GPS coordinates of the sighting (which is calculated for you using a built-in Google Maps program), and the data are only released to validated researchers.

To create a new record, you first have to create an account, then upload photos to your account. Once the photos are uploaded, then create the new record, select the "Choose Vouchers" button, and click which photos are for which report.

I love that idea I never heard of that so I'll be lookin into that! Thanks Vanessa! I have a subscription to Colorado Outdoors magazine cuz im into anything outdoors hunting (food not trophy) and fishing and they have a similar program they are doing by taking volunteers to go out to the plains in eastern Colorado to do a survey and take pics so I took the article to my herp society meeting and we have been attempting to get ahold of them and make an event out of it. We will commit to 3 trips this summer so I'm really excited and hoping the get back to us&#55357;&#56842;

 

[RidesNherps]

Hey that sounds pretty cool Vanessa...will look into it!

 

[Brandonmarsh29]

We had our 2nd monthly visit to the senior community and it was alotta fun! The seniors and the kids have been the best ppl to put these presentations on for! Both ends of life and they just love the animals and I strongly believe that we are helping our community by extinguishing their fears and giving them a hands on experience to gain understanding. I encourage communities across the country if there's not something like this start one up! The father daughter team that started our northern Colorado chapter just put out some ads and flyers and in just a couple months have landed us some amazing events and we are well on our way to setting up rescues and becoming a major part of the herp world here! These ppl just had some persistence and a love for the animals! Again I'd encourage people to get involved and lets make the world better for the animals that could use our voices so they can claim back their homes and in return they will give back to us with their all natural expertise in pest control!