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Who do you consider to be the largest "pioneer" in the business?

What breeder do you feel has impacted the business the most?

  • Bob Clark

    Votes: 26 19.1%

  • Rich Ihle

    Votes: 2 1.5%

  • Peter Kahl

    Votes: 5 3.7%

  • NERD

    Votes: 20 14.7%

  • Mike Wilbanks

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The Baldagos

    Votes: 3 2.2%

  • Brian Sharp

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Ron Tremper

    Votes: 6 4.4%

  • Casey Lazik

    Votes: 1 0.7%

  • Morph King

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Sandfire Dragon Ranch

    Votes: 2 1.5%

  • The Sutherlands

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Mark & Kim Bell

    Votes: 7 5.1%

  • The Barkers

    Votes: 12 8.8%

  • other

    Votes: 52 38.2%
  • Total voters
    136
K

KCRD.com

Jason Hormann
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I was a part of a recent discussion that took place at a convention that I vended at and it grew into who we thought the largest contributor has been to the reptile trade since it's inception. The terms that were considered were, what did they introduce as far as morphs go, as far as availability goes, etc, etc. So I thought it would be nice to see what others thought as well.
 
Do I have to vote for just ONE??? Sheeeesh, so many different animals, and so many varied contributions...I'm not sure I could pick one.
 
I don't know anyone from outside the chondro world so just have to put in my .02 and give a vote for Trooper Walsh. Never a big time producer, but definitely a pioneer and accomplished a lot for my favorite species.

I am looking forward to seeing more results on this poll!
 
It is kind of unfortunate that the options you have put in your poll contain many people who have been in the business or hobby very short term and have done little more than work with one species. What about the originators in the 60's and earlier who did this when there was no money to be made and not many genetic projects to work with? You seem to have been going by who is spending money on advertising or putting the most self promotional articles in magazines.

People like Mark and Kim Bell have been in this industry a very long time and have worked with many many species and morphs at the ground floor. But then how do you explain putting Willbanks and the Sutherlands in that same list? No offense to those people, they are very nice people have great looking animals, BUT what have they done and how long have they been doing it? You leave off your list people like Applegate from the old days and people like Barczyk from current times who have done so much more. I think you need to re-think your choices for your poll and maybe do some research into "pioneers". Evan Stahl
 
hard question...

I think it is hard to narrow down to just one...
Bob did a ton for the hobby, but so has everyone else on the list, plus countless others.
If I had to pick one, I would most likely pick Kevin at NERD. He had a care sheet on ball pythons I found on his site in the 90's that introduced me to the correct way of caring for snakes. Up until then I was doing the old fashioned heat rocks and whatnot....

Ian
 
I'm with Evan on this one. To me it's not who has the most morphs, or the neatest morph, it's the people who actually figured out how to keep and breed the herps. I was one of those who kept snakes back in the day, and every once in a while eggs showed up, some hatched some didn't, but it was mostly pure luck. Though I loved (and still do) herps, much to my chagrin, I didn't really put the effort into it that the pioneers did, to actually get to the "science" of successfully breeding snakes. Applegate already mentioned. Then of course there is Bechtel and his genetics work with corn snakes. Speaking of corn snakes your list seems heavy with people who work with balls, what about the Love's, and Rich Z. They've been around for a while and have made a living off of Corns, and morphs.....I can't even keep up with the corn morphs. Then there's the people who supplied "us" with snakes in the early days, especially "exotic" stuff, like Loius Porres.
 
reptilebreeder said:
I'm with Evan on this one. To me it's not who has the most morphs, or the neatest morph, it's the people who actually figured out how to keep and breed the herps. I was one of those who kept snakes back in the day, and every once in a while eggs showed up, some hatched some didn't, but it was mostly pure luck. Though I loved (and still do) herps, much to my chagrin, I didn't really put the effort into it that the pioneers did, to actually get to the "science" of successfully breeding snakes. Applegate already mentioned. Then of course there is Bechtel and his genetics work with corn snakes. Speaking of corn snakes your list seems heavy with people who work with balls, what about the Love's, and Rich Z. They've been around for a while and have made a living off of Corns, and morphs.....I can't even keep up with the corn morphs. Then there's the people who supplied "us" with snakes in the early days, especially "exotic" stuff, like Loius Porres.
Click to expand...

Ditto.
 
what list

the list needs to be redone with a little more thought into the names on it.looks like a list of newbys that have done nothing more than reproduce others animals.i know this post will piss off a few people,to bad.
 
Bill and Kathy Love
Stan Chiras
Hank Molt
Bob Applegate
Steve Osbourne
Bob Clark
Ron Tremper
Randy Grey
Gary Sipperley
Ernie Wagner

that's a start.
 
It is kind of unfortunate that the options you have put in your poll contain many people who have been in the business or hobby very short term and have done little more than work with one species. What about the originators in the 60's and earlier who did this when there was no money to be made and not many genetic projects to work with? You seem to have been going by who is spending money on advertising or putting the most self promotional articles in magazines.

People like Mark and Kim Bell have been in this industry a very long time and have worked with many many species and morphs at the ground floor. But then how do you explain putting Willbanks and the Sutherlands in that same list? No offense to those people, they are very nice people have great looking animals, BUT what have they done and how long have they been doing it? You leave off your list people like Applegate from the old days and people like Barczyk from current times who have done so much more. I think you need to re-think your choices for your poll and maybe do some research into "pioneers". Evan Stahl
Click to expand...
I also agree with Evan.
IMO It's an impossible list. Is it Raymond Ditmars, Carl Kauffeld or Clifford Pope; who wrote books that everyone from the 70's can relate to and got most of them dreaming about reptiles. Was it Bill Love, Rich, Tom Crutchfield, Bill Gillingham, Steve Osborne, Bob Applegate and many others; that started in the 80's and early 90's(and they continue on today). There's a lot of names in this business and they were all contributers.
Are the pioneers of America the ones that traveled to California or those that crossed the Atlantic. Which was more important?
 
How about the guy that started the first national expo and still to this day the largest expo in the country if not the world...that breeders of all species look forward to each and every year...Wayne Hill
 
If we are considering the genetics perspective of what we are breeding, my vote would have to go to Dr. H. Bernard Bechtel. No contest.
 
NiCoLe L RuSSeLL said:
Bert Langerwerf aka Agama International
Click to expand...

I agree with this quite a bit, but as far as who has helped out this hobby more than almost anyone I know, sit back and think about how much the BOI has helped out or hobby, probably got rid of alot of scammers, and built a good reputation for thoes of which deserved it.
 
cornsnakekid92 said:
I like how no one put Rich Z, he has done a lot for corns....
Click to expand...

Here here! :)

Not only has Rich (Webslave) produced & founded MANY of the cornsnake morphs we currently have...But he founded THIS VERY FORUM that has been a priceless tool to the reptile community as a whole.
 
Let me clarify......

I don't want people to think that the names that were left off the list were or are insiginficant, instead ones that were never mentioned in the conversation that we had. I only thought to put the ones we brought up, the reason that I left an others option is becasue I knew there would be some that I either missed or didn't even know about.

Hope I didn't step on anyone's toes.
 
TripleMoonsExotic said:
Here here! :)

Not only has Rich (Webslave) produced & founded MANY of the cornsnake morphs we currently have...But he founded THIS VERY FORUM that has been a priceless tool to the reptile community as a whole.
Click to expand...

Yeah Rich is the dude I was referring too, I am not much of a corn snake person, but congrats on the corns Rich.
 
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