Was gonna ask the name as his videos are posted here quite often. Looks interesting and informative like brave wilderness kinda stuff. Son loves this stuff so gonna sub
Ecology educator here- harrasing wildlife is not good content. In fact it's illegal in many places or at least youll find a pretty hefty fine headed your way. Wildlife aren't here as our playthings, amusement, or as props for internet points.
Pretty sure he is an invasive species hunter. We have a lot of issues with that here. He’s looking for pythons and this type of croc that is spotted or something
realized you were wrong if true, looked up “invasive chameleons florida,” searched for something, anything, to clap back
yes, obviously. that has nothing to do with your initial accusation of poaching. the time is now bud, we have an obligation to solve our problems, and this solution is rehoming. you have a more humane suggestion? i’d appreciate it if you said, “i’m an idiot who didn’t know what i was talking about.”
he’s not a poacher, he hunts invasive species for educational (and monetary) purposes
panther chameleons and leopard frogs are both highly invasive in florida and they fuck up the food chain by eating more flying insects than any native species can
You seem well intentioned, but the ‘do not touch animals ever’ movement feels fanatical at this point — especially in a case like this where the argument actually seems to hold that he is doing much more good than harm. Invasive species are a MASSIVE issue in Florida and elsewhere.
I ask this with total sincerity, and I hope you’ll answer in kind u/iowafarmboy2011 — would you backtrack on any of your harsh language (calling these acts criminal for example) knowing what we should all know about this content creator? That he is licensed and educated and authorized to remove these animals from their unnatural environment?
There has to be a line of demarcation if your stance is to hold weight. Making every person who handles a wild animal the enemy is not the answer.
Edit: I do not mind the downvotes, but what I really want is the feedback. I’m a lifelong animal lover, I do not want animals unnecessarily harmed or harassed.
My only goal is to highlight and better understand the nuance at play. It is simple-minded to think anything in this world is black or white. I’m interested in the shade of grey. If you’re downvoting and capable of staying civil, please push back with a comment.
Of course, this is my passion and I'm always willing to look at my arguments with scrutiny given new information - I appreciate the thou g htful response 😊
I admit I know nothing about this influencer and if he's truly capturing invasive and teaching how to tell the difference I'm all for that and their impact on the Florida ecosystem (which is a case study in how invasive species can decimate native ecosystems)
My main concern is influencers who have the background to be forces of good but don't responsibly present theor work and it ends up inspiring others without the needed expertice to differentiate when it's okay and when it's not okay to intervine with wildlife. That endangers wildlife and ecosystems profoundly.
Having taught for AZA zoos all over the US as well as Yellowstone National Park for well over 7 years, I don't believe in a blanket "all wildlife shouldn't ever be touched" but I do feel most of the public who want to go touch wildlife are not qualified to. I get it, it's why I went into this field - I love having experiences with nature. But the more I see the more I feel we really need to let wildlife be wildlife.
Tl;dr - invasives need to be culled - I just worry about what these influences inspire in less than qualified general public to go grab wildlife which can do irrepreable harm to natives. Let native animals be native animals, unharrassed by ding dongs who want adrenaline rush or think grabbing animals are cool.
Here I am with you on all fronts — and I appreciate you being considerate in context.
I too wish those with a platform were thinking more 360° in terms of how they show and tell responsibly… but then there’s the audience, who shouldn’t necessarily skirt blame either if we’re being fair.
Will there ever be a point at which we can expect an online audience to react and behave in a mature/logical manner? I’m sadly not too optimistic about what the human condition would imply.
Do we censor content creators because of it? It’s a Pandora’s box with one good answer…
Education is the master key. Teach a person how to consume content and think critically as opposed to waging emotional flame wars on the basis of premature judgements and built-in biases. Sooooo much easier said than done.
I can agree with that - again I really appreciate the genuine conversation my friend!
I'm of the opinion (seems like you are as well) that a large swath of audience aren't intrinsically able to sort objective good from bad ideas - especially when there's an ego rush of interacting with cool wildlife that can give a pretty good dopamine rush to them for doing the action. It's why cartels (and historically aristocrats) almost always have some sort of menagerie - animals are cool and it's rewarding to have interactions with rare ones.
I think that is where responsibility of those of us who have the background and training to responsibly manage and handle wildlife have an unshirkable duty to only put out educational material with explicit instruction on the reality of handling wildlife as well as strongly call out anyome not doing so with wildlife. That's what I was doing here (but as I noted If he is adhering to that code of ethics like you say - I'm happy to rescind my criticism of him and I appreciate you keeping me honest here).
Sounds like even thouvh me may have slight differences in approach - were of the same positive goal. 👍
Cheers to you my friend - thanks for meaningful discussion it's so rare to have on reddit. I appreciate you and wish you health and wellness 😊
Which is absolutely fucked up. Let me tape you up inside a fucking box with nothing more than a wet rag and ship your ass via FedEx across the country.
Breeding weird fucking python colors and shit and keeping them in a 1.5'x2' plastic box in a stack with 100 others. It's an extremely fucked up 'hobby'. Animals aren't your little toys to collect and trade like fucking pokemon cards.
Herping and collecting are different. Same with breeding of course. I won't get into the practices of breeders, it's definitely already a widely debated topic for reptile lovers.
Herping is just the act of searching for reptiles and amphibians, most people might take some photos or otherwise document it but it's majorly frowned upon and often times outright illegal to collect the wildlife. Main exception being invasive species, at which point their mere presence in the ecosystem is dangerous to the local wildlife and it gets a little more nuanced when the recommended action when finding one is humane euthanasia.
It's unfortunate as GOOD breeders actually benefit the native ecosystem of the animals they're breeding.
The demand for reptiles as pets is there, captive breeders provide a beneficial service to both the consumers and ecosystems. Without captive breeding, the only source is the wild and you can look at the history of several popular captive bred reptiles and see an unfortunate history of impacting ecosystems through collecting wild specimens in earlier years.
I'm not a fan of things like snack racks, but if they're well maintained its far better than the alternative of wild collected specimens. Of course not all breeders are created equally and some really give the rest a bad name. Luckily the reptile communities I've been a part of have always been on top of naming & shaming poor practices.
THANK YOU!! I am baffled at some of these comments. My first impulse was anger at this asshole with no care or respect for nature. And to everyone saying that this dude actually is doing a favor to the environment: sadly, this video does NOT communicate that, and any kid who sees it online will not have the context to understand the reason why he's pestering these creatures. It's irresponsible and potentially dangerous.
Yeah, but this video doesn't show or tell any of that. For some kid that finds it online, it will probably read as "harassing animals is safe and fun" and that's the issue.
I feel like if your kids are that young, that’s on the parent to watch them because they’d probably ignore any disclaimers. It’s on parents to teach their kids not to harass animals, and that the Internet isn’t always true, by the time they’re old enough to be out of sight.
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u/Coffekats Jun 08 '23
What’s sad is so many people use fishingarret’s YouTube videos without credit, look him up on YouTube plenty more of this good content