I used to see hundreds of kids come through the pet store I managed back in NJ. These kids were bright, loved reptiles, and could spout boat loads of information off the tops of their heads about whatever madagascar species they were keeping in a box. They would go home, look at snake porn online, buy books on foreign species, and then grow up and go to school thinking that all the cool stuff lives somewhere else! That real conservation has to happen half a world away!
I try to be involved in conservation and zoos on a volunteer basis and I see this all the freaking time. Hell, I was guilty of it as a kid too. There's an amazing array of wildlife in most of North American. We've got loads of critters that are jaw droppingly awesome. But the focus is on stuff half a world away--cape buffalo and spitting cobras rather than elk and garter snakes. Most zoos devote a large percentage of their space to exotics it seems like, giving short shrift to native species. Wildlife documentaries don't (usually) focus on animals that most of their viewers might ever actually see in person without traveling thousands of miles.
We've got nature right here that we need to protect. Kids that come to the zoo I volunteer at can usually tell me more about the Amazon rainforest or the Kalahari than about Palo Duro Canyon State park and llano estacado. It's freaking heartbreaking. There's so much to see in most of North America and people just don't see it seems like.
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

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