Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Jeff Barringer reported in from Daytona Beach that Hurricane Charley has not shut down the Daytona Expo! Charley blew through last night, and the show started on schedule this morning, Saturday, August 14. There is electrical power on site and in the hotels.

All of us at Kingsnake.com hope that our users and their animals in the Florida region are safe.
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Christie Keith
Director of Community Services
PetHobbyist.com

Didnt they evacuate from that area? I am fine in my area of Miami but thought Daytona area was evacuated maybe it was nearby area.
Lia

I just posted on the open discussion forum,trying to find some news about Jim Keenan (Home Grown Herps) How many other Herp People are living in that area of Fl. On the news it looks like Punta Gorda just about got wiped off the map.We all love our snakes and such but I want all you breeders and collectors to know we care about you as well.You are in my Prayers

>>Jeff Barringer reported in from Daytona Beach that Hurricane Charley has not shut down the Daytona Expo! Charley blew through last night, and the show started on schedule this morning, Saturday, August 14. There is electrical power on site and in the hotels.
>>
>>All of us at Kingsnake.com hope that our users and their animals in the Florida region are safe.
>>-----
>>Christie Keith
>>Director of Community Services
>>PetHobbyist.com

The show went on and the turnout was surprisingly good considering the conditions. Gila7150 and I rode out the Hurricane in the lobby of the Adam's Mark Hotel across the street from the event venue. It was entertaining to say the least. There were only a very few vendors that didn't show on Saturday and many of them arrived on Sunday. I was there Friday night and all day both days of the show. I was quite pleased with the way it turned out considering the circumstances.

Wayne Hill and Hank Molt and crew did an outstanding job of keeping things on schedule and avoiding chaos under some pretty trying circumstances. It seemed that the Venomous Show suffered more than the main show as far as attendance. It looked like several Venomous vendors didn't show, but that's understandable. I don't think I'd really want to be transporting a bunch of venomous animals in a hurricane either.

I've heard no news or even rumors regarding storm-related injuries to any vendors or attendees.
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We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Ralph Waldo Emerson

...parking lot on Saturday morning? By my count there were 35 cars, 29 of them with broken windows. I was very glad I had a rental!

I have a couple. Thank goodness my Jeep only ended up with a cracked windshield, not a blown out one. It still needs replacing, but at least I don't have the added cost of water damage inside.

I'll see if I can post the pics of the cars tomorrow.

>>...parking lot on Saturday morning? By my count there were 35 cars, 29 of them with broken windows. I was very glad I had a rental!
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Fat, Flat Lizard Ranch

does anyone have any news on the guy bit by t he atrox at the venemose show?

>>does anyone have any news on the guy bit by t he atrox at the venemose show?

According to Wayne Hill, it didn't amount to anything. It was a vendor who got a scratch from one fang and apparently no (or very little) envenomation. That would be evidenced by the fact that the State didn't shut the venomous show down.
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We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Ralph Waldo Emerson

thanks again for the info. i didnt make it to the venemous show...but the main show was awesome. i cant wait till the M.A.R.S. show in timonium. hope everyone had a blast in daytona.

NEWS-JOURNAL (Daytona Beach, Florida) 16 August 04 Storm doesn't deter reptile lovers from expo (Virginia Smith)
Daytona Beach: On the floor of the Ocean Center Sunday, Allen and Anita Salzberg signed copies of their newest book, "When You Dream in Green."
It's a collection of little anecdotes about "herpers," or reptile lovers -- and when you know you might be one.
When your arms are full of claw marks, for example. When your dreams are the color of iguanas. Or when you're in Daytona Beach, hanging out at the National Reptile Breeders' Expo, as Hurricane Charley hurtles toward your home and family across the state -- and you stay put.
Or when you get bitten on the thumb by a baby rattlesnake and wonder, enroute to the hospital, how the snake is holding up.
Few herpers would blink at such behavior. "I guess we're kind of like Civil War re-enactors or something. It's a self-contained reality," said Allen late Friday, as the storm beat so hard against windows of the Adam's Mark hotel, where most of the herpers were staying, that staff had to herd them deep into its hallways and ballrooms. Some attended biology lectures, others slammed beers and chandeliers flickered in a disturbingly Titanic-like setting.
But the mood was generally upbeat. Certainly nobody seemed to think that the breeders' expo -- an annual, weekend-long Woodstock for reptile and amphibian enthusiasts, equal parts carnival and zoo and flea market -- should be canceled for a mere hurricane.
Indeed many herpers, especially the non-Florida ones, seemed to regard the storm as a bonus to the event. One drunken British herper ran the beach, rescuing starlings that had plunged into puddles; others tempted fate and pressed their noses against the Adam's Mark's windows, watching palms bend like Gumby in the dark.
Saturday morning, hundreds of herpers trickled out of their hotels, getting their first look at a post-Charley world as they crossed State Road A1A to the Ocean Center. There, while the rest of the city figured out what to do with stray tree limbs and no electricity, two reptile shows were up and running, lights on and everything. Though business was predictably slow.
Downstairs was the enormous non-venomous reptile expo, where a kaleidoscope of creatures -- velvety geckos and pencil-thin snakes -- wriggled in deli cups. Corn snakes sold for $25; albino ball pythons, bred for their bright buttery color, sold for thousands. Children ogled baby turtles. Upstairs, through a separate entrance was the much smaller venomous expo, where a popular T-shirt showed a cobra eating a bright, buttery albino ball python; a snakebite paramedic roamed the halls; and no one under 18 was let in.
Torsten Schweer, a vendor from Tecklenburg, Germany, sat alone behind his glass case of poisonous snakes. Before him were a pair of green mambas from Africa; the female had nearly killed him three months ago.
Schweer held up a knuckle that was still somewhat swollen from the bite. Within hours of being bitten, Schweer was airlifted to a hospital in Hamburg. He got saltwater injections and his throat swelled "like a lump," he said, forcing him onto a respirator. The whole experience cost him 3,500 Euros -- that's $4,300 in American cash. "But the baddest part," said Schweer, "was seeing my family -- my mother, my wife, my two boys, all crying." His mother drove from the Netherlands, he said, weeping the whole way.
When he recovered, he said, his wife did not pressure him to sell his mambas. "She knows if I lose the snakes she loses me." But soon he began selling them voluntarily --- he was down from 19 pairs, he said, to the two before him now. They were $200 each, restrained in plastic boxes.
"The male is not so aggressive," he said. "She is very aggressive."
As he spoke, the heavily tattooed Schweer, who is 6 feet 6 inches tall, took the female from the case and regarded her through the plastic. "I think these are the most intelligent snakes," he said softly. "The best killers."
Across the hall from Schweer, Tanith Tyrr, a Brevard County snake rehabilitator, promoted her "adopt-a-mamba" program, which farms out mambas that have been injured or abused, sometimes by people who remove their fangs. She nurtures many herself, often with the help of an expert veterinarian.
Tyrr had one fully rehabbed green mamba in a cage, ready to go to a loving home -- by Saturday evening, someone had adopted it. But Schweer still had his.
Hours later in the Adam's Mark, the herpers staged their annual conservation charity auction. A snake-shaped walking stick went for $650; a lizard-themed quilt for $2,200, an unspeakable gag item not worth the box it came in, $1,000.
Pretty soon $12,000 was raised, all for two crocodile conservation programs. Collette Adams, the curator of reptiles at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Texas, runs one of them.
"When that quilt was sold I was crying," she said. "It was an overwhelming feeling that these people would be so generous. Most of these vendors have been losing money all day from the hurricane, and they spent so much."
Adams' program, which began in the 1980s, aims to restore a particularly aggressive species of crocodile to rivers in the Philippines -- an animal so reviled that they're usually killed on sight, causing their numbers to drop severely. But lately, she said, the fishermen are coming around to a more herper-like world view, leaving the testy crocs to their ways.
Outside the Ocean Center Sunday morning, a California vendor squeezed and stared at his hand.
In a special secured room upstairs, reserved for vendors to pack and unpack poisonous snakes, a baby western diamondback had nipped Jeremy Bednarsh. Two streaks of blood ran from his thumb.
Longtime herpers circled around, getting a look. Most of them had been bitten at some point, and few thought this one looked serious. They doubted any venom had gone in. "Hey, at least it's not a Taipan bite," said one, referring to a hyper-deadly Australian snake. "You gotta look on the bright side."
"It's nothing," said Bednarsh. "It's more the embarrassment --I've been doing this for 12 years and never been bitten! That's what kills me." Sweat beads dotted his forehead. He was getting thirsty.
The snakebite paramedic, hired for just such a contingency, was alerted.
On his way to Halifax Medical Center, where the snakebite paramedic was waiting with his supplies, Bednarsh vacillated between blowing off the bite -- "I just hope I can get to the gym later" -- and mortal terror, calling friends to make sure his dogs did not go to the pound if, indeed, he died. He worried about the snake that bit him -- if he'd slammed too hard on the lid of its container afterward. But within hours, both snake and herper were deemed fine.
Storm doesn't deter reptile lovers from expo

Well, Charley may not have stopped the show, but it managed to prevent my girlfriend and I from attending. We did everything in our power to get there from Wisconsin, including departing 7 hours earlier than planned on Fri., from a different airport, and trying to fly into a then open Jacksonville airport, since D.B. was shut down. We made it as far as Cincinnati, OH where we spent 6 hours after our connecting flight to FL was cancelled and ended up having to fly back to a differnt airport an hour from where we departed and then catch a ride back. In all, we spent 12 hours traveling to get right back to where we had started. It was a very frustrating and disappointing day!

Any way, I would still like to attend an event this year, but I do not know of another which compares to the Daytona show in terms of vendors, selection, and possibly venomous animals. I would appreciate it if someone could give me some advice on which they would recommend.

Thanks

A 12 hour trip home! Fun.

Well I havent been to many big shows but I hear the Hamburg PA show is big, and its venomous ok. You dont need a permit to buy either, I dont think, like you do in Daytona. There is a good sized show in south carolina as well that has venomous. Again, Ive never been to these, or to Daytona, so I can only say so much. I dont know if these shows have passed yet this year either, search the events section and see what comes up and ask people if its worth the travel.