Reptile & Amphibian Forums

That place was better than Disney World for me. I would love to see pics of the place or inside. all I have is from my memory and even that is shady.

So I was wondering if I could ask a special request (for me) from FR if he has any pics of the old Hermosa reptile if he could share them.

I wonder how many people actually knew the place or what went on there. How it its daily operations went?.. what advice would they give and what reptiles did they sell?. What species they had that were imported from places like Thailand and other places we don't see today and what species we don't see or have in collections today that may have been plentiful back then?
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FR quote:
"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"

I think its really cool that you guys actually know about that place. It was from before my time, but 20 years ago, my uncle Wayne, who is about 62 now, told me he used to buy his reptiles there. Back then they sold California natives of all types. Even reptiles that are protected today like the Coast horned lizard. This must have been in the early 60's. My mom said he had a spider monkey back then, not sure if that's where he got it, but they used to sell stuff like that back then. Pretty crazy.
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Later on came a place in Monrovia called western zoological supply. I was older then and was able to get over there more often.

I think that California was light years ahead of Florida back then.
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FR quote:
"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"

I've never been there, but when I worked at a pet store in 1990 we went to some place off the 91 called California zoological. Tons of herps there in large quantities. I think they supplied pet stores. I also used to go to a place in Lakewood Called Loyds pets back in the late 80's. I went back there several years ago and the father and daughter that ran that place had both died. Its not there any more. Its sad to see those places go that used to be so exciting to visit.
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Jim Brockett and Barney Tomberlin, Jim was the reptile guy for the stars(in Hollywood) Barney lives in Portal Az. I owned property next to his. He does insects these days and is hmmmmm getting old.
They traded a Mangrove snake for an old albino king, which my friend Ted bought and later gave to me.
Ray Fulsom started and owned Hermosa reptile, he was a pilot by trade. He flew cargo planes, all around the world. And He brought back, reptiles and animals from all over the world. The store was called, Hermosa Beach Reptile and wild animal exchange. Chuck Mclung was the manager when I worked there. He later became a sculptor and made odd animal sculptures. I own some of his work. At the time, Ray had a very large collection of Crots and kept them really poorly, hahahahahahaha true.
Hmmmmmmmm not to let you eastern folks off the hook, I also worked with Ross Allen and at Ross Allens.

He also did not know which end of a snake to feed. hahahahahahaha

In those days, I could and did grab crots in mid strike. Doing that with both Helleri and atrox. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm silly rabbit. Now I can without question, snag a rosy in mid crawl.
I am going herping tomorrow, maybe I will talk about Hermosa when I get back. Later

Ross was in the process of opening a place in North Fl.
(Lake City) where I now live, but died before that happened. I was really looking forward to that.

-Dennis

Went he left ABC, who bought Silver springs, he had a place in Indian prairie. He had opened and closed herp endevors in several states including Az.

remember when
don't slam the door --- I will always remember the big bulging plastic front on that tank at hermosa -- just waiting to let go and flood the place.
fond momories of some of the BS sessions that took place there. one in particular when Jim Fowler from "Wild Kingdom" came by and we discused the program.
theOLDherper
Pete

Not Hermosa but my local pet stores in San Diego, during the late 70's to early 80's had this stuff:

Burmese Pythons................80-100
Reticulated Pythons............80-100
African Rock Pythons...........80-100
Ball Pythons...................50-70
Amethystine Pythons*............???
Columbian Boas.................60-100
Green Anacondas................80-100
Cornsnakes(normal, red albino, black albino and snow)...40-100
Yellow Rats.......................60-70
Grey Rats.........................60-70
Eastern Milks*....................80-90
Various Ribbon and Garter snakes..........10-20
Indo-Chinese Ratsnake(brown/bronze racer like snake)*....40-60
Chinese Gartersnake*......................15-20

Iguanas..............................30-60
Anoles(aka American Chameleon).........2-4
Jackson's Chameleons*.................60-100
Senegal Chameleons*...................30-40

Red-Eared Sliders.....................15
Painted Turtles.......................15-20
Map Turtles...........................15-20
Reeve's Turtles.......................15-20
Eastern Box Turtles...................20?
Three-Toed Box Turtles................20?
Ornate Box Turtles....................20?
Herman's Tortoises....................60-80

Fire Belly Toads......................5
African Clawed Frogs..................2
Eastern Newts.........................5-10

Those were the staples as I recall. Prices are retail, I could be off on a few but those are just what I seem to remember. Most of this stuff was wild-caught except for the corns and maybe some of the Burmese Pythons. The ones with an * were only occasionally available.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

That was some expensive prices for back then. wow!
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FR quote:
"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"

Rainer, describe how you remember Hermosa, then I will, its funny but it takes a while. I tend to forget about the mammal cages, which were the WORK in working there. Like cleaning a cage with 20 coyotes or badgers, or fox. The fox were worse then the coyotes, they would climb up the walls and across the ceiling and fall on you. Badgers were nasty cute fellas. There was a girl that worked there that was one with the badgers.
As you know, I move to keeping and breeding varanids. When I worked at Hermosa, at one time, they had three or four albino niles. They were like two dollars more then normals. hahahahahahahahahahahaha. Different time yes?

Frank
how about putting a date on these memories so we can do some comparing.
Pete

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I can't remember. I do remember my highschool girlfriend giving me a baby burm for my birthday, so we went and picked it out. I must have known about Hermosa before that. That was 1965 or 66. I worked there during a couple of summers, in the years following that. The exact years I cannot remember.
I do remember, some very out of hand, really crazy things that the beach babes wore. Like a clear plastic swimsuit. Or one make of brass wire and very little wire. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA snakes, did someone say snakes. One of my jobs was to stop those girls from banging the glass, Ray had a thing about that. Sometimes that was interestingly hard to do. What years did you go there?

You guys are lucky. Man, I wasn't even born back then... 65, 66. Coolest thing I remember was a pet store near Inglewood in the 70's w/ a squirrel monkey that bit. I chased bluebellies alot as a kid, saw a rattler or two from a distance (spent weekends down in San Bernardino), but never got to keep herps as pets cuz parents were afraid of them.

reako45

Want a change in a few years. In the sixties, you could order up and elephant from Charles Chase, if you had the money. When I worked at Hermosa, I brought home a Tyra(sp) which was a 3, 4 foot long weasel from south America. It was more a bag of fun.

Actually, my parents did not like, one hated snakes. In SoCal you could keep snakes in the garage, So I was allowed that. Then one day my dad tossed the cages out in the yard and told me to get rid of them, third grade I believe. It got dark and I stayed out there with the snakes. Later that night he asked if I was coming in, I said, only if I get to keep the snakes, hahahahahahahahahahahaha. I guess he figured out, I was serious. I was.

Frank
Fathers - the more they tried to discourage us, the more determaned we became. 1949 - my dad took me and a buddy for a hike and we had no sooner got out of the car and he came face to face with a rattler --- BACK in THE CAR and home. I didn't even get to see it.
We got on our bikes and went back, I wasn't about to miss out on my first rattlesnake. It was still there when we returned and using a stick and a piece of twine (lots of practice as we used wild oat nooses to catch blue-belly lizards) we noosed it and got in a box. I had that snake for a year with out my dad knowing.
Pete

Holy moly, your older them I. hahahahahahahaha I too did a lot of herping on a bike. And going to the beach. My two loves.
Ok herps in the ocean is a twofer.

What part of SoCal were you from and where are you now. Two days ago, I was out herping. There is this area were there is AC rare for the desert. I noticed two guys flipping the junk. I just stood there. Then one looked up, I said, are you going to leave at least one for me? They were SoCal guys, they grew up in our time. Dick Dunn, the aquarium guy was one. He built custom tanks for nearly all the herpers back then, except me. I built my own cages ever since I was a kid. OC in the 50's was a place of constant home construction, the advent of housing tracts. Well, they were very wasteful and threw away tons of plywood. I would use that and nails I found on the ground to build cages, and old windows for the doors. I didn't have a saw. Old TV's were another snake cage. At that time I lived between Grace Willy and Wes Dickenson.

Frank
It seems as though we had some history that was similar and I wonder from the replies you have been getting that some of the youngsters have been posting if this would be the right place to share a bit of stuff from the old days.
Pete

I was more awstruck by the lifestyle and intrigue of these guys who got to collect these new gems which we never seen before and travel the world .. even to the deserts and Baja Mexico... because most of us never ventured further than the local hillsides where we lived.

The old days were completely different from today. It was about field collecting and finding herps and not breeding (well a few did and were light years ahead *cough* -FR-).

I remember that these guys that drove off into the sunset or traveled the world were like a mix of Clint Eastwood Jim Fowler from Wild kingdom fame.

When I was 13 I walked into my Jr. Highschool library and found my first copies of Karl Kaufelds books ("Snakes the keeper and the Kept" , and "Snakes and snake hunting"I think I checked them out continuously for the next 3 years.

I knew then that is what I wanted to do with my life.. that is what I wanted to do for a living..

of course things changed. So we cannot make a living at this today or even in the past 30 years. But back then this is what we knew and it was great.
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FR quote:
"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"

I went there as a kid. Saw my first live California Mtn kingsnake there. It was in a 10 gal kept on one of the store manager's desk, not for sale (I begged him, he said no).

I purchased a Calif mtn kingsnake from a pet shop in Santa Monica for $12.99. I had the receipt until I misplaced it about 15 years ago. On the receipt they called it a "Coral Kingsnake"..WOW! even the name was cool!

It was a pulcra baby (probablt caught locally in the SM mountains) that was stuffed with pinkies and gorgeous. One of my foundest memories. God I loved that snake!
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FR quote:
"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"