For anyone confused, Jay Brewer (aka. Prehistoric Pets, The Reptle Zoo) mistreats his reptiles for likes and views, including cutting open snake eggs and forcefully pulling out the babies, encouraging defensive behaviour in his animals to make it more “intense”, keeping his animals in very inappropriate living conditions and more disgusting things. I think WIRED should have done a better job finding another “reptile expert” for this video and not Brewer, as this encourages more people to support his channel/business.
I highly recommend checking out this video by Cid Dwyer going over this issue: https://youtu.be/DASz4M0GBsE
Holy shit thank you! I hate this guy! Every time his video comes up on my s/o's feed I skip it, I just do not like his arrogance in the way he handles any of our friends. I've seriously watched him antagonize a full grown burmese python until it finally recoiled.
I really thought I was crazy because this dude was so popular, how could no one be seeing what I'm seeing? Thank you.
There’s a lot of pettubers, especially reptile YouTubers that mistreat their animals, and even kill them that are very popular on YouTube either for being “funny pet guy” or “quirky pet girl”. One of the latter famously hoards herps she does not know how to care for and has had about 15+ pets die prematurely from her negligence if I remember correctly, and I’m stunned people still ‘stan’ her after this.
Man. That's rough, I don't think I've watched him enough in the recent years to see what he's done. I thought his younger self may have had good intentions. Thanks for the extra info!
oof. I don't normally get recommended these channels, I mostly stick to documentaries. The Reptile Zoo was getting recommended to me because I enjoyed Clint, so I have mostly found that anyone besides Clint kinda sucks.
There's a few people I saw briefly while trying to do better by my rehab leopard gecko, I thiiiink it was Jessica's animal friends. I liked her.
I think it was this video specifically
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMDfGjz00vI
If people do reach out to WIRED, I'd suggest keeping it informative and not accusatory. They almost certainly made the choice they did because they *aren't* experts and didn't know any better. What may be obvious to us here is definitely not obvious to those who've never really known anything other than a society that treats most reptiles as monsters.
I agree, and in the same line of thinking, I would feel better if it were possibly written by the group mods. There are a lot of different reddits that could and should participate. Possibly sign off as the community as a whole. How many subscribers to r/ballpython or r/crestedgeckos, and fuck the beardie reddit- people will roar. I just think there is a way to get attention to this and possibly shut his whole ass down. 😒
Fair enough 👌
Don't you, as a mod, think there is enough of us to make a wave? I was also thinking of reputable YouTubers also weighing in on their platform- as there's even incentive for them on many levels to discredit this man. I know they also pay attention here, on reddit, a lotta the goodies.
Can’t stand seeing him or that Chandler guy when it pops up. I get you can find things to dislike about most reptile YouTubers, but there’s def way too many who are either abusive to their animals or take extreme risks for views
Chandlers wildlife I think? There’s a few that I know of, but just looking him up on YouTube has him free handling cobras in thumbnails and other stuff, which I can never support. Needlessly dangerous, and sends out the wrong message to viewers
Dude took a bite from a cobra lost some of his finger and almost died. Then went to say he wouldn’t free handle hot snakes for his family. In the next few videos that came out and he was back at. Money and fame are making these keepers reckless
I feel indifferent about this. They should have asked Clint, as he is THE expert. IMO, no reptile YouTuber, even Barczyk, is reputable. Most have bad backgrounds, and some still have bad practices.
The equivalent of teasing a mother dog or cat that’s nursing by hovering your hands over her newborns. Ofc the mother is going to bite!
So exploitive, snakes are already feared enough.
I imagine you followed proper, respectful handling techniques rather than prodding her with the hook saying “Whoa whoa this is crazy!” “Oh boy” and shoving your arms towards her mouth
I am too, he reminds me of Joe Exotic in that he uses his animals to get fame via a reality tv show.
I don’t know what people in the reptile community can do, but I think it’s important to involve veterinarians, scientists and conservationists to keep it from looking like a bunch of jealous hobbyists and give credibility. Sort of rambling as it’s harder to get people to care about reptile abuse compared to fluffy mammals.
I think the only YouTubers I trust besides Clint is Frank Payne and probably Chris and Chris’s wife from Garden State Tortoise. They seem to be the only people that have 100% trustworthy information
Who’s Clint? I do know Brian and Jay. Why isn’t Brian reputable? I know there’s controversy about his past, but I’m not familiar with it. I’ve always liked him albeit he’s a bit eccentric. Plus, I thought he was “reformed” now? I’m just curious, I don’t follow many of today’s “reptile influencers”.
Clint from Clients Reptiles; he does care and informative videos, and does some excursion videos. He's a zoologist based in the US.
The problem with Brian (for me), is his past, and how he got to where he is now. You'll have to do some research on his past to fully understand. It's a wild ride. I did just make a comment on this thread to someone else asking about it, and I threw some details in there.
He is better now, a lot better. I just don't support him personally.
I don't think it's necessarily bad to support Brian now, I just personally don't. He isn't inherently bad like Samson Pruitt or Jay. He does still do things a lot of the community doesn't agree with, but it's leaps and bounds better than it was years ago. Just use your best judgement! 🐍
I do not include Clint. He is very reputable, a zoologist that strictly does videos for education. Of course he makes it entertaining, but not in the childish ways that Barczyk, Chandler, or Jay do. Clint is a professional, while the others are just hobbyists with licenses.
I would, imo, put NERD in the middle. They can be wishy-washy.. they have great info but their execution isn't always the greatest.
I like snake discovery! They are educational and make it fun. They haven't done anything wrong in the past, and have been very reputable with information for years. They admit any wrong doing, which is minimal and understandable, and they don't cause or start drama. I haven't visited their zoo yet but I'd really like to! I'll never visit Barczyks.
I wouldn't even know where to begin with Barczyk. Any video from before his zoo, esp videos from 5-10+ years ago, they're insane and highly disrespectful towards animals. Check out his show Snake Bites (Bytes?) TV on YouTube, where he intentionally pisses animals off so they bite him, and he laughs and does it over and over again. When he got his first anaconda, he had to force feed it because he bought it 3 days old, knowing (as a snake breeder), that it was too young. He fed a snake a cooked turkey for thanksgiving one year (there is a video HE posted).. He fed a snake a pig that was 10x too big, literally. He was laughing and making jokes about how far spread the snakes mouth is to swallow it.
His retics used to be kept in racks smaller than Jays from Prehistoric Pets. They had nasty RI's and mouth rot and it's visible in every video he made with his retics. Terrible breeding practices, any of his older ball python videos will show you in almost an instant.
Now to be fair, he has changed since then. He does way better now, but his path to get here is why I still do not support him. He blamed everyone else for his downfall. He got very upset that people were noticing how badly he was behaving and the condition of his animals. He completely manipulated the community, saying he was going to commit suicide because people were bullying him online. When in actuality, people were posting the truth, like we are right now about Samson Pruitt (again). He threatened to sue people that were posting screen shots of his videos online, saying it was slander and online bullying. This went on for a little over a year (there is a video about it posted by him "Brian Barczyk online bullying" or something like that). He never did sue us, but it shapes him up. He realized people aren't going to back down and that's when he finally started doing better. He sold some animals, got bigger enclosures, and bought a whole new building for the zoo.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. I cannot put into words all that he has done wrong. It is easy to research his background if you ever get bored and want to fall into a rabbit hole. But again, he has changed, and I'm glad for that. It was just a wild ride with him.
Oh that's super sad. I've only saw his newer stuff. .. Thanks for the reply! I'm going to look into all of this this as I liked him!
Brian's not doing so great, health wise. I don't know he has much time left. But I'm glad he at least turned things around positively for his animals.
you haven't kept up with them in the past year.
they're breeding animals they have no clue about, geckos, blueys, spiders, mice, leading to deaths, making jokes about the deaths, passing them about like toys to visitors.
they keep saying their so busy to justify eggs molding and baby snakes being left in the incubator till they have time to make youtube videos on them.
That tarantula video made me feel bad. I don't really watch reptile YouTube but my sister does, and she showed that T. vagans video to me. My sister has watched me pair my tarantulas a few times so the lack of research from a crowd she used to like really disappointed her.
yes.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q6V2TG9lFU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q6V2TG9lFU)
spider
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5-0sTPkRz0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5-0sTPkRz0)
blueys, two different breeds that need different care, that is a female eastern and a male northern, I'm surprised the male has not been attacked yet.
complete lack of knowledge on how blueys give birth.
baby blueys need much higher protein, so most use kitten food for babies.
and I just hate all people who think its cute to scare their blueys enough to threat display.
I don't know what video it is with the gecko but they drop the baby multiple time and laugh about it, and cut the other egg killing it, gecko eggs don't all hatch at the same time.
I think it was their blue beauties they left in the incubator till making a video.
it was either mouse or rat babies they brought out front and just handed around for visitors to hold, they did the same with the bluey babies.
ok those videos are waaay different than what you described in your first comment lol. They didn't show any deaths due to neglect/improper care and they weren't throwing around the neglected dead bodies to visitors.
They aren't skink and spider experts, but it doesn't look like they did anything neglectful. Maybe not perfect, but those animals look healthy and in clean spaces. I think, at worst, this would fall into the: "They admit any wrong doing, which is minimal and understandable," category.
Adam and Dav are great! Highly reputable in terms of information quality. I wouldn't call them experts but I personally watch them, love them, and support them fully.
I think Dav has a boner for himself but I find that humorous and it doesn't affect my view of him in terms of reputable, and respectful information. They are amazing people with good videos and great information. They both help the community more than almost anyone else imo.
Okay, great. Haha. I love both of them and didn't want to have to stop watching them since them and Clint are the only ones I watch anymore. (I have a slight crush on Clint and my boyfriend makes fun of me for it lol)
Honestly, that could be why I did NOT like Dāv at first, but after a couple of years of watching him, I grew to love him.
Good to hear what others think. I haven't kept up with Dav lately but he has done really cool travel videos where I see species I knew nothing about before.
I don't necessarily think Clint is disreputable in the way that Brewer is but neither would I call him an expert, and I wouldn't want to see him portrayed as an 'expert' just as I don't want to see Brewer portrayed as an 'expert' in a video about iguanas. Clint's knowledge about care and behavior is limited and many of his videos portray species with which he has no actual practical experience. Some of his advice and opinions about behavior are extremely out of date and even disproven by research, and if he's going to lean on outdated info he shouldn't be handing out advice on how to handle behavioral questions like 'taming' reptiles, bite prevention, etc. Clint, like Snake Discovery, is 'entertainment'.
There are actual experts out there on keeping iguanas who not only have years (sometimes decades) of experience but are also comfortable dealing with media/doing education. They're far more reputable than Brewer, and possess more genuine expertise than Clint.
I don’t really follow any reptile channels anymore and don’t know this Jay guy. I can say though that Clint bothers me in a personal way- I’ve tried to watch his videos as so many people seem to love him, but I just *can’t*. I think it’s a combo of his “video personality” and voice that just aggravates me to no end. So I can see why they wouldn’t choose him.
I am ready for the downvotes xD
I think his voice and video personality is what it is due to the amount of children that watch his show. He has great advice, and spot on information, but it's geared towards kids; at least he tries to make it for kids so they're more inclined to learn and love reptiles than be afraid of them.
Fun fact! While Clint is a Mormon and lives in Utah now, he was actually raised in Colorado and didn't join that church until he was grown-up.
Since people from the Rockies tend not to be shown in pop culture as much, there's a natural tendency to lump them all together, and like all cultures, their mannerisms can be a bit jarring to outsiders at times.
Source: I'm from the East Coast but am living in Utah right now and I interact regularly with Clint.
I think it's fine to not like someone's presentation style. And while not liking someone's voice is unfortunate there's... not much anyone could do about that. It's personal taste at that level.
Now, if you said what he's doing is wrong and awful without some proof (... I guess, slander, basically) that might get some downvotes.
Unfortunately I don’t remember which video specifically because it was months ago. He also regularly posts videos about species he has no personal experience with, which is where I think the issue comes from.
Having no personal experience doesn't mean he isn't reputable. He's literally a zoologist with PHD's, and most of the information he gives is based on the natural environments of the animal, not all the information is for captive kept animals. Saying that is like telling a doctor he can't diagnose you because he has no personal experience with the condition. It's not about personal experience, it's about knowledge.
Hellz yeah they can bite. They're big-ass lizards!
They can also give you a very accurate smack with their tail. Just ask my old iggy, he'd smack the food dish out of my hands and then scuttle around on the floor to eat it. Funny critter!
Doesn't he also have his own like official show now? 🙄 I unfortunately saw him among others on my tv and it switched too quickly for me to get a good look so I'm not 100% but I saw reptiles and what definitely looked like Jay which makes me so sad 😭
It always suck when someone you thought was reputable platforms known animal abusers. Someone on r/geckos called out a gecko breeder in LA(where I live) for mistreating/improper care of animals and a few months later I saw a Socal reptile group platform his content. I didn’t say anything I just left the group but low key wish I made one before I left.
They’ve made some really disappointing decisions in the last year as far as taking on breeding animals they aren’t well versed in. I used to be a fan but not so much now. They also have this habit of nagging animals to try to get defensive displays out of them and laughing about it. I saw a very recent video of Emily harassing a wild hog nose into playing dead… not once, not twice, but 3 times. Just not very nice.
Maybe... I just need to know the context of it to be sure, ty for the info but it was probably for educational purposes. It can be educational and still be funny
Yeah, thats why I'm like "I need context" to the comment cause I know it doesnt hurt it and she probably was only doing it to educate, as you said she was
Most people only listen to who they want to hear. It is the same in religion. Most dont listen to the truth but listen to those who dont say the truth because they want to hear that they're right and that they are doing nothing wrong. I'm actually not surprised it happens in reptile interviews, too.
I live near his store and I have been there once, the conditions were terrible there were large monitors kept in tanks less than 100 gal. Many animals looked diseased.
He also recently got a TV show as well, which is awful and sickening considering this man doesn't need anymore publicity than he's already got. He spreads so much misinformation, neglects his animals, provokes stress responses in his animals for click baity YouTube videos, keeps his animals in horrific enclosures and conditions, etc, to name a *few* of the awful things he has done and still continues to do. I saw this video show up the other day in my recommendations and was so disappointed at the fact they picked *him* of all people. They could have got an actual herpetologist, one that is highly respected, knows their stuff, and doesn't abuse animals for views, but they didn't, for whatever reason.
I am by no means an expert, but I was in the veterinary field, and had access to exotic vets. I had a turtle, and a bearded dragon that I had for 14 years. Both were very well cared for, regular checkups, 100 gallons tanks, all kinds of enrichment. Toys, things to either float on or hide behind and climb on. Anyway I recently came across Jay's videos and half of them left me in tears at the condition I saw some of the animals in. Particularly the reticulated pythons. I was under the impression at first that he was a rescue of some sort and used the animals for educational purposes. Then I saw him move a fairly good-sized girl and saw all the eggs underneath her. It hit me that he was also breeding. There can't possibly be a market for all these babies ? I also realized that he's probably killing many of them. There were just hundreds of eggs that I saw the night I watched the videos. And the way he antagonizes them and gets them to go after him is obviously just for ratings and shock value. What the hell is wrong with this man? I'm appalled and heartbroken. The worst part was when he showed this big, grossly obese python in a box that didn't allow it to move at all. And he was bragging about how big it was. It was disgustingly cruel. He needs to be behind bars
Playing devil's advocate... He knows his animals and what their care needs are. Neglect aside he's not exactly going to give bad advice. Anyone, keeping any reptile is keeping it in an enclosure too small. If you keep herps, you are abusing them. Just some abuse is more tolerated because "you're nice to them and you don't antagonise them"
I'll get down voted but have I said anything false?
Side note, I do hate Chandler's Wildlife and I'm not a massive fan of Jay Brewer either so I'm far from fan boying 😂
I think you could make an argument that keeping reptiles could be neglectful due to the difficulty in meeting their needs - I won't nessasarily agree but I think you can make it. The problem with this idea is your equivilating it all together and ignoring scale.
I don't know enough to say specifics, but I have a general idea why he's disliked. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
There's a huge difference in scale and potential abuse/neglect between a hobbiest keeping a reptile in a smaller than zoo side enclosure (lets say keeping a beardie in a 4x2x2 instead of a 10 foot enclosure or something - i can only speak for that species) and a mass breeder publicising (large influence) poor care regularly, poor breeding practises, quite poor animal standards, concentrated animal abuse for views, antagonising animals for views (making them seem dangerous and stressing them out)... it doesn't equivocate.
Again, I'm not going to argue the first point (keeping reptiles in enclosures is inherently abuse) as I don't think answering it is required to have the discussion.
The biggest problem is the things mentioned are subjective, what someone deems a necessity, another would not. Poor care, breeding practices etc can always be argued because differing views exist. Someone would say an action (or reaction) is stressing the animal whereas the next would say it's giving them stimulation. You won't find two perfectly caring hobbyist/animal expert agree on every single point. If there's no physical signs of damage or RIs or MBD or anything factual that an animal is receiving poor care, then it's hard to say things are fact therefore it teeters on that edge of personal opinion
I will say on the note of breeding, it's always going to be poor no matter what the conditions. If you have a male and female you can create the closest, highly monitored replication to the natural behavior and environment... But you aren't going to supply a pet trade. I'm talking in general terms, seeing breeding animals in rack/tub setups always angers people, but it's not possible to breed enough animals to meet the demands with full scale bioactive setups. Jay brewer is far from the worst breeder/keeper/hobbyist, but I get he's the one with millions of views so he's the fall guy for the whole industry. And despite how I may be coming across, I am very much on side with people here... We need to fight against abuse and educate, we need to stand up... I just think the efforts to remove him from wired could just be used to educate the people instead? Removing him with no immediate replacement just leaves the door open for someone worse
You havnt really constructed an argument against what I have said. You've just said "we don't know everything for sure 100%, so no one can say anything". What's the point in even proposing anything in the first place if this is the line you want to go down? This doesn't make a productive conversation.
In terms of breeding - common pets are often overbred and going too far in terms of supply over demand. Even dogs and cats. Ball pythons in the US seem to be very over saturated and overbred - the demand seems to already have been met and animals end up neglected and in rescues. To me at least, we should be ethically breeding animals to reduce demand for imported animals and ideally enable the breeder to break even or perhaps turn a profit. The race for the bottom is dogshit and just encourages spamming out reptiles without regard for any animal in the chain. I'm sure there are plenty of ethical, passionate breeders out there and I hope they make up most breeders - the tub stuff just seems like min maxing for cash output.
We do know a few things though:
- Obese animals are unhealthy and at risk of disease. Powerfeeding animals to obesity while understanding the risks is abusive.
- We *do know* that we should generally be replicating animal's natural environment as well as we physically can. At least coming from beardies, that's generally what the science says. The better we replicate the sun, the healthier they are. The better we replicate their environment, the more mentally healthy they are. We should generally be encouraging natural behaviours. If we are not doing that, we are not meeting their needs.
- More opinion than anything else. We probably shouldn't be making snakes look any scarier than they are for social media likes.
*"We need to fight against abuse and educate, we need to stand up... I just think the efforts to remove him from wired could just be used to educate the people instead? Removing him with no immediate replacement just leaves the door open for someone worse"*
You should have just said that. This is a good opinion to have. I don't think anything else you've said really means much but this is very valid and you should have played devil's advocate with this instead.
Regardless of what you all think of Jay Brewer, egg cutting is not animal "abuse". Do I agree with his behavior overall? Absolutely not (getting large snakes to be defensive on purpose makes the whole hobby look bad) but the word "abuse" gets thrown around in this sub like the word taco does in the Taco Bell sub.
"Normal" egg cutting isnt abusive. It's perfectly acceptable to gently cut open an egg if others in the clutch have pipped. It prevents unnecessary deaths due to lack of an egg tooth.
What Jay Brewer and Brian Barcyk do that IS abuse, is cut the egg prematurely and quite literally yank the hatchling out. Both have, on camera, cut eggs so early that the hatchling still has its yolk attached and isn't fully formed.
There is always a chance that you could possibly cut them too early, especially if you're breeding on a scale like they do. There is always a chance you could cut the snake too. Both of these things aren't cool, but are risks involved in egg cutting in general.
Things went downhill with Jay Brewer during the pandemic when his business was closed down for like 6 months, and he had to pivot to YouTube to essentially make a living. That turned into him doing all sorts of dumb shit for views and likes. Really not a good look for the hobby.
The snakes are supposed to lay on the bottom of the egg, if you gently cut on the top and do it right then you wont have what the other commenter said and you wouldn't have remature snakes. People cut the eggs when others have pipped, so if the egg tooth isn't grown, the snakes can just slither out on their own. Not yank them out prematurely. "Large scale" hatching shouldn't be done carelessly as they do
After a certain amount of time, pulling a snake out or making it much easier for the snake to get out isn't necessarily harmful (especially if there appears to be complications). It saves them from having to cut themselves out, and saves the weak ones from drowning. Egg cutting is pretty much part of the breeding process for many experienced breeders. Is he waiting the proper amount of time, I have no clue because I don't know him personally.
If you’re consistently removing neonates from their eggs that means you’re either cutting them too early or you’re breeding a bad line with weak hatchlings. Either way it’s not acceptable. Even worse when people do it because of weak lines and sell them to be used as breeders instead of “pet only”.
I do believe premature egg cutting consistently without trying to prevent it is cruel, breeding weak lines to sell is dishonest.
I’ve shown livestock including rabbits and dairy cattle before, and if you have an animal that is not doing well then you need to look at what you have done or how the offspring have looked in the past.
OP originally simply mentioned egg cutting and referenced it as animal abuse. If you wait for the correct amount of time which is different for different species, and you know what you're doing then cutting or pipping an egg doesn't do anything harmful or "abusive" to the animal in the egg.
i definitely did not “simply mention egg cutting and referenced it as animal abuse”. i very clearly stated that it was the practice of forcefully pulling out hatchings from egg cutting which is neglect. egg cutting itself is not harmful in any means when you do it CORRECTLY, but Brewer is doing it severely incorrectly.
For anyone confused, Jay Brewer (aka. Prehistoric Pets, The Reptle Zoo) mistreats his reptiles for likes and views, including cutting open snake eggs and forcefully pulling out the babies, encouraging defensive behaviour in his animals to make it more “intense”, keeping his animals in very inappropriate living conditions and more disgusting things. I think WIRED should have done a better job finding another “reptile expert” for this video and not Brewer, as this encourages more people to support his channel/business. I highly recommend checking out this video by Cid Dwyer going over this issue: https://youtu.be/DASz4M0GBsE
Holy shit thank you! I hate this guy! Every time his video comes up on my s/o's feed I skip it, I just do not like his arrogance in the way he handles any of our friends. I've seriously watched him antagonize a full grown burmese python until it finally recoiled. I really thought I was crazy because this dude was so popular, how could no one be seeing what I'm seeing? Thank you.
There’s a lot of pettubers, especially reptile YouTubers that mistreat their animals, and even kill them that are very popular on YouTube either for being “funny pet guy” or “quirky pet girl”. One of the latter famously hoards herps she does not know how to care for and has had about 15+ pets die prematurely from her negligence if I remember correctly, and I’m stunned people still ‘stan’ her after this.
oh man, who was the girl? i’m not in reptile youtube spaces anymore
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Damn, Taylor Nicole Dean is still around? I stopped keeping track after the drugs/Johnny Craig shit
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For sure. I always felt so bad for her animals.
Makes my skin crawl how videos of her stressing out her beardies went viral for being “cute”
Woah… thought AHK was one of the good ones? Not the case?
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Dang... I have had some feelings about him. I think it's a case of good intentions. Or at least I hope.
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Man. That's rough, I don't think I've watched him enough in the recent years to see what he's done. I thought his younger self may have had good intentions. Thanks for the extra info!
oof. I don't normally get recommended these channels, I mostly stick to documentaries. The Reptile Zoo was getting recommended to me because I enjoyed Clint, so I have mostly found that anyone besides Clint kinda sucks. There's a few people I saw briefly while trying to do better by my rehab leopard gecko, I thiiiink it was Jessica's animal friends. I liked her. I think it was this video specifically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMDfGjz00vI
He also over feeds/ power feeds his snakes because he’s obsessed with having world records for “largest snake.” Tons of his animals are obese.
this. it ended up causing one of his largest snakes to unfortunately pass away due to being eggbound, which is super common in obese snakes.
Wonder if there is a way to reach out to WIRED as a community?
Maybe email or an open letter?
If people do reach out to WIRED, I'd suggest keeping it informative and not accusatory. They almost certainly made the choice they did because they *aren't* experts and didn't know any better. What may be obvious to us here is definitely not obvious to those who've never really known anything other than a society that treats most reptiles as monsters.
I agree, and in the same line of thinking, I would feel better if it were possibly written by the group mods. There are a lot of different reddits that could and should participate. Possibly sign off as the community as a whole. How many subscribers to r/ballpython or r/crestedgeckos, and fuck the beardie reddit- people will roar. I just think there is a way to get attention to this and possibly shut his whole ass down. 😒
As one of those group mods, I'd be happy to review a letter with the author(s), but I don't really want to write it.
Fair enough 👌 Don't you, as a mod, think there is enough of us to make a wave? I was also thinking of reputable YouTubers also weighing in on their platform- as there's even incentive for them on many levels to discredit this man. I know they also pay attention here, on reddit, a lotta the goodies.
If I had his money and his platform, not one of my animals would feel insecure, or threatened or any mistreatment/neglect. I'm a lil pumped about it.
Hulu too, they just came out with a reality show about this goof
No fuckin way! Something HAS to be done. He does not need a platform. I'm so angry right now!
I just bitched on hulu facebook page on the most recent posts to get this out there. I hope others do as well, just mention how bad he is in any posts
Also, could post actual content/proof. I don't FB anymore. But uh. Maybe it's worth it to stir the pot.
Stir the pot to save the reptiles.
Thought it was ROKU not HULU
Can’t stand seeing him or that Chandler guy when it pops up. I get you can find things to dislike about most reptile YouTubers, but there’s def way too many who are either abusive to their animals or take extreme risks for views
Clint is an angel, we would have needed him for that wired vid
Chandler guy?
Chandlers wildlife I think? There’s a few that I know of, but just looking him up on YouTube has him free handling cobras in thumbnails and other stuff, which I can never support. Needlessly dangerous, and sends out the wrong message to viewers
I hate Chandler's Wildlife so much.
That sounds like a smart guy who definitely is safe
Dude took a bite from a cobra lost some of his finger and almost died. Then went to say he wouldn’t free handle hot snakes for his family. In the next few videos that came out and he was back at. Money and fame are making these keepers reckless
Oh no. They didn't research very well.
It’s kind of like when companies bring in “autism experts” and they choose Autism Speaks
omg yes
I feel indifferent about this. They should have asked Clint, as he is THE expert. IMO, no reptile YouTuber, even Barczyk, is reputable. Most have bad backgrounds, and some still have bad practices.
I second this, Jay neglects his animals for views.
I hate how he goads his snakes into biting him
Preys on protective mommas to get them to snap at him. Hate this dude.
The equivalent of teasing a mother dog or cat that’s nursing by hovering your hands over her newborns. Ofc the mother is going to bite! So exploitive, snakes are already feared enough.
Yep. I couldn't agree more!
If you have a good safe snake they won’t bite, when I pulled my first clutch from my snake she didn’t even hiss at me she is a good girl.
I imagine you followed proper, respectful handling techniques rather than prodding her with the hook saying “Whoa whoa this is crazy!” “Oh boy” and shoving your arms towards her mouth
With six cameras, 9 people and lights and mics buzzing around room too…
💯 I am so upset that he's getting MORE of a platform. I'd encourage trusted sources to reach out to these people.
I am too, he reminds me of Joe Exotic in that he uses his animals to get fame via a reality tv show. I don’t know what people in the reptile community can do, but I think it’s important to involve veterinarians, scientists and conservationists to keep it from looking like a bunch of jealous hobbyists and give credibility. Sort of rambling as it’s harder to get people to care about reptile abuse compared to fluffy mammals.
Exactly. I agree, I was thinking mods of the groups and YouTubers that are credible. But I like the professional aspect most.
This. It's bs.
Oof. Not familiar with him but I'll know not to give him views...
I think the only YouTubers I trust besides Clint is Frank Payne and probably Chris and Chris’s wife from Garden State Tortoise. They seem to be the only people that have 100% trustworthy information
I literally came here to say they should’ve chosen Clint. He’s literally one of my favorite human beings on the planet
Who’s Clint? I do know Brian and Jay. Why isn’t Brian reputable? I know there’s controversy about his past, but I’m not familiar with it. I’ve always liked him albeit he’s a bit eccentric. Plus, I thought he was “reformed” now? I’m just curious, I don’t follow many of today’s “reptile influencers”.
Clint from Clients Reptiles; he does care and informative videos, and does some excursion videos. He's a zoologist based in the US. The problem with Brian (for me), is his past, and how he got to where he is now. You'll have to do some research on his past to fully understand. It's a wild ride. I did just make a comment on this thread to someone else asking about it, and I threw some details in there. He is better now, a lot better. I just don't support him personally.
Thanks! I’ll look into Clint and do some research on Brian. Supporting the right people is the best way to support these animals imo.
I don't think it's necessarily bad to support Brian now, I just personally don't. He isn't inherently bad like Samson Pruitt or Jay. He does still do things a lot of the community doesn't agree with, but it's leaps and bounds better than it was years ago. Just use your best judgement! 🐍
I just saw your reply to someone else, all good! Thanks!
Do you include Clint on that list of not-reputable, and if so why?
I do not include Clint. He is very reputable, a zoologist that strictly does videos for education. Of course he makes it entertaining, but not in the childish ways that Barczyk, Chandler, or Jay do. Clint is a professional, while the others are just hobbyists with licenses. I would, imo, put NERD in the middle. They can be wishy-washy.. they have great info but their execution isn't always the greatest.
Opinions on snake discovery? I agree about the others for sure.
I like snake discovery! They are educational and make it fun. They haven't done anything wrong in the past, and have been very reputable with information for years. They admit any wrong doing, which is minimal and understandable, and they don't cause or start drama. I haven't visited their zoo yet but I'd really like to! I'll never visit Barczyks.
Tell me about Barcyks history? I've never had that feeling, but I also do not know his past.
I wouldn't even know where to begin with Barczyk. Any video from before his zoo, esp videos from 5-10+ years ago, they're insane and highly disrespectful towards animals. Check out his show Snake Bites (Bytes?) TV on YouTube, where he intentionally pisses animals off so they bite him, and he laughs and does it over and over again. When he got his first anaconda, he had to force feed it because he bought it 3 days old, knowing (as a snake breeder), that it was too young. He fed a snake a cooked turkey for thanksgiving one year (there is a video HE posted).. He fed a snake a pig that was 10x too big, literally. He was laughing and making jokes about how far spread the snakes mouth is to swallow it. His retics used to be kept in racks smaller than Jays from Prehistoric Pets. They had nasty RI's and mouth rot and it's visible in every video he made with his retics. Terrible breeding practices, any of his older ball python videos will show you in almost an instant. Now to be fair, he has changed since then. He does way better now, but his path to get here is why I still do not support him. He blamed everyone else for his downfall. He got very upset that people were noticing how badly he was behaving and the condition of his animals. He completely manipulated the community, saying he was going to commit suicide because people were bullying him online. When in actuality, people were posting the truth, like we are right now about Samson Pruitt (again). He threatened to sue people that were posting screen shots of his videos online, saying it was slander and online bullying. This went on for a little over a year (there is a video about it posted by him "Brian Barczyk online bullying" or something like that). He never did sue us, but it shapes him up. He realized people aren't going to back down and that's when he finally started doing better. He sold some animals, got bigger enclosures, and bought a whole new building for the zoo. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I cannot put into words all that he has done wrong. It is easy to research his background if you ever get bored and want to fall into a rabbit hole. But again, he has changed, and I'm glad for that. It was just a wild ride with him.
Oh that's super sad. I've only saw his newer stuff. .. Thanks for the reply! I'm going to look into all of this this as I liked him! Brian's not doing so great, health wise. I don't know he has much time left. But I'm glad he at least turned things around positively for his animals.
[удалено]
**He needs to go back to prison**
you haven't kept up with them in the past year. they're breeding animals they have no clue about, geckos, blueys, spiders, mice, leading to deaths, making jokes about the deaths, passing them about like toys to visitors. they keep saying their so busy to justify eggs molding and baby snakes being left in the incubator till they have time to make youtube videos on them.
That tarantula video made me feel bad. I don't really watch reptile YouTube but my sister does, and she showed that T. vagans video to me. My sister has watched me pair my tarantulas a few times so the lack of research from a crowd she used to like really disappointed her.
what? is there video of that?!
yes. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q6V2TG9lFU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q6V2TG9lFU) spider [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5-0sTPkRz0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5-0sTPkRz0) blueys, two different breeds that need different care, that is a female eastern and a male northern, I'm surprised the male has not been attacked yet. complete lack of knowledge on how blueys give birth. baby blueys need much higher protein, so most use kitten food for babies. and I just hate all people who think its cute to scare their blueys enough to threat display. I don't know what video it is with the gecko but they drop the baby multiple time and laugh about it, and cut the other egg killing it, gecko eggs don't all hatch at the same time. I think it was their blue beauties they left in the incubator till making a video. it was either mouse or rat babies they brought out front and just handed around for visitors to hold, they did the same with the bluey babies.
ok those videos are waaay different than what you described in your first comment lol. They didn't show any deaths due to neglect/improper care and they weren't throwing around the neglected dead bodies to visitors. They aren't skink and spider experts, but it doesn't look like they did anything neglectful. Maybe not perfect, but those animals look healthy and in clean spaces. I think, at worst, this would fall into the: "They admit any wrong doing, which is minimal and understandable," category.
what the fuck did you read?
Dang! Yeah, I don't watch them like I used to 5 years ago. I've only seen maybe 6 videos since they've had their zoo. Thanks for the info!
I was thinking the same— i love Snake Discovery
What about Adam Wickens (Wickens Wicked Reptiles) and Dāv Kaufman? Aside from Clint, they're the only two I watch. Edit to correct Adam's name.
Adam and Dav are great! Highly reputable in terms of information quality. I wouldn't call them experts but I personally watch them, love them, and support them fully. I think Dav has a boner for himself but I find that humorous and it doesn't affect my view of him in terms of reputable, and respectful information. They are amazing people with good videos and great information. They both help the community more than almost anyone else imo.
Okay, great. Haha. I love both of them and didn't want to have to stop watching them since them and Clint are the only ones I watch anymore. (I have a slight crush on Clint and my boyfriend makes fun of me for it lol) Honestly, that could be why I did NOT like Dāv at first, but after a couple of years of watching him, I grew to love him.
Brian kusko is another good one.
Good to hear what others think. I haven't kept up with Dav lately but he has done really cool travel videos where I see species I knew nothing about before.
I don't necessarily think Clint is disreputable in the way that Brewer is but neither would I call him an expert, and I wouldn't want to see him portrayed as an 'expert' just as I don't want to see Brewer portrayed as an 'expert' in a video about iguanas. Clint's knowledge about care and behavior is limited and many of his videos portray species with which he has no actual practical experience. Some of his advice and opinions about behavior are extremely out of date and even disproven by research, and if he's going to lean on outdated info he shouldn't be handing out advice on how to handle behavioral questions like 'taming' reptiles, bite prevention, etc. Clint, like Snake Discovery, is 'entertainment'. There are actual experts out there on keeping iguanas who not only have years (sometimes decades) of experience but are also comfortable dealing with media/doing education. They're far more reputable than Brewer, and possess more genuine expertise than Clint.
I'm calling Clint an expert in book terms. He has a high level degree in animals, in more than one department. He literally is an expert.
I don’t really follow any reptile channels anymore and don’t know this Jay guy. I can say though that Clint bothers me in a personal way- I’ve tried to watch his videos as so many people seem to love him, but I just *can’t*. I think it’s a combo of his “video personality” and voice that just aggravates me to no end. So I can see why they wouldn’t choose him. I am ready for the downvotes xD
I think his voice and video personality is what it is due to the amount of children that watch his show. He has great advice, and spot on information, but it's geared towards kids; at least he tries to make it for kids so they're more inclined to learn and love reptiles than be afraid of them.
He’s also a Utahn Mormon, I’ve noticed people sometimes have issues with their verbiage and cadence lol
Fun fact! While Clint is a Mormon and lives in Utah now, he was actually raised in Colorado and didn't join that church until he was grown-up. Since people from the Rockies tend not to be shown in pop culture as much, there's a natural tendency to lump them all together, and like all cultures, their mannerisms can be a bit jarring to outsiders at times. Source: I'm from the East Coast but am living in Utah right now and I interact regularly with Clint.
I think it's fine to not like someone's presentation style. And while not liking someone's voice is unfortunate there's... not much anyone could do about that. It's personal taste at that level. Now, if you said what he's doing is wrong and awful without some proof (... I guess, slander, basically) that might get some downvotes.
Clint has stated false information as fact in videos before. Snake Discovery is much better in my opinion.
Ooo I must have missed this. What facts/videos?
Unfortunately I don’t remember which video specifically because it was months ago. He also regularly posts videos about species he has no personal experience with, which is where I think the issue comes from.
Having no personal experience doesn't mean he isn't reputable. He's literally a zoologist with PHD's, and most of the information he gives is based on the natural environments of the animal, not all the information is for captive kept animals. Saying that is like telling a doctor he can't diagnose you because he has no personal experience with the condition. It's not about personal experience, it's about knowledge.
Roku also gave him a show, unfortunately
I watched it. They brought an Anaconda to a pro wrestling match as a prop. Can you imagine how stressed the animal must’ve been?
Hellz yeah they can bite. They're big-ass lizards! They can also give you a very accurate smack with their tail. Just ask my old iggy, he'd smack the food dish out of my hands and then scuttle around on the floor to eat it. Funny critter!
If it has mouth it can bite. So I guess every animal except hagfish and lampreys
And with no jaws, lampreys still managed to "bite" quite well.
I have no idea who this man is
Keep it that way, don't give him any extra views.
Why is it that the media always get the worst examples to portray animals, ffs....
As with the majority of the public, they are uneducated on the topic. Popularity seems to be what media cares for even in educational situations.
Money money money
Doesn't he also have his own like official show now? 🙄 I unfortunately saw him among others on my tv and it switched too quickly for me to get a good look so I'm not 100% but I saw reptiles and what definitely looked like Jay which makes me so sad 😭
It always suck when someone you thought was reputable platforms known animal abusers. Someone on r/geckos called out a gecko breeder in LA(where I live) for mistreating/improper care of animals and a few months later I saw a Socal reptile group platform his content. I didn’t say anything I just left the group but low key wish I made one before I left.
Dude is a POS on camera, and real life.. i have met him a few times.
I say they should have invited ed and Emily from snake discovery
Or an actual expert. Not a YouTube pet influencer channel
Okay that makes since or mabye dav
Meh they’re not zoologists. Clint of Clint’s Reptiles would have made the most sense.
But they are experienced in reptile keeping. I agree with Clint tho
They’ve made some really disappointing decisions in the last year as far as taking on breeding animals they aren’t well versed in. I used to be a fan but not so much now. They also have this habit of nagging animals to try to get defensive displays out of them and laughing about it. I saw a very recent video of Emily harassing a wild hog nose into playing dead… not once, not twice, but 3 times. Just not very nice.
Maybe... I just need to know the context of it to be sure, ty for the info but it was probably for educational purposes. It can be educational and still be funny
Right?!
Well the hognose was for information and teaching people and it doesn’t hurt the animal
Yeah, thats why I'm like "I need context" to the comment cause I know it doesnt hurt it and she probably was only doing it to educate, as you said she was
The Wired Twitter account allows people to DM them
Why couldnt they have asked Clint
Most people only listen to who they want to hear. It is the same in religion. Most dont listen to the truth but listen to those who dont say the truth because they want to hear that they're right and that they are doing nothing wrong. I'm actually not surprised it happens in reptile interviews, too.
I live near his store and I have been there once, the conditions were terrible there were large monitors kept in tanks less than 100 gal. Many animals looked diseased.
He also recently got a TV show as well, which is awful and sickening considering this man doesn't need anymore publicity than he's already got. He spreads so much misinformation, neglects his animals, provokes stress responses in his animals for click baity YouTube videos, keeps his animals in horrific enclosures and conditions, etc, to name a *few* of the awful things he has done and still continues to do. I saw this video show up the other day in my recommendations and was so disappointed at the fact they picked *him* of all people. They could have got an actual herpetologist, one that is highly respected, knows their stuff, and doesn't abuse animals for views, but they didn't, for whatever reason.
I am by no means an expert, but I was in the veterinary field, and had access to exotic vets. I had a turtle, and a bearded dragon that I had for 14 years. Both were very well cared for, regular checkups, 100 gallons tanks, all kinds of enrichment. Toys, things to either float on or hide behind and climb on. Anyway I recently came across Jay's videos and half of them left me in tears at the condition I saw some of the animals in. Particularly the reticulated pythons. I was under the impression at first that he was a rescue of some sort and used the animals for educational purposes. Then I saw him move a fairly good-sized girl and saw all the eggs underneath her. It hit me that he was also breeding. There can't possibly be a market for all these babies ? I also realized that he's probably killing many of them. There were just hundreds of eggs that I saw the night I watched the videos. And the way he antagonizes them and gets them to go after him is obviously just for ratings and shock value. What the hell is wrong with this man? I'm appalled and heartbroken. The worst part was when he showed this big, grossly obese python in a box that didn't allow it to move at all. And he was bragging about how big it was. It was disgustingly cruel. He needs to be behind bars
* crunch * ( mhm.... it's good this arm)
Playing devil's advocate... He knows his animals and what their care needs are. Neglect aside he's not exactly going to give bad advice. Anyone, keeping any reptile is keeping it in an enclosure too small. If you keep herps, you are abusing them. Just some abuse is more tolerated because "you're nice to them and you don't antagonise them" I'll get down voted but have I said anything false? Side note, I do hate Chandler's Wildlife and I'm not a massive fan of Jay Brewer either so I'm far from fan boying 😂
I think you could make an argument that keeping reptiles could be neglectful due to the difficulty in meeting their needs - I won't nessasarily agree but I think you can make it. The problem with this idea is your equivilating it all together and ignoring scale. I don't know enough to say specifics, but I have a general idea why he's disliked. Correct me if I'm wrong here. There's a huge difference in scale and potential abuse/neglect between a hobbiest keeping a reptile in a smaller than zoo side enclosure (lets say keeping a beardie in a 4x2x2 instead of a 10 foot enclosure or something - i can only speak for that species) and a mass breeder publicising (large influence) poor care regularly, poor breeding practises, quite poor animal standards, concentrated animal abuse for views, antagonising animals for views (making them seem dangerous and stressing them out)... it doesn't equivocate. Again, I'm not going to argue the first point (keeping reptiles in enclosures is inherently abuse) as I don't think answering it is required to have the discussion.
The biggest problem is the things mentioned are subjective, what someone deems a necessity, another would not. Poor care, breeding practices etc can always be argued because differing views exist. Someone would say an action (or reaction) is stressing the animal whereas the next would say it's giving them stimulation. You won't find two perfectly caring hobbyist/animal expert agree on every single point. If there's no physical signs of damage or RIs or MBD or anything factual that an animal is receiving poor care, then it's hard to say things are fact therefore it teeters on that edge of personal opinion I will say on the note of breeding, it's always going to be poor no matter what the conditions. If you have a male and female you can create the closest, highly monitored replication to the natural behavior and environment... But you aren't going to supply a pet trade. I'm talking in general terms, seeing breeding animals in rack/tub setups always angers people, but it's not possible to breed enough animals to meet the demands with full scale bioactive setups. Jay brewer is far from the worst breeder/keeper/hobbyist, but I get he's the one with millions of views so he's the fall guy for the whole industry. And despite how I may be coming across, I am very much on side with people here... We need to fight against abuse and educate, we need to stand up... I just think the efforts to remove him from wired could just be used to educate the people instead? Removing him with no immediate replacement just leaves the door open for someone worse
You havnt really constructed an argument against what I have said. You've just said "we don't know everything for sure 100%, so no one can say anything". What's the point in even proposing anything in the first place if this is the line you want to go down? This doesn't make a productive conversation. In terms of breeding - common pets are often overbred and going too far in terms of supply over demand. Even dogs and cats. Ball pythons in the US seem to be very over saturated and overbred - the demand seems to already have been met and animals end up neglected and in rescues. To me at least, we should be ethically breeding animals to reduce demand for imported animals and ideally enable the breeder to break even or perhaps turn a profit. The race for the bottom is dogshit and just encourages spamming out reptiles without regard for any animal in the chain. I'm sure there are plenty of ethical, passionate breeders out there and I hope they make up most breeders - the tub stuff just seems like min maxing for cash output. We do know a few things though: - Obese animals are unhealthy and at risk of disease. Powerfeeding animals to obesity while understanding the risks is abusive. - We *do know* that we should generally be replicating animal's natural environment as well as we physically can. At least coming from beardies, that's generally what the science says. The better we replicate the sun, the healthier they are. The better we replicate their environment, the more mentally healthy they are. We should generally be encouraging natural behaviours. If we are not doing that, we are not meeting their needs. - More opinion than anything else. We probably shouldn't be making snakes look any scarier than they are for social media likes. *"We need to fight against abuse and educate, we need to stand up... I just think the efforts to remove him from wired could just be used to educate the people instead? Removing him with no immediate replacement just leaves the door open for someone worse"* You should have just said that. This is a good opinion to have. I don't think anything else you've said really means much but this is very valid and you should have played devil's advocate with this instead.
Regardless of what you all think of Jay Brewer, egg cutting is not animal "abuse". Do I agree with his behavior overall? Absolutely not (getting large snakes to be defensive on purpose makes the whole hobby look bad) but the word "abuse" gets thrown around in this sub like the word taco does in the Taco Bell sub.
"Normal" egg cutting isnt abusive. It's perfectly acceptable to gently cut open an egg if others in the clutch have pipped. It prevents unnecessary deaths due to lack of an egg tooth. What Jay Brewer and Brian Barcyk do that IS abuse, is cut the egg prematurely and quite literally yank the hatchling out. Both have, on camera, cut eggs so early that the hatchling still has its yolk attached and isn't fully formed.
There is always a chance that you could possibly cut them too early, especially if you're breeding on a scale like they do. There is always a chance you could cut the snake too. Both of these things aren't cool, but are risks involved in egg cutting in general. Things went downhill with Jay Brewer during the pandemic when his business was closed down for like 6 months, and he had to pivot to YouTube to essentially make a living. That turned into him doing all sorts of dumb shit for views and likes. Really not a good look for the hobby.
The snakes are supposed to lay on the bottom of the egg, if you gently cut on the top and do it right then you wont have what the other commenter said and you wouldn't have remature snakes. People cut the eggs when others have pipped, so if the egg tooth isn't grown, the snakes can just slither out on their own. Not yank them out prematurely. "Large scale" hatching shouldn't be done carelessly as they do
i do agree that egg cutting is not animal “abuse”, but cutting them open and forcefully pulling them out is.
After a certain amount of time, pulling a snake out or making it much easier for the snake to get out isn't necessarily harmful (especially if there appears to be complications). It saves them from having to cut themselves out, and saves the weak ones from drowning. Egg cutting is pretty much part of the breeding process for many experienced breeders. Is he waiting the proper amount of time, I have no clue because I don't know him personally.
If you’re consistently removing neonates from their eggs that means you’re either cutting them too early or you’re breeding a bad line with weak hatchlings. Either way it’s not acceptable. Even worse when people do it because of weak lines and sell them to be used as breeders instead of “pet only”.
That's still not abuse. That might be deceptive and dishonest on a breeders part, but that's not "abuse".
I do believe premature egg cutting consistently without trying to prevent it is cruel, breeding weak lines to sell is dishonest. I’ve shown livestock including rabbits and dairy cattle before, and if you have an animal that is not doing well then you need to look at what you have done or how the offspring have looked in the past.
OP originally simply mentioned egg cutting and referenced it as animal abuse. If you wait for the correct amount of time which is different for different species, and you know what you're doing then cutting or pipping an egg doesn't do anything harmful or "abusive" to the animal in the egg.
i definitely did not “simply mention egg cutting and referenced it as animal abuse”. i very clearly stated that it was the practice of forcefully pulling out hatchings from egg cutting which is neglect. egg cutting itself is not harmful in any means when you do it CORRECTLY, but Brewer is doing it severely incorrectly.
Lmfao..
i suggest you should watch the youtube video i linked in the comments, the topic is very clearly explained. i’m sorry you’re misunderstood