At about 6.30pm (AEST) yesterday it was reported that a man swimming in Beening Creek when he was attacked by a Crocodile and fending off the Croc by punching it in the head. He sustained wounds to his hand and wrist that were not life threatening according to police. The Department of Environment and Resource Management is currently investigating.
Officer FIRED! over Cobra pictures
Animal Control Officer Rich DuBarton was fired Friday for releasing pictures and the video you see above to the media. “I guess he didn’t like someone stealing his thunder,” Said DuBarton about the incident. He was yelled at over the phone for releasing the picture and then on Friday received a termination letter listing no reason for the termination. He also claims that Carol Wagner director of the Health dept told officers last year not to warn resident about 5 cases of rabies. DuBarton also said “I’m an animal control officer,” DuBarton said. “I’m supposed to educate the public. No one ever told me I wasn’t allowed to.” He is also a certified police K9 instructor and Animal Control Officer for Bergen County.
Why was todays show taken down and what dose it mean?
Ok so here is the blog post some have been waiting for. It all started last night. I was up half the night editing, I wanted to make today’s show perfect because to me it was a big deal. After editing and doing some more work I decided to write my semi-nightly blog. The blog was to talk about the mission of DRN, the success It has had and what the future holds. I got through the first part and just passed out,
I got up at 4AM and uploaded it, as soon as the show was uploaded I got a notification from youtube for a WGM copy write. This kinda annoyed me but was no problem. I have all the rights to the music so I filed a dispute on the claim. The video was ready to go. I started having a talk with a friend of mine, He has been helping me a lot with this project. I must admit something caught my attention and that was “When YouTube watches the video to determine the dispute, will they have a problem of the suggestive photos in it?” Not only that but in talking to my friend we determined that doing a video like this went completely agenst the DRN mission statement. Its no different than putting a cigarette commercial in a cartoon.
Because of that I just removed the video. I risked having my account suspended if YouTube had a problem with it and I am glad I realized how I was straying from the plan. I know this decision is going to hurt DRN, I know I will lose viewers but effective immediately the Herps and Chicks segment is canceled. I thank all the beautiful women that submitted photos, you are all awesome but I am sure you can see where the conflict of interest is here. One of the #1 goals of what I am doing is for hobby and community promotion, I am huge on showing kids the right way to do what so many of us are doing wrong today and I can only imagine a child’s parents walking into the room during today’s show. To be honest I would have flipped if I saw my kid watching today’s show. I still want to do something along the lines of the H&C segment but first need to plan it in a more PG fashion. OMG I also need to change the name.
Dont stop reading yet, there is more to say. One other thing came to light and that is what I am doing and am not doing. I am working to promote the hobby, community and industry. This is not done by ONLY focusing on current events so from here on out you will not only see your DRN on its new 3 day per week schedule but as I said in another blog you will start seeing a lot of other herp related videos as well show up on the channel. Again, I know this will be met with anger from some but when it comes down to it I am working for one goal and anyone who dose not like it can stop watching it. I love every viewer that has ever watched but the last thing I want to do is annoy someone for any reason.
Last but not least lets talk about quality and scheduling. As far as the daily schedule I am tossing it out the window. The show will be posted as reasonable sometime during the day. I am doing this to counter problems like I had today where the video was flagged 3 hours before it went public. I will try to get them out ASAP but if for some reason I cant then I will NO longer sweat it and simply will get it out as soon as the force that stops me will allow it. Lastly is quality, there have been some quality issues, if you remember, yesterdays video was out of focus fairly bad. I noticed this in editing but did not have time to redo it so I went ahead and put it out there. This will never happen again. If there is a quality problem I will always from here on out redo it until the quality is up and above industry expectations to the best of my ability. This means that every now and then there may be a delay is getting it up if I have to reedit and re film it all.
I greatly hope that everyone understand the gravity of the situation and realizes why I made each of these decisions. The bottom line is I was greatly swaying of course of my mission plan, I am simply putting DRN back on course of what it was designed to do. As you all know I am available via FaceBook or Twitter nearly all the time or via email. If you want to discuss these decisions further please dont hesitate to drop me a line.
Florida “No more funding for gater meat program”
The state of Florida is set to cut funding for there Alligator meat marketing program in an effort to close a rather large budget gap. The Alligator programs main goal was “determining distribution channels for sales of alligator products,” and helping Florida alligator farmers compete on the international market.
Pet snake nearly burns house down.
At 0620GMT a fire alarm alerted a family to a small fire in there home. Their pet snake had knocked a heat light down lighting the enclosure as well as the table it was sitting on fire. Fire fighters got the fire out using buckets of water. In the chaos the snake got out and was uninjured.
DRN’s success, mission, future dream’s
I wanted to talk a little tonight about the mission of DRN, the success it has been having as well as what my hopes are for the future.
The Mission Story:
I have been doing the news since 2006. I started out just posting the full text on the forum of the website I had back then. After becoming deeper obsessed with the hobby I really started paying close attention to the news and picking it apart. I got so sick and tired of always hearing the one sided bias new stories, our community had no one out there sticking up for them in the media. I then decided that I was going to take on the job. My goal was to promote the hobby, community as well as the industry to the fullest extent possible all the wile reporting from an unbiased point of view and I think I have thus far done that very well and just keep getting better at it.
The success:
Lately the success DRN has had has been amazing. Out of nowhere it just took off. I am not sure what has caused this, Not 100% sure at least but its been awesome growing as fast as DRN has. Subscribers and views on YouTube continue every day to climb higher than the day before and visitors to the website continue to climb as well. I am confident this is because a lot of people that were skeptical about what my motives were are finally coming around and know now that I am hear to promote the hobby not hurt it.
The Future:
The future is a funny thing. As I sit here and write this I can say I plan on continuing DRN for the rest of my life. As we all know times change and dreams sometimes end but I am very happy with the way things are going and still dream of the day that DRN is my full time job. Its all the viewers that really make this happen and will continue to make this happen in the future. Thanks to everyone of you.
Statement from Chuck Hurd “The actual story”.
I just received the following from Chuck explaining exactly what happens.
I was enlisted to put on a “Native venomous snakes of GA” display at the 2011 Repticon Atlanta Show. This required me to transport live venomous snakes representing this group from my home Gate City, VA to Atlanta, GA.
On Saturday night after the show, I received a phone call telling me that Wade Westbrook had been bitten by a copperhead and passed away. I later found out that the funeral arrangements were for 230pm on the following Tuesday. I had a prior engagement that kept me south of Chattanooga until that Tuesday morning, so I decided to route home thru Chattanooga to attend the funeral.
I had not had an opportunity to return to VA, so the snake display from the show was still in my position. After the funeral on Tuesday, I visited with some friends and fellow snake enthusiast in East Ridge, TN. They invited me to stay the night and I did so. The following day, we wanted to have lunch together. In order to fit everyone in my car, we removed the box containing my snake display and left it at their house.
After lunch, I returned home and dropped off my friends. I left the home to go visit another friend that lived in the local area. I was to return in a couple hours and pick up my belongings, including the snake display and return home to VA. During the time I was visiting my friend, Tennessee Wildlife Officials raided the homes of my friends, impounding some snakes belonging to them and my native GA venomous display.
Wildlife officials retrieved my card from the display box and called me. I explained that the snakes are housed in VA and I have been in GA doing a lecture on native venomous. The official told me if I would come and meet with them, we could clear everything up and he would return my snakes and allow me to take them to VA.
I agreed to meet and went to the location they asked me to meet them at. I gave them my statement and all the information they asked for. They asked me to provide names of other people in TN keeping venomous snakes, but I did not know any.
Rather than returning my snakes as promised, they placed me under arrest and took me to the Hamilton County jail. It was several hours before I could meet with the magistrate. He reviewed the charges and immediately released my on my own recognizance. After I was released, it took till early morning to process my case, because TWRA had charged me with 48 separate charges arising from my 12 snakes they had impounded.
I was finally released and I returned to my home in VA with a court date for the following week. My arrested was in no way connected to the death of Wade Westbrook. I was aware that venomous snakes could not be housed in TN, however, I was not aware that they could not be transported thru the state.