Monsters of God - An Interview with Eric Goode and Jeremy McBride about the Shadowy World of Reptile Smuggling

Friends of the show Eric Goode and Jeremy McBride join the guys to talk about their new HBO documentary series Monsters of God, all about the seedy origins of the illegal reptile trade in the United States and beyond. Then they're forced to play along with the usual T&C games in the back half of the episode. Watch this epiosode here: https://youtu.be/4AqyG7N-5TU Resources referenced: https://www.turtleconservancy.org/programs/ploughshare-tortoise https://www.aza.org/aza-safe https://www.notapet.net/ https://www.aza.org/wta-confiscations-network phoenixspeciesproject.org ~ Smalls - For a limited time, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life, when you head to https://Smalls.com/TOOTH. onX Backcountry - Click here (use hyperlink https://www.onxmaps.com/purchase/backcountry/membership?promo=tooth&utm_source=tooth_and_claw&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=bc_comm_nosoc_%5Btooth_and_claw%5D) and use promo code TOOTH to get 30% off a premium or Elite membership to onX Backcountry Dose - Ready to give your liver the support it deserves? Head to https://dosedaily.co/TOOTH or enter TOOTH to get 35% off your first subscription. Hims - To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, and more, visit https://hims.com/tooth. ~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social: Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:12Jeff Larson?

  Hello everyone. Welcome back to Tooth and Claw Podcast. We have a special episode this time and Wes, I'm just gonna let you intro it because I think you'll do a better job than me.

• 0:23Wes Larson?

  All right. Yeah. Today we are joined by some old friends of the show. Some of you loyal listeners probably remember that we were the official companion podcast for a documentary series called Chimp Crazy. It was an HBO series that focused on captive chimpanzees, a lot of colorful characters and one that essentially kidnapped a chimpanzee. And the people that made that series, they also made Tiger King and they're back at it this year with another documentary series highlighting people who keep exotic reptiles and a lot of the issues that come with that lifestyle. It's called Monsters of God. So far I'm really loving it. So joining us today are Jeremy McBride and Eric Good, the executive producers and the director of the series. Good to see both of you again.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  Hey guys.

• 1:08Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:08Jeff Larson?

  Good to see your content again too, because this is amazing.

• 1:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I mean, we might as well get that out of the way. I am just absolutely loving it. For me, like to back up a little bit, the only reoccurring dream I've had my entire life is one where I go into a pet store and then I'm like led into this back room where they have all these crazy exotic reptiles and I'm just in heaven. Like it's like the most like it's this dream that fills me with joy. What Jeff?

• 1:41Jeff Larson?

  Is there cocaine too?

• 1:42Wes Larson?

  There's no cocaine, just reptiles. Yeah. And so for me, like this show is really scratching a particular itch and I think that, you know, if I was, if I lived my life a little bit faster and looser, I could see myself in, in some of these situations that these people are in because I have that passion inside of me for reptiles. So I'm really, really enjoying the series and I, I just love that it was the next story that you wanted to tell.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  That's your, that's your dream too.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  No, no, I echo that. I just happen to be a little older than Wes and I remember the days when you didn't need to go into the back room of the reptile store, the VIP room of the reptile store with all the forbidden reptiles. When I was growing up in the late 1960s and early 70s, there were no laws. So I remember the days when it was like a cornucopia, you could go and get anything.

• 2:35Mike Smith?

  I used to have a, a back room dream too, but for video rental stores. That was my back.

• 2:41Wes Larson?

  That's your reoccurring dream?

• 2:43Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 2:45Jeff Larson?

  Wes, you wish it was still like that.

• 2:47Wes Larson?

  I don't. I'm glad that it's not. And I'm glad that it was just a dream for me. I was thinking as I was watching the show, I was like, man, I just want to hold all these animals. I want to like see all of them up close. And I feel very lucky that we are able to travel to places where we get to see them in the wild and that is enough to scratch the itch for me. And I know that there's so much that is wrong with a lot of the, the industry these days and, and we're going to talk about that. But, um, I am curious why this was the next story that both of you wanted to tell, why this was your next project following Chimp Crazy.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  Well, it wasn't, that was not intended. We started making this story in the beginning and we got sidetracked with, you know, tigers and big cats and chimps. So this was the first thing that we set out to do over 14 years ago or 12 years ago, I should say, you know, so this was the beginning and then it just took us all those years to finish Monsters of God. But this was my personal love, something that I've followed since I was a young kid. So I followed it for well over half a century, the reptile world in the US. And so Monsters of God is, is really sort of tangentially and not so tangentially a part of my life.

• 4:02Jeff Larson?

  That makes sense. Actually, it feels like reptiles would kind of be more at the center of the Venn diagram of exotic animal trade. With your two previous shows, there's always someone with reptiles, you know, and like there'll be big cats, there'll be chimpanzees, but there's always like reptiles in the center of it all, I feel like.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Well, it's a lot easier to keep reptiles than a chimpanzee. And it's also easier to find reptiles everywhere than a chimpanzee. And, you know, tigers, you know, you gotta have money or a lot of roadkill to get enough meat to feed your tigers. So reptiles are a little bit more manageable typically.

• 4:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Also, I think, I think a lot of it also was, we like these character worlds. I mean, within these character worlds, each one has, each sort of animal enthusiast has their own pathology and that pathology is expressed in a lot of different ways in these different worlds. I think in like tigers, it's ego and chimpanzees is attachment and these kind of anthropomorphic reactions and emotions. And in this, it's more this sort of like extreme collector culture, you know, the people that want the rarest of the rare people that will do anything for it, um, no matter the consequence.

• 5:17Jeff Larson?

  People who just like selling, like money. Yeah.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  You know, it's not this animal, you know, I've explained this before, but it's not just kind of this animal love gone wrong. It's, it's in this case, there's a real smuggling economy within it that kind of operates beneath this.

• 5:34Jeff Larson?

  It's exciting.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  It's exciting. Yeah. It's exciting.

• 5:37Wes Larson?

  Well, even, even watching the show, there was stuff that you guys showed where I was like, man, that's a beautiful lizard. Like I want to see that, you know, that lizard. And so I, I get it. This, I think of all the three, you know, comparing the, the three different series, the pathology in this one is the one that is like in my lizard brain, quote unquote, like that. I feel it, that desire to see all these incredible animals and to have them in front of you. So it is really intoxicating in a, in a weird way.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Oh yeah. I, I would be the biggest hypocrite if I didn't say, I want to see a pink iguana. I want to see, you know, learn how to breed a Fiji island banded iguana. I want to have, I learn about this. It's like a cornucopia. And yeah, I, I'm the same as you Wes in that regard. A tiger can't even give away an adult tiger. So a lot of people don't understand that reptiles are much more valuable. There, there are reptiles that have a very high price on their head in the international exotic animal trade. Things like pink Galapagos land iguanas, if you could even get one, Fiji island iguanas, um, you know, certain crocodilians, gouraels that are, you

• 6:51Speaker 03

  know, very coveted in the reptile trade, certain tortoises, like the Plowshare tortoise. And there's some turtles actually that are so endangered that people will pay into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars, like species that were thought to be extinct, like the Hunan box turtle, that I've never even seen one in real life. And very few people in the Western world have ever seen one because it was thought to be extinct for the last half century and rediscovered not so long ago. So there's reptiles that are much more valuable than people realize. And a lot of our American reptiles, especially turtles, once they get, you know, across the oceans, they become extremely valuable.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  And what sort of enables that value is they're extremely portable. You know, we, we reference them as nature with handles. People can put them in their carry-ons, feed them very little, they can withstand long travel and it's.

• 7:44Wes Larson?

  They're not making a lot of noise.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it's, it's very interesting. Like, you know, literally, you know, stealing nature and putting it in your suitcase.

• 7:54Jeff Larson?

  I wanted to bring up that like very opening scene before we get like too far into everything too, because like I've watched all of your content and then the first two episodes of Monsters of God. And I think that's the most intense nervous thing I've seen so far from what you've put out is just like, that guy just takes out a king cobra that wants to bite him and is like, like I hear you guys telling him like, hey, be careful, like.

• 8:27Speaker 03

  Are you rolling the dice? And he says, I'm not rolling the dice. And.

• 8:32Wes Larson?

  I know what the hell I'm doing.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know what the hell I'm doing. And that guy's name is Al Killian and he's based in Homestead, Florida at a, uh, kind of a roadside zoo down there. And he lives in a bunker with no windows and just full of hot snakes, which is venomous snakes. And he freehandels his, you know, rattlesnakes, he freehandels that king cobra. That is not something I recommend. You know, we've heard of, I don't know if you know the story of Joe Solinsky who died in Myanmar from a bite, a snake bite. And there's been other people that have died in the US. There was this guy in South Carolina, not so long ago that got bit by his inland typhoon, one of

• 9:13Speaker 03

  the most dangerous venomous snakes from Australia. And so, you know, freehandling snakes, I've done it in my life. I've been bitten by rattlesnakes. I don't encourage it. I did not get bit freehandling, but I got bit in a different, a different way. But yeah, that opening scene is, uh, he's, he's, he's, uh, rolling the dice.

• 9:34Mike Smith?

  I like how he acknowledges, I forget what episode he talks about it, but he's like, I'm married to these animals and specifically about the king cobra. He's like, he hates me. Yeah. I love him, but he hates me.

• 9:46Speaker 03

  I'm most intimate with my king cobra, but he hates me.

• 9:49Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I briefly just wanted to talk then about, you know, kind of a very brief overview of the show, the two episodes that are out. But basically, in those two episodes, we kind of see the history of reptile trafficking in the United States. The first episodes deals like with the two men who had these kind of competing reptile empires as it burgeoning within the United States. And then both of them come under legal scrutiny. And then in the second episode, we kind of meet the guy who took over. And he was a little bit, he seemed like he was a little bit more willing to go down a darker path. He was collaborating with people that were also moving drugs and guns and other dangerous characters. And

• 10:31Wes Larson?

  something that I found really interesting in those early episodes is how basically before the Endangered Species Act, there just really wasn't anything stopping these people from doing this. It was kind of just like the Wild West. And then after the passage of the Endangered Species Act, it still seemed like a lot of people didn't really care because it was just snakes and lizards.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  I was just gonna say Wes.

• 10:53Wes Larson?

  Important. Yeah.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  It didn't make a difference. They even thought it was more challenging after the Endangered Species Act. It was more fun. It was like Catch Me If You Can with Hank Roy.

• 11:03Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah. Ray was like, that indigo snake. Once they said it was illegal, that's the one I wanted.

• 11:09Wes Larson?

  Right.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Well, that's the unintended consequences of a lot of our laws today when it comes to CITES 1 versus CITES 2. It actually creates more demand and it actually doesn't, the end effect is not what the law was intended to do at all. That's why these laws are very complicated and we have to really think.

• 11:30Wes Larson?

  Create value.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  When we uplist a species, because then it creates more demand for the species. And our story, once you get further into it, you'll see that we get into law enforcement and all of these kind of unintended consequences. We may have the best intentions, but they don't always, you know, pan out the way we want.

• 11:47Wes Larson?

  That's a lot of like, you know, what they say, visibility, you know, paradox. And also like, it's no different than rare baseball card or a rare book. You know, I think there's a, there's a market for things that are forbidden and have a very low supply.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  And you can look at the parallels of the drug trade in this country, all the different things we do in terms of interdiction and stopping it. When there's such a demand, it's really impossible to stop.

• 12:13Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna mention that. You know, we talked about how it's kind of this cat and mouse game between law enforcement and these smugglers throughout the show. And some of them are moving drugs too. And then one of them's the biggest, like international wildlife smuggler on the planet. And I am curious, like, how hard was it to find these guys? Like, to have these people be characters in your story?

• 12:38Speaker 03

  Well, they're not hard to find. They're hard to get access to. So we knew who they were. And just to be clear, not everyone we tried to film and interview wanted to film with us. And there were some people that just never agreed to it. So, you know, some of these people took quite a number of years to finally agree to film with us. It was a waiting game oftentimes. And not twisting their arm, but just sort of being patient and trying to appeal to whatever angle seemed to be the angle that might make them talk, whether it was their ego. And it also took a lot of connections. And I should say, it wasn't only difficult to get to the so-called bad guys, but also law enforcement's very

• 13:20Speaker 03

  guarded. And they're typically very ambivalent and not so keen on talking about cases, you know, and the big zoos are also guarded. And so the whole world is guarded when it comes to the reptile world. And rightfully so, even the people that collect reptiles don't want the media into their place because they're gonna write something bad about them. They don't want animal rights groups in there. They don't want the feds in there because they might have something that's not legal. There's not many compelling reasons to have someone go into your place.

• 13:48Jeff Larson?

  Well, I'll never get over Tanya, just like being willing to talk to you and bring you into her house when she's like, actually.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Joe Exotic, where easy, easy, easy, that's the crack.

• 14:02Jeff Larson?

  They just needed the attention.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  As Jeremy said, their ego got the worst of them.

• 14:07Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Mike Smith?

  At this point, your reputation has to have, like, your names are circulating in the circles, I'm sure, after your previous work. It just makes me wonder, like Johnny Knoxville, at a certain point, Jackass couldn't exist the way it did because people were just like, everybody knew who they were. So is that ever an obstacle that you've had to overcome just because people know who you are and maybe what your past subjects have looked like in your previous work?

• 14:34Speaker 03

  No, no, sure. It's a handicap. But, you know, like Sacha Baron Cohen, he can keep finding people that fall victim to his, his Barat or his whatever. You mentioned Johnny Knoxville and Jackass, which was, by the way, a great film, the first Jackass. It's a great film because it had no narrative structure. And I gotta hand it to Johnny Knoxville for that.

• 14:56Jeff Larson?

  But like, on the reverse too, you probably have a bunch of people who watch the show and they have their own version of the story and they want to share that with you, you know? And like, the show can like bring out some stories, I'm sure, too, that you didn't even know about.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  I mean, usually if you get your foot in the door, you're 90% of the way there. Because once we start talking to them, we're pretty fluent in the world of reptiles and they start to see that we know what we're talking about. And we're not traditional journalists.

• 15:29Wes Larson?

  Most of the people we cover unfortunately end up going to jail, though. That's sort of the, the.

• 15:33Mike Smith?

  That's what, right.

• 15:34Wes Larson?

  That's the rub. Are we going to jail?

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Cautionary tale, Wes.

• 15:39Wes Larson?

  Let's be careful.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  If you talk to us too long, you might find yourself behind bars. Seriously. We're really talented at that.

• 15:48Wes Larson?

  Thankfully.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  We'll plant an endangered Caribbean land iguana in your apartment.

• 15:55Wes Larson?

  We're so, we're so good at it. We don't even have to wait until the show comes out. It happens sometimes during production. And so even one of our main characters, which is in episode three, he literally, while we were filming him for two years, was under investigation for a wildlife crime. And then literally goes to jail for eight months and then comes back and then continues interviewing with us. This guy named.

• 16:15Jeff Larson?

  That's incredible.

• 16:16Wes Larson?

  So, you know, you never know what you're gonna get. I'm a pretty unlikely cat dad. I have allergies to cats. I always avoided them because of that. But when I started dating Jessie, she came with a cat. And I absolutely love my cat now. I can't get enough of him. He is just the heart and soul of our house. And that's why we feed him Smalls. Smalls is fresh cat food, which is protein-packed recipes made with preservative-free, 100% human-grade ingredients you'd find in your fridge. And it's delivered right to your door. I mean, I don't want to eat cat food, but if I had to eat a cat food, I would definitely eat Smalls because it is fresh, gently cooked food made without preservatives. And it gives your cat a balanced diet. There's gonna be

• 16:59Wes Larson?

  less shedding, fewer hairballs, more silky shine to their fur, and more of the nutrients in Smalls food are digestible. So less junk is coming out the other end, which means your cat is gonna have less stinky poop. And if you have a cat, you know how important that is. Forbes ranked Smalls the best overall cat food. After switching to Smalls, 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements. But you don't need me to sell you. Stop serving your little carnivore a bowl of processed shortcuts. For a limited time, because you're a Tooth and Claw listener, you'll get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com/tooth. That's 60% off your first

• 17:43Wes Larson?

  order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com/tooth. Where's that rattlesnake story you told me about the mailbox?

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was a commune called Synanon when.

• 17:56Wes Larson?

  The Synanon. We've done that story.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  Killed this journalist for putting a rattlesnake in his mailbox. You know, I was around in Northern California when that happened, and that was big news. Trying to kill someone with a rattlesnake isn't a fun way to kill someone.

• 18:11Wes Larson?

  We covered that one. That was a gnarly one. And the guy survived. But it was the northern Pacific or Southern Pacific rattlesnake. It has a really, really bad, okay, yeah, really bad cocktail of venom. So it was a bad one.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Well, I've been bitten by Southern Pacific. It's not fun. It's got.

• 18:27Wes Larson?

  That was the one that got you?

• 18:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's got both hemotoxin and neurotoxin. And it, it basically makes you stop breathing. And it, it's less about the necrosis and more about, you know, basically dying slowly from, you know, asphyxiation, basically. Yeah.

• 18:44Wes Larson?

  We'd love to hear that story briefly.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  The quick story is, I was hiking in river sandals in the mountains right above here in the Los Padres at magic hour, looking for snakes. And this snake bit me and I didn't even see it. I was bushwhacking. Don't bushwhack with river sandals in the summer when snakes are out, especially magic hour when they're coming out. They love it sort of at that time of day. They don't like the heat of the day. And I stepped in a place where I felt like two exactor knives went into my foot. And I looked down and I saw the snake retracting into a rodent burrow. And I was like, oh, okay, I got bit. And then 15 minutes later, 10 minutes later, you taste a metallic taste in your mouth. And then an hour later, you're on a gurney in a hospital. And then an hour after that, if you're lucky, someone

• 19:31Speaker 03

  gets antivenom. And in those days, the antivenom isn't what it is today. And then you get serum sickness when you get out of the hospital. And then you're sicker than you ever want to be in your entire life. And it's a really bad story getting bit by a Southern Pacific rattlesnake. And it has some of the properties of a Mojave rattlesnake. So, because they kind of integrate almost Mojaves and Southern Pacific. So they're still trying to figure out the taxonomy of all these kind of rattlesnakes. The Southern Pacifics used to be under the blanket prairie rattlesnakes, Cortalis hillirae. And now they're breaking them up. But rattlesnakes, they bite, they, it's literally like hypodermic beetle, but they, they bite and let go faster than you can see.

• 20:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  Because they bite their prey, they let go, and then their heat pits follow the rodent that then collapses within X amount of feet. But they never hold on like a, you know, like in HeLa monster.

• 20:23Jeff Larson?

  Like in the movies.

• 20:24Speaker 03

  Well, rattlesnakes and pit vipers never hold on. They raise bite and release and they do it so quickly. And this whole, you know, the old days, those kits that they used to give you to suck the venom out and cut yourself and put a turp, you know, that would throw you up even more than, you know, had you done nothing. So.

• 20:40Wes Larson?

  I'd love to know the person who invented that. It's Johnson and Johnson product, by the way.

• 20:44Jeff Larson?

  Right.

• 20:45Wes Larson?

  We were buying them for promo merch.

• 20:47Jeff Larson?

  Really?

• 20:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they're incredible. It's like a relic. Yeah, I remember as a Boy Scout, in the handbook, it said to cut and suck. Like, that was the, the thing it told us to do. And then a lot of that information is, has perpetuated. And we always tell people, the two things you want with a snake bite are your phone and your keys. Like, those are the things you need. Outside of that, everything else is pretty much useless besides just staying calm and getting, you know, getting to help as quickly as possible. So.

• 21:15Jeff Larson?

  That one guy in Yosemite. He, he needed that helicopter too.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  He needs a helicopter.

• 21:22Wes Larson?

  Three things.

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Don't wait too long. If, if you have to make the calculation that helicopter is going to come in three hours and I can get to a hospital in two hours by walking and getting in my car, absolutely walk and get in your car and get to the hospital. Don't, the more time that goes by, the more serious the whole thing gets. So you gotta make that calculation of like, just get to a hospital. And I'm talking if you're bitten by a rattlesnake. If you're bitten by something like a water moccasin or a cottonmouth or some less venomous snakes, it's a different story. But, but most rattlesnakes in this country get to a hospital. And remember, red against black is a friend of Jack. Black against yellow kills a fellow, doesn't hold up. That's only true with

• 22:09Speaker 03

  our coral snakes. But when you start going around the world and into, you know, Central America, coral snakes don't have the same patterns. So a lot of the things that people learn about what's venomous and not venomous doesn't hold up.

• 22:21Wes Larson?

  Most of us aren't named Jack either. How did the snake bite compare to like what you were expecting it? Because I'm sure you had some preconceived notions about what a venomous bite would feel like, that what that experience would be like. Was it worse?

• 22:34Speaker 03

  I, I never thought about what a snake bite would feel like. I've been bit by a lot of, you know, non venomous snakes. That's no big deal. Unless you get bit by, you know, some constrictors or pythons that have really serious hooked teeth like a, like a fish hook. But most snake bites I've ever had in my life were native snakes to the US and the bites weren't bad. So I didn't know what to expect. I, I was very surprised about the metallic taste in my mouth. That was kind of like, okay, this is not a dry bite. Okay, this is real. And I was surprised about the neurotoxin, because I thought, you know, the, the doctor that came to me even said to me, which wasn't very comforting, that the last person in here that got bit by a snake

• 23:17Speaker 03

  lost his finger. Because you don't want to get bit on a digit, because the swelling and the necrosis can kill your finger, basically rot off. If you want to get bit on a bigger part of your broader part of your body, so that the necrosis has room, so you don't lose a digit or, or a toe. Um, I learned that from this doctor, which was not very, not really the best thing to say to someone.

• 23:39Wes Larson?

  Not the best bedside manner.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  I also tell you, bring the snake. And I said, it's not the snake's fault that I got bit. I'm not gonna kill the snake and bring the snake. Take your picture, that if you're in Southern California, coastal Southern California, there's only one venomous snake. Unless you get down to San Diego where you get red diamondback rattlesnakes and others. Anyway.

• 24:00Wes Larson?

  Speaking of, of dangerous things, another question I had for you guys about this series is you're warned multiple times by law enforcement not to talk to certain people. Uh, you have people explicitly telling you that they are dangerous people and not to be troubled with. So I'm curious if you ever felt like you were in danger with that.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Your parents have to talk to certain kids since high school or girls. And you did it anyway.

• 24:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  But someone says, don't talk to that, whatever. Sometimes it makes you want to talk to them even more.

• 24:29Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  We had, uh, I think the, like, if you can imagine, we have lots of different production, safety, protocol, expectations. We have like insurance, we have lawyers. There's some people that help. But in, in most of the time, I think we get feedback from peers, in this one case, one law enforcement officer is just like, you know, was more, what was the scarier, the scarier part is people he feared the most were the ones that he least expected. And the Anson Wong example, we talked to this guy, George Morrison, that's not in the film. And part of that was him describing to us, he's gonna pretend to be your friend. He's a very kind of like, you know, joyful guy, and he's very smooth, but he's the type that could kill you.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  And I think that was sort of the, the idea that was most frightening.

• 25:17Wes Larson?

  But then Eric just left the next day, went to Malaysia.

• 25:19Speaker 03

  Well, but you use common sense. Most people kill people for a reason. And walking into Mario's compound or Anson Wong's, they don't just come out and shoot you. They kill people when they're gonna talk against them when they're going to trial. They kill people when they're, you know, taking their drug route. So, you know, there's reasons.

• 25:39Jeff Larson?

  Wired informant.

• 25:40Wes Larson?

  I think when they make a documentary about them that millions of people see.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  You know, so even if they've killed people in their past, they, they probably had some twisted reason for killing them. There was really no reason for them to want to go after me. But of course, when you're talking to these people, you know, oftentimes they're very smart. Anson Wong speaks, I don't know how many languages and went to some of the best schools in Europe and is a very clever, smart guy. That's why he was so successful and became one of the world's most successful wildlife smugglers. He's not an idiot, but at the same time, you know, and I don't know the first thing about profiling people and how you've, you know, how you read people and when you know if they're doing something with their eyes or their, you know, their, their body language that made them want to do something. So I think naivete helps. I think naivete helps.

• 26:31Wes Larson?

  Yeah, yeah. Pretty good compass. Yeah.

• 26:32Speaker 03

  What?

• 26:33Wes Larson?

  You have a good compass. Yeah.

• 26:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you know.

• 26:36Wes Larson?

  No, it's impressive. A thing that I thought of too, because I've seen all the episodes and I watched the interview with Anson Wong. And I know how passionate you are, Eric, about conservation, about reptiles specifically. So was it hard to have those conversations with someone that you know is kind of like, is doing some of the most harm possible to wild populations of those animals? Like, how, how do you control your own emotions in that moment?

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Look, again, common sense. When you're talking with someone who has lived the life that Anson Wong has lived, and he says things to you like, nothing's endangered, you know, there's nothing in danger. I can get a panda bear.

• 27:14Wes Larson?

  You a panda. Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. You can't sit there and be like, so argumentative and so dismissive. And so you kind of have to, you know, let him talk. And, and of course, I'm sitting there thinking that, you know, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Is that before or after he suggested he killed his driver?

• 27:33Wes Larson?

  That was a chilling, a chilling moment.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  The driver comment came at the end of all the interviews with him. I think I interviewed Anson Wong for two days. And then the second day, he drove me down into the city of Penang and just offhandedly told me about killing his driver. But

• 27:48Wes Larson?

  He said it in like a

• 27:49Speaker 03

  But again, his driver deserved it because his driver went to the authorities and turned him in. I'm kidding. I didn't do that. I'm kidding.

• 28:00Wes Larson?

  We know you're kidding. Yeah.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  No, you kind of have to, it, look, whenever you interview these kind of people, and Wes, I'm sure you've done this at times, you kind of have to just let them talk. And you can't sit there and just contradict them all the time.

• 28:14Wes Larson?

  No, it, it's, it's like a testament to what you guys do though, because I think that is how you tell a, a balanced story and a story that lets the viewer kind of make their own ideas about it. And I just think it's, it's impressive because I think it would be really hard. Like, if I was talking with someone that was doing bear bile farming, I would have a hard time not strangling them. Because I just think that's like one of the most evil things a person can do. So I think it's impressive that you have that composure because you know that the film, the final version of the film is going to be much more impactful than anything else.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  You're trying to talk sense into someone. And there's real stakes that, that are occurring right at that moment. And that, for example, are times like Joe Exotic, when he was in prison during the trial, and the government said to Joe, you know, you can either do seven years, or you're gonna go to trial and, and see what happens. He should have taken the seven year deal with the feds because he's been in prison for nine years, and he's looking at another, uh, what is it, 12 more years in prison. He's gonna be an old man by that time. Tanya Haddix with her chimp. Jeremy and I really tried to help Tanya after Chimp Crazy, uh, came out and tried to guide her and try to tell her, look, if you do certain

• 29:32Speaker 03

  things and don't keep doing this and try to show some contrition and, you know, and then of course, she didn't do any of those things. And she's now in prison. So those are the moments where you're really like struggling with people that are their own worst enemy and end up in prison. And Joe's sitting in prison right now as we talk on this. Those are times where I think I really just wish sometimes my words would

• 29:57Wes Larson?

  Sink in.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  be meaningful to those people. You know what I mean?

• 30:01Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Um, well, I, I know we wanted to talk about some other stuff here. One of the things that I'm just really curious, now that you guys, you know, have met all these people and you've been immersed in this world for so long, I am curious about kind of whether or not people can keep reptiles ethically. Like what kind of you feel about, your personal feelings about the reptile world and where those, those lines kind of lie when it comes to keeping reptiles?

• 30:28Speaker 03

  I, I would just say this as a starter, for both zoos around the world and people in the private sector that keep exotic animals. If you're a zoo and you're based in Arizona, like the Sonora Desert Museum, you know, you're in the right environment to keep chuckwallas and certain rattlesnakes that are from that area. If, if you have a big enough setup and you're in the ecological environment, I think a lot of it has to do with where you're located and if you can give the animal that you're caring for enough space and a quality of life that mimics their natural habitat. It's never going to be perfect, but I think keeping reptiles nurtures something in young kids to eventually become conservationists later in life, you

• 31:11Speaker 03

  know. And so I just think that zoos, the private sector, we can all be smarter and better. And I'll just say one thing, at the Singapore Zoo one time, which is a great zoo in Asia, probably the best zoo in all of Asia, you know, I saw a polar bear there that was green because it had a, you know, like a moss growing all over it, even though they had a refrigerated area for the polar bear to go into. But when it was outside in the tropical, humid, high humidity, hot environment, it got this kind of, I don't know what you call it, like a

• 31:41Wes Larson?

  Like a slop. Yeah.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. It was like, the poor polar bear was living in a place that it shouldn't be living.

• 31:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I do, I think that's interesting.

• 31:50Jeff Larson?

  That's kinda fun.

• 31:51Mike Smith?

  That is fun.

• 31:52Wes Larson?

  New species.

• 31:53Jeff Larson?

  That's the ninth type, yeah.

• 31:55Wes Larson?

  Uh, I like that answer. I do, I do think like people should be really careful though, if you're keeping an animal in an environment that it can thrive in, because that's like kind of, you know, what we're seeing in Florida now is, is a lot of animals that have gotten out and they are able to thrive in the place where they get out. And I do think, like, I have a ball python in Montana. If it gets out, it's not lasting very long in Montana, and that is kind of a safeguard. So I do think, just adding to your answer there, if you are gonna keep something in a place like that, make sure it can't get out, because that can create a lot of havoc. Uh, another thing I wanted to bring up is something you mentioned, I think, in episode two or three, about how when

• 32:36Wes Larson?

  Jurassic Park came out, there was this huge boom in reptile sales, because everyone wanted, you know, a little dinosaur in their house. Should've gone a bird, in my opinion, but, uh, anyway, uh, they all wanted an iguana, or they wanted something else. Uh, and I am curious to hear a little bit about what role you think pop culture does play in this specific trade, and, and if you were seeing other booms currently from pop culture in the reptile trade.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Uh, well, I think I was a victim of that. I, I had a green iguana. I was a suburban, you know, Michigan nineties kid, you know, I, I had.

• 33:14Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I had one too.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  It was something, it's hard to report on it, the accuracy, but it's more than half of the green iguanas in the US came from this guy, Mike Van Nostrand, Strictly Reptiles.

• 33:24Wes Larson?

  Wow.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  South Florida. We've heard upwards of eighty percent. Um, but he was supplied to every pet shop in America. He was selling five thousand iguanas a week.

• 33:32Wes Larson?

  That's incredible.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  You have these like, you have these sort of paradoxical effects that occur, and I think there was a lot of, like, it was nineties, nineties and like, animals and entertainment were like synonymous. They were everywhere. So I, I don't know, I think there's a, there's a huge like pulse to that also, like, everyone wanted their pet dinosaur, and Jurassic Park lent itself to that subject matter in a really great way. So I, I, I think this show, by the way, hopefully does create a very positive message for, you know, as Eric says, this sort of like progression in the industry, but, you know, there are gonna be people that want these cool animals that they're seeing on screen that they've never seen before, uh, and they know who to get it from.

• 34:13Jeff Larson?

  Well, I know, even Zootopia two, right? The blue and solaris, people had a bigger demand for those after that came out.

• 34:21Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Yeah, the Komodo pit vipers. Yeah, we have those at our shows, beautiful ones.

• 34:26Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I think, I think though, just to echo then what Eric said earlier, like, make sure you're getting something that's legal. If you do decide you want to have a reptile, make sure you're capable of taking care of it. I mentioned I have a ball python. It's really hard to get its enclosure humid enough in Montana. That is a constant struggle for me, and those are things you need to think about before you take on one of these kind of animals. So just make sure you do your research, because otherwise, you can enjoy them on the show, you can go out and see them in the wild, maybe, but maybe, the other thing that I just wanted to mention is reptile pets get a little boring after a while. You kind of, after they lose their luster, it's kind of like, you're thinking about what's next, because you've kind of gotten tired

• 35:11Wes Larson?

  of the reptile that you already have. And it's not like a dog where you're getting this constant kind of emotional back and forth, at least for me. So just think about it.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  That's a good point. A lot of people start with the gateway drug of reptiles, which could be a bearded dragon, leopard gecko, ball python. Then they get bored of it, and they want the next rush. They want something a little more challenging, and they want a children's python, or a diamond python, or a, or a woma, or a whatever. And then they want, you know, Caribbean rock iguana, and they want a rhino iguana, and they just keep ratcheting it up, and, and that's the problem.

• 35:46Wes Larson?

  You've got a king cobra that hates you.

• 35:47Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, that one didn't seem boring.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  I agree to a king cobra, but, but certain states allow that, my friend, but you gotta, you know, that's the collateral damage that no one talks about, that, you know, you get bored of this reptile, and what happens to it? Then you get the next one, then what happens to that one? And that's why they're kind of like disposable pets. Sadly, there's been a history of, starting with the little green red-eared sliders that used to be sold in the sixties and seventies in every store in America, including Woolworths, and every, every place in the country, you could buy your little green turtle with its, your little palm, fake palm tree, and a little, uh, kidney-shaped plastic pool to put your turtle in. And ninety-nine percent of them died, and your mother flushed them down the toilet. And it, and it just went on from there. Then people

• 36:34Speaker 03

  bought a corn snake, and then a bearded dragon, and then this, and then a leopard gecko. And they wouldn't live long, and people would discard them as if they're a broken toy. And that's what's not spoken about. You don't do that with your dog, your cat, your horse. You don't treat them like they're this disposable creature. They're, they're part of the family. And so, part of our story in this show, Monsters of God, and by the way, the monsters are really us, right? But the show is really to try to, you know, hopefully, show people that reptiles are incredibly beautiful, and, you know, should be revered, and that they're disappearing at a frightening rate, and many are critically endangered, and some have gone extinct under our watch, of course. And don't treat them like they're broken toys, that you could just

• 37:18Speaker 03

  go out and buy another one, and another one, and another one. But yeah, that's to your point about being, getting bored and wanting the next and the next. But it's not a good pattern.

• 37:26Jeff Larson?

  I got a chameleon when I was in college, and like, I didn't have an enclosure ready for it. I didn't have much of anything. I just went to a reptile show. They had a really cool chameleon that I wanted, and they were like, you should buy it. And it's like, they gave me the assumption that, like, I was ready to have this chameleon, you know? But really, they just wanted more sales. I figured it out. He had a pretty good life, but like, he's in the desert with a broke college kid, so I could have definitely done better too, so. But my point is more just like, you don't really realize that it's a business when you're buying it, you know? Like, they're just trying to make money selling these reptiles a lot of the time.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  You also don't realize that the enclosure, the lights, the food, all the stuff you need for your chameleon costs more than the very chameleon you bought. You know, get the enclosure and the setup first, and then buy your chameleon next time.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  But Jeff, you're perfect, you have the perfect temperament for chameleon.

• 38:29Jeff Larson?

  Well, I bought like a pretty bad, cheap enclosure, but then I bought a fake tree, and I just left him out. So he did all right. He liked the tree. What do you mean, I have the temperament?

• 38:42Speaker 02

  I think you're, like, I think, I think, I think of, when I look at.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  Jeff, he saw your sticky tongue come out and grab, grab that, that tongue out of your table.

• 38:50Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, we would share crickets.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  You got a vibe, you got a chameleon vibe.

• 38:53Speaker 03

  The way your eyes look.

• 38:55Jeff Larson?

  Oh, you're just saying physically I look like a chameleon.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I think, I think it's like.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  You're a S E X Y chameleon.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, your sex appeal, your sex appeal. I think you have, I think they're really chill, like creatures. They're really kind of.

• 39:09Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  You better stop while you're at it.

• 39:12Wes Larson?

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• 39:53Wes Larson?

  topo maps, so you have true-to-life elevation and terrain detail, which is just amazing if you're hiking, skiing, mountain biking, or climbing. You can see if there's wildfires in the area, uh, whether or not there's campsites around. Honestly, I can't think of a more perfect mapping app for backcountry users, or even frontcountry users, if you're looking for the best trails in your area. And then the thing that I'm really excited about, especially for Tooth and Claw listeners, is their newly launched SOS feature. With OnX SOS, you're gonna get professional 24/7 rescue coordination, emergency evacuation and medical transport coverage, search and rescue coverage, two-way communication with trained coordinators, and

• 40:36Wes Larson?

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• 41:20Wes Larson?

  Well, I know we had some other questions. Mike, you had a question about the soundtrack, right?

• 41:25Mike Smith?

  Oh, um, yeah, maybe this is more of like a production question and I don't want to keep the conversation going longer than it has to, but I did like a double and then a triple take when the credits started rolling after episode one, because saw one of the producers was Josh Safdie. I was like, hey, and then Slash came up too. And I was like, wow, that I did just like, I didn't really, I wasn't expecting to see those two people attached. Is that because they are interested in reptiles themselves? Or did they just get attached some other way?

• 41:56Speaker 03

  No, I had a long history with Josh and his brother, the Safdie brothers and Josh going way back before this project started. And he had no interest in reptiles, but I basically got Josh and his brother filming people holding turtles like Christopher Walken, Slash, and other notable people. And Slash is a reptile guy. He's a real snake guy. And ultimately, we were able to get some riffs from Slash for the soundtrack. Josh got involved in the show more as a producer. And like I said, we've done many short PSAs and we made a little short film years and years ago before he did obviously Marty Supreme,

• 42:39Speaker 03

  which he was up for an Oscar for this year or this past year. But, um, yeah, anyway, I have a long history with the Safdie brothers going back 20 years.

• 42:47Mike Smith?

  It might just be subconscious thinking, but when I saw Josh pop up in the credits, I was like, that actually makes a lot of sense because you can kind of feel that anxiety and the tension in these episodes specifically. I don't know, I just felt a little bit of his energy, whether that was like a very light touch.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  Their biggest note was they wanted to be faster.

• 43:07Speaker 03

  Well, we, listen, Josh, Josh Safdie and, and

• 43:11Speaker 02

  Ronnie, yeah.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  Well, all of us have a similar sensibility.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  So it just so happens that when Josh and I started working together, there was just sort of a, I don't know, like a, you know, we kind of thought the same way. Not that I'm like a filmmaker like Josh Safdie, but there was some sympatico, if you will, on the way we wanted to make films. And so that, uh, what you're looking at in the series just happened to be something that we both kind of like this kind of freewheeling way of doing things, less, less controlled.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 43:44Jeff Larson?

  Mike, that's kind of how I felt seeing Ben in the Odyssey credits. I was like, wait, like, what? He was in this?

• 43:52Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I didn't, I didn't know who he was either.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, Eddie's

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's good. He's good.

• 43:59Mike Smith?

  He's amazing.

• 44:00Wes Larson?

  So I think we'll, I think we'll kind of move on to our categories and that'll give us a chance to talk a little bit more about the show, uh, in a more free form kind of way. And then I do want to end on a bit of a conservation note. So we have that ahead of us. But before we go there, Jeff and Mike, do you guys have any other questions you wanted to ask them about Monsters of God?

• 44:21Jeff Larson?

  I just want to ask about what was the more alarming collection you saw someone have? Because I noticed Loveless had a whole collection of guns, the, the law enforcement person that you worked with. You've gone into this world of people who are so obsessed with collections. I guess my question would be like, have, what's the most interesting fascination with a collection you've experienced?

• 44:48Speaker 03

  Well, you know, when you're in Thailand or Indonesia or Malaysia or anywhere in Asia, you can see things that you never could see in the United States because they don't have the same type of laws and legislation. So, you know, some of the animals we had to film in Bangkok, because you couldn't get to them in the United States because people just didn't have them readily available. So in Bangkok, we could get close up and personal with Komodo dragons, with Fiji island iguanas, with certain pythons that he had in the US. Um, you know, so it's, you know, sort of the wild, wild west and you can see things like kitty pongs, um, private zoo at his house. He had everything from flamingos

• 45:33Speaker 03

  to these massive crocodilians and gharals that were huge and huge soft shell turtles that were 400 pounds that were in these aquariums in his living room. There's some people that have just ridiculous animals like marine iguanas, like, you know, and you talk about, there's certain animals you just shouldn't have in captivity because you can't recreate the Pacific Ocean and the Galapagos Islands to be able to have marine iguanas with the right diet, but people have them. Um, and so those were some of the most outrageous collections in other parts of the world.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  It also sort of, it sort of just also on like the degree in which the excess relates to their own capacity. Like, you know, I, my mind was going to like, not this show, but like Sandy Harrell, you know, she had this like extent, we saw these photos of her room. She had just like thousands of pairs of unworn jeans.

• 46:28Jeff Larson?

  Oh, wow.

• 46:29Mike Smith?

  That's a red flag.

• 46:30Speaker 02

  All these like, it was like an entire closet full of like, you know, Marshall department store jeans.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  After her chimp Travis was killed, she basically sort of medicated herself with shopping and she just bought clothing and she just stacked it up in her house. And that was her way of kind of dealing with the loss of her chimpanzee. So that was a very bizarre solution to not having her chimp was just

• 46:59Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, it's just, yeah, almost like boredom or something where they just need to keep, like the marine iguana one, it's like, we went to the Galapagos and like, it's cool to see marine iguanas in the Galapagos, but there's nothing about them that makes you want them as a pet. Like, it's not like, I need to bring this home with me, you know?

• 47:22Wes Larson?

  Wes? That's not how I felt.

• 47:23Speaker 03

  Very easy to take a baby marine iguana and stick it into a water bottle and throw it into your luggage and, and hope for the best that you get it through. So I understand how people might smuggle them, but once you get them out of the Galapagos and you have this lizard that needs to be in the ocean, then what do you do?

• 47:39Speaker 02

  There's a boundary with something that's living. I think at the end of the day, it's like, despite what you rationalize, like, it's so hard.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  It's not, it's not cool to take a marine iguana out of the

• 47:49Mike Smith?

  Didn't remember the story we heard from, I forget who it was that was telling us. One of the crew members on our trip down to Antarctica told us the story of some woman who absconded with a penguin and just kept it in her cabin shower, just like this tiny, it's like, what is your plan here? You get back to wherever port is and it's like, then what? What are you doing?

• 48:10Jeff Larson?

  Recreate Antarctica.

• 48:12Speaker 03

  There are people that keep penguins in the US, but they're always temperate penguins. They're not usually Antarctica, you know, emperor penguins. They like South African penguins or, you know, Australian penguins. They're not, they're not really Arctic penguins.

• 48:27Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, she tried. She gave it the old college try at least.

• 48:32Mike Smith?

  Got fined a billion dollars or whatever.

• 48:34Wes Larson?

  All right. Our first category is going to be one that you guys reference in your show with Jake the Snake. And you talk about times that live reptiles were used in pop culture. So I want to ask everyone what your favorite, or if you don't feel comfortable saying favorite, your most memorable use of a live reptile in pop culture might be?

• 48:57Jeff Larson?

  I can go first real quick, just to set the tone. Uh, but I like in the first Terminator, how she has a iguana because it's just so unexpected as a pet. And it's just like, this is kind of cool.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, she has that green iguana. Yeah, exactly.

• 49:14Speaker 02

  I think in the nineties, it was, you know, like it's covered in our show, but still remains memorable again. Like wrestling was part of the fabric of my life, you know? So Jake the Snake in this famous match with Macho Man where he brings out a king cobra that was devenomized, but still had its teeth, was used as a prop in a match and, you know, bit his arm famously and created this like, just through the rubbing, it was just gushing blood. But the, the real story in, in the time when we interviewed him, what the funny part was, is just sort of the backstage drama surrounding like Macho Man was freaking out apparently, like did not want to go on the stage and made Jake the Snake get bit himself in order to prove that it didn't have

• 49:57Jeff Larson?

  No way.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:59Jeff Larson?

  That's smart.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  I mean, uh, but you know, it was just this thing. And, and, you know, by the way, fun fact for you, Jeff, Al Killian was the guy who supplied that snake to Jake the Snake.

• 50:09Jeff Larson?

  Oh, really?

• 50:10Speaker 02

  The guy who's in the first scene and he comes back by, he's like a recurring cold open. But yeah, these, there's like the guys underneath that supply these animals, which is so

• 50:19Jeff Larson?

  Wait, so what did Macho Man do? Did he like get pinned after getting bit by a king cobra? Or did he run away? Like, what was like the end result of that match?

• 50:28Speaker 02

  He rolled off of the, he rolled off in a stretcher and went in an ambulance and got, you know, medical attention, but I think

• 50:35Jeff Larson?

  Technically, I don't think he lost.

• 50:37Mike Smith?

  No, he didn't get

• 50:37Jeff Larson?

  Because in three seconds.

• 50:39Mike Smith?

  Well, he left the ring. I think

• 50:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, the ring.

• 50:41Mike Smith?

  It's a forfeit.

• 50:44Wes Larson?

  Eric, do you have one?

• 50:45Speaker 03

  So most pop culture shows when it comes to reptiles don't have the right reptile. There was a film in the 1990 with Matthew Broderick called The Freshman where they have a water monitor and I think they're trying to suggest that it's a Komodo dragon, but that was a memorable film because it was a big Salvador water monitor from Southeast Asia. But I would just say that whether it's Anaconda or Snakes on a Plane, or you know, so many other pop culture films about reptiles, typically they have all the wrong reptiles.

• 51:17Wes Larson?

  I'm actually glad you said that, Eric, because it's why I picked mine. It's this movie from the seventies called Venom, and it's not like the comic character Venom. It's a, it's about this like kidnapping, kind of hijacking where these terrorists take over this house, but then there happens to be a loose Black Mamba in the house at the same time, just by this weird kind of set of events that happens. But they use a real Black Mamba in this movie, and it is terrifying. And it has one of the most gnarly snake bite scenes I think I've ever seen in a movie too. And it's just kind of like a B-grade movie. Klaus Kinski's in it, though, I think. There's like some weird actors in it.

• 52:00Jeff Larson?

  How does a Black Mamba have like a bad, like they bite her head off?

• 52:05Wes Larson?

  No, it just like shows like, it doesn't actually show what would happen, but when it bites this woman, you see her like turn all black and gross and stuff. And they're not a hemotoxic snake, so it's not true to what their venom would actually do. But it's a really interesting movie and they use an actual Black Mamba in it. So that's why it gets my, my pick.

• 52:24Speaker 03

  That's not an easy snake to manage in a film. They're a very long, fast.

• 52:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah, highly defensive.

• 52:32Speaker 03

  Not like a pit viper that would be much easier to manage.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  Well, cool. That's great.

• 52:37Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Mike?

• 52:38Mike Smith?

  I'm gonna go with Rocky, Sonny Crockett's alligator from Miami Vice. He's just has an alligator living with him on his little houseboat on the docks down in Miami. There's just something perfect about, I mean, Miami is the setting for a lot of what's happening in the show, Monsters of God. So just felt right to go with that.

• 52:56Jeff Larson?

  Eric, what you were saying, the one that really bugged me recently was the show Euphoria.

• 53:03Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:03Jeff Larson?

  Like, one of the main characters has, there's like a rattlesnake up above, and then it drops down a tube and there's just a python, like a giant python with this CGI rattle on it. And I couldn't believe they were trying to pull that up.

• 53:18Wes Larson?

  Did you watch the behind the scenes of that scene?

• 53:20Jeff Larson?

  Uh-uh.

• 53:21Wes Larson?

  They actually have one you should check out.

• 53:23Speaker 03

  Natural Born Killers has a good rattlesnake scene. They, uh,

• 53:26Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah, that's good.

• 53:27Speaker 03

  With, um, anyway, Natural Killers has a good.

• 53:30Wes Larson?

  But Jeff, check that, check the behind the scenes out because, you know, look, I kind of appreciate the, they went for it and Jacob Bellordi apparently like wanted a real snake with him down there.

• 53:39Jeff Larson?

  Okay.

• 53:40Wes Larson?

  So, you know.

• 53:41Jeff Larson?

  No, that'll change my mind maybe a little bit.

• 53:43Wes Larson?

  Mine a little bit.

• 53:43Speaker 03

  I don't know if this is a good thing, everybody, but no CGI was used in Monsters of God.

• 53:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 53:49Speaker 03

  Only a reptile is a real reptile for better or worse.

• 53:52Wes Larson?

  I wanted to compliment you on that because the shots of the reptiles are just, are gorgeous. And it shows just how beautiful they actually are. And I do love that, that you can tell that the people filming them love them. And I think.

• 54:05Speaker 03

  And no animals were harmed in the making of Monsters of God.

• 54:08Wes Larson?

  That's good. All right. Uh, on the same pop culture kind of lick, I wanted to ask your favorite movie or TV show that's about trafficking. Because whenever I, there's something about like a show or a movie that's about trafficking that I really find myself getting sucked into. And I definitely felt that with Monsters of God. So like, for example, my answer is the Narcos series on Netflix. Uh, one of my all time favorite series, both the mainline one and Mexico, Narcos Mexico. I just love, I think it's such a fascinating story. And, um, and there's something about it that just like I find myself rooting for them, but then also knowing that they're causing this terrible evil on the world. So

• 54:53Wes Larson?

  I have a, I have a specific fascination for that kind of pop culture. So I'm curious what your answers are.

• 54:59Speaker 03

  I mean, I would agree with Narcos as being one of them. I think the film Traffic was interesting because they show, you know, sort of the three different sort of angles, the, you know, cartels in Colombia, Mexico, the dealer in San Diego and law enforcement. And that architecturally is sort of similar to what we were trying to do with Monsters of God and get all the angles. But I would say, you know, yeah, I would sort of echo what you said, Wes.

• 55:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think also like, I think, um, one show, like one of the greatest shows of all time is The Wire. You know, I think it's as a world, I think that, that more for me as it relates to this kind of stuff. I think it's like a criminal world really represented in a very wide, wide way. Similar to Eric, you have this kind of like whole ecosystem. Uh, was a huge like reference to not only this show, but we've been sort of developing a kind of a TV show ideas spun out of the book that this sort of originated off of called The Lizard King and the Van Oostren family. So it has this kind of like crime world, Sopranos, but with snakes, Narcos, but with, you know, reptiles, whatever it might be.

• 56:08Jeff Larson?

  That's a good answer because it relates to Monsters of Gods really well where in The Wire, you, it shows you why drug dealers are dealing drugs and it makes you sympathize for them. It makes you like them. And I feel like Monsters of God does that too. It shows you why they got into this. And it shows you like how charismatic they are and makes you like them and like want to be.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  Another thing that's similar, that's just an amazing thing to me when it comes to drug dealing and these kind of stories is when Sean Penn went to meet with Chapo Guzman in Mexico. And the fact that he did that, you know, maybe it's why Chapo got arrested and extradited into the US. And maybe that's why he's sitting in prison right now. But what I liked about Sean Penn doing that is he, and I know Sean Penn, you know, reasonably well, and he was pretty empathetic to Chapo and, and wanted to go meet with him. But there were parallels, not to say we met with the Chapo Guzman of the world, but parallels to us meeting with Ant and Wong. I just bring that up because that's a real thing that

• 57:12Speaker 03

  he did that was really brave for better or worse, that I think has parallels to what we were trying to do.

• 57:19Jeff Larson?

  I love being reminded of that every once in a while. So I'm glad you brought that up because I could forget about it sometimes.

• 57:27Wes Larson?

  Jeff and Mike, what are your guys' answers?

• 57:29Mike Smith?

  I'm gonna go with a Korean movie, uh, called The Man From Nowhere. It's about, dude. It does such an amazing job of making you just fall in love with this little girl. And then there's a crime ring that abducts her, a child trafficking ring. They deal with drugs and all kinds of stuff, but like, it gets dark so that the payoff when the bad guys get taken down, it just feels like so cathartic and you're just so happy.

• 57:57Jeff Larson?

  Also, the main character, he's up there with Jeremy for like great hair.

• 58:02Mike Smith?

  He's got some good hair. Yeah. It's one A, one B.

• 58:07Jeff Larson?

  I was gonna say Narcos, so I'll just say Monsters of Men for my.

• 58:12Wes Larson?

  Monsters of God.

• 58:13Mike Smith?

  Monsters of Men.

• 58:13Jeff Larson?

  Monsters of God.

• 58:15Wes Larson?

  Who knows what that is, but good pick.

• 58:19Wes Larson?

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• 1:01:09Wes Larson?

  Okay, so our next category is going to be a fun one. We are going to get 10 weird reptile facts from Eric Good, our guest. And if any of the three of the hosts of Tooth and Claw can answer correctly, we are going to donate to the Turtle Conservancy. So, we would love to hear...

• 1:01:29Jeff Larson?

  Eric, isn't it Eric's Turtle Conservancy? Did you say that?

• 1:01:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah, well, it's the Turtle Conservancy. Yeah, that Eric runs and operates.

• 1:01:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, plug the Turtle Conservancy, everyone. The Turtle Conservancy is a organization that, a nonprofit that protects critically endangered turtles and tortoises around the world, which are very threatened, everybody. Turtles and primates are the two most threatened groups of vertebrates in the world. When you look at how many of them are there and how many are facing extinction, primates and turtles. So yeah, we protect turtles and we buy and purchase land around the world and protect them in the wild in various countries around the world. But, okay, so what drug came from what reptile that's made a big splash in the world today?

• 1:02:15Wes Larson?

  Ozempic from HeLa Monsters.

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  Yes, good call, Wes. So you got number one right. Okay, how many groups of reptiles are there?

• 1:02:25Wes Larson?

  Jeff and Mike, why don't you guys list the easy ones first and I'll see if I can get the harder ones?

• 1:02:30Jeff Larson?

  Geckos?

• 1:02:31Wes Larson?

  No.

• 1:02:32Jeff Larson?

  Well, I'm at...

• 1:02:34Mike Smith?

  Lizards, turtles, dinosaurs.

• 1:02:37Wes Larson?

  No, no, okay, we'll stop them. Lizards, snakes, crocodilians, turtles, tuataras?

• 1:02:46Speaker 03

  Good call. So you pretty much got that one right, too, because lizard, snakes, and worm lizards are all kind of one group. Guamata, turtles and tortoises, Tastudidae, and crocodilians, crocodilians, and then Riconcephalia is the tuatara. So yes, there's four main groups of reptiles. Okay.

• 1:03:06Jeff Larson?

  Is it every answer we get right, we pay money to it?

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  Yes, I like that. I'm going to make them easier and easier.

• 1:03:13Jeff Larson?

  I'm not throwing on purpose, just so everyone knows.

• 1:03:16Speaker 03

  Okay, what is the longest-lived reptile?

• 1:03:19Jeff Larson?

  Like, single animal or species? Wasn't it lonesome, I'm going to say lonesome joy?

• 1:03:27Mike Smith?

  The Galapagos tortoise?

• 1:03:28Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that's not our final answer. No, that's what I would guess. I'd guess that or Leatherback Sea Turtle, one of the two.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  Well, I think they're Radiated Tortoises and Galapagos Tortoises, so you pretty much got that right. Okay, oh, you know all these, Wes, so they're easy ones that I haven't even... Okay, rattlesnakes live where? What part of the world? And tell me how far south they go and where do they not live in the world?

• 1:03:56Jeff Larson?

  Like, how far north and south?

• 1:03:59Mike Smith?

  Oh, that one, Wes.

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  Give or take.

• 1:04:01Wes Larson?

  I would say the southernmost are in Argentina, and then northernmost would be like parts of Canada, probably like Alberta.

• 1:04:10Jeff Larson?

  I was going to say like Guatemala.

• 1:04:12Wes Larson?

  I don't know if they make it up into the Yukon, but they're definitely in Canada and they're definitely in Argentina.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  Wow, I think you're right. I wasn't sure if they made it to Argentina, but I think you're right.

• 1:04:23Wes Larson?

  They do.

• 1:04:24Speaker 03

  They go through parts of South America for sure. Okay.

• 1:04:27Jeff Larson?

  I think you owe us $50.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  Yes. I owe you guys money. All right, what snake is responsible for more venomous snake bites in Africa, all across the entire continent?

• 1:04:45Jeff Larson?

  I think I know, or wait, no, I don't. I was going to say, I think I might be thinking India.

• 1:04:50Wes Larson?

  For me, it's between two. I know the Indian ones. In Africa, I'd guess puff adder.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 1:04:59Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:05:00Speaker 03

  You guys are good. What's the longest venomous snake in the world?

• 1:05:03Jeff Larson?

  King Cobra.

• 1:05:04Wes Larson?

  Nice, King Cobra.

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  Damn, you guys are pissing me off now. How many species of iguanas are there in the world?

• 1:05:12Jeff Larson?

  That's a tough one. I'm going to say 41.

• 1:05:16Wes Larson?

  Whoa, I would, I would guess 15.

• 1:05:18Mike Smith?

  I was going to say 18?

• 1:05:20Speaker 03

  Okay, 46 iguanas in the world.

• 1:05:23Mike Smith?

  Wow, whoa, holy mackerel.

• 1:05:25Speaker 03

  Just off that, I want to put a shout, give a shout out to the International Iguana Foundation because they need lots of support and they protect endangered iguanas around the world, in particular, the Jamaican Iguana, which was thought to be extinct for a long time and was rediscovered not so long ago. But there are Galapagos land iguanas, there's marine iguanas, there's rock iguanas in the Caribbean called Cyclurus. There's a lot of these iguanas that live in Central America and Mexico called Tinosaurus that are these iguanas you see that are gray. People, you know, make iguana, you know, tamales out of the tails, but they're Fiji Islands.

• 1:06:05Jeff Larson?

  Fiji Island, yeah.

• 1:06:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, and there's some Caribbean...

• 1:06:08Jeff Larson?

  Those are cool.

• 1:06:09Speaker 03

  But there's 46 species of iguanas in the world. What reptile protects its young? And that last question.

• 1:06:17Jeff Larson?

  Alligators.

• 1:06:18Speaker 03

  Correct. Damn.

• 1:06:20Wes Larson?

  Yeah, crocodiles.

• 1:06:21Speaker 03

  I hate you guys, you know you're...

• 1:06:22Wes Larson?

  You shouldn't hate us, you're making a ton of money right now.

• 1:06:25Mike Smith?

  I know.

• 1:06:26Wes Larson?

  You were doing this on purpose.

• 1:06:27Speaker 03

  Owner of the new Tortoise Magazine.

• 1:06:29Wes Larson?

  Oh, that's sweet.

• 1:06:31Speaker 03

  It's a cool, it's an annual magazine that Turtle Conservancy makes and... Oh, no, wait, what's the, what turtle breathes out of its butt? And where does it live? What's the butt-breathing turtle? Come on, guys.

• 1:06:44Jeff Larson?

  Platypus.

• 1:06:45Speaker 03

  Come on, I got to ask that one because the butt-breathing turtle is important because I wish...

• 1:06:48Jeff Larson?

  I'll say Leatherback.

• 1:06:49Speaker 03

  I wish we could all breathe out of our butts.

• 1:06:51Wes Larson?

  I'm going to guess that river turtle that has flippers because that's already a weird turtle. I don't know what it's called.

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  The pygmy turtle?

• 1:06:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's close. It's an Australian turtle called a white-throated sapping turtle. I'm actually reading this called Elisa albigala, a bum breather. It breathes out of the cloaca of its...

• 1:07:10Wes Larson?

  A bum breather.

• 1:07:11Speaker 03

  A bum breather breathes underwater out of its cloaca, which is a fancy word for anus. Excuse me, viewers. But you know, Leatherback Sea Turtles are actually warm-blooded. So when people think that reptiles are ectotherms, cold-blooded, it's not really true anymore. There are a lot of reptiles that are not cold-blooded. So when we say cold-blooded reptiles, that's now not really true.

• 1:07:34Wes Larson?

  Would you have gotten that one, Wes? Uh, I think I would have, but I would not. I don't know if I would have been able to say specifically Leatherback Sea Turtles, which are my number one bucket list animal to see in the wild right now. I'd love to see one. A free swimming one is like my dream.

• 1:07:51Speaker 03

  We have a program with Leatherback Sea Turtles in Guyana, and yeah, they are in trouble. I mean, there's really only seven species of sea turtles in the world. Some people say eight, but out of the seven, definitely Leatherbacks and the Pacific Hawksbill and the, what is it called? Oh my God, I'm blanking. Anyway, there's a smaller sea turtle in the Gulf of Mexico, which is also very endangered. Maybe you know the name of it, I'm blanking right now. Anyway, a lot of them are rebounding, but the two that are still really endangered, or three of them are still really endangered.

• 1:08:22Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, I think we got, I think we got seven right so far, so I think that's good.

• 1:08:27Speaker 03

  Absolutely, sea turtle is the really endangered one in the Gulf of Mexico. Anyway.

• 1:08:31Wes Larson?

  All right, this theme is for them.

• 1:08:32Speaker 03

  I should know my turtle class.

• 1:08:36Wes Larson?

  I'm gonna skip to this next question. I I'm curious just for everyone, like what reptile do you find the most beautiful personally? Like if you had to pick one reptile that species, or if you want to pick, you know, a family or sub-family or whatever, which one do you think personally is the most beautiful?

• 1:08:55Jeff Larson?

  Oh, I want to add a little something on this too, because I've been dying to ask you for a sec. If there was during the making of monsters of God, monsters and God? Why am I messing this up so much? Monsters of God?

• 1:09:12Jeff Larson?

  Was there an animal that like wasn't really on your radar? And then when you saw it, really like stuck out to you as well? So two parter.

• 1:09:22Speaker 03

  Jeremy, you want to answer that?

• 1:09:23Speaker 02

  I think the most beautiful that I wish I could see in real life is a Gila monster for sure. Like the the pink, black beaded reptile. So beautiful. And I just love this like fact that the only venomous lizard can also save your life. I think that is just such a huge kind of

• 1:09:41Jeff Larson?

  And make you lose weight.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  And make you lose weight. So I'm like obsessed. I tell it to everybody and it blows their minds. And the the second question was something that we saw that we just like we didn't expect. I think it was, you know, probably Eric got to film Fiji Island iguanas. And that was something that that was the first time we we realized it was sort of a we knew we wanted to capture beauty shots in the show as texture, as you see woven throughout these beautiful like animal shadow or black. But we really wanted to kind of try to communicate this reptile magic that feeling people have of their of their beauty. And especially when when

• 1:10:22Speaker 02

  our characters talk about them, the way they describe them in such detail with their features that really kind of like locks you in. And their score that goes over it. And we kind of call it reptile magic. And so we had these kind of holy grails that we were craving and Eric, you know, getting a chance to see Fijis and us having that on screen is just so rare for people that, you know, you can't really, you can't really get that kind of imagery of them.

• 1:10:46Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:47Speaker 02

  So I'd say that was one for me that really kind of like opened the doors to to that idea.

• 1:10:52Speaker 03

  You know, for me, that question, what's the most beautiful reptile in the world? To me, it's like asking someone who has 20 kids, what's your favorite child? I just like so many cool reptiles, so I can't give you one. But I could tell you that there were reptiles that we really wanted to film that we weren't, we just didn't get to it. Tuatara's Chinese giant salamanders, Borneo earless monitors. There were a lot of reptiles that are so unusual, so secretive, so difficult to find, like some of the ones I mentioned. But if you ever saw a Chinese giant salamander, just how big they are, and the fact that they can eat

• 1:11:32Speaker 03

  a rabbit or eat your arm off. But there are a lot of reptiles, there's that very few have ever been collected ever. There are reptiles that have never lived and survived in captivity ever. And so there's a lot of very unusual, cryptic, rare reptiles that we wanted to film and we just didn't get to it. And so I would say that was something we would have loved to have been able to show people in the series that we just couldn't do. I mean, we could have, but we just it took a lot of effort to go and do that.

• 1:12:02Jeff Larson?

  Was the Fiji iguana, the one you were most excited to like be able to interact with?

• 1:12:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, because I was able to hold them. And they're banned in the private sector in the United States. You can keep them in the private sector in Canada. Only zoos in the US can have Fiji Island banned iguanas. There's three or four forms now of Fiji Island iguanas. They're so rare, they're so beautiful. And yeah, to be able to hold them and really just be up close and personal with those lizards was really amazing. But it's it's yeah, they're really, they really are reptile magic as it's stated by Hank Moltner's show. They're really an incredible piece of art.

• 1:12:41Jeff Larson?

  Well, I yeah, it was interesting. Like, it seemed like Tom would have stayed out of a lot of trouble, but he just couldn't even bring himself to like get rid of them.

• 1:12:51Wes Larson?

  Uh, I picked kind of a basic one because I'm like you, Eric, where I think it changes day to day. What I think is like my favorite or most beautiful, or it's hard to pick between them. But I was thinking about it pretty hard. And I think the most visceral reaction I've ever had to a reptile was when I was younger, and it was the first gold dust day gecko that I ever saw. And just like the blue around the eyes, the bright green with the red spots and that little sprinkling of like golden highlight. I just think they are an unreal, beautiful animal. And they're very common now in places like Hawaii. But I just every time I see one, I think, man, this is, this is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

• 1:13:33Speaker 03

  When they came into the trade in the 90s, I had the same reaction. And I bought some Madagascar day geckos. And I learned the hard way that their skin is so sensitive, that if you touch them, without being extremely delicate, the skin can just come off. But I ultimately bred them and they laid eggs and I made a baby day geckos. I mean, you're talking about one of the forms of day geckos, but they're so delicate, they're so exquisite, they're so beautiful. And like you said earlier, Wes, you know, you kind of crack the code, you breed them, you have a bunch of them, and then you go on to the next thing and the next thing. But there was a time when that lizard was spectacular to me, and they're still incredible. They've become invasive, some of them in South Florida.

• 1:14:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Mike and Jeff, you guys have an answer?

• 1:14:20Mike Smith?

  For me, my preconceived notion of what a San Francisco garter snake would look like compared to what it actually does look like, really kind of rocked my world for a little bit, because they're an incredible looking snake. But the name kind of connotes that it's going to be just a, you know, run of the mill garter snake that you've seen a million times. But they're so strikingly beautiful to me.

• 1:14:43Jeff Larson?

  I'd probably just, I mean, I know Eric said it's not called this anymore, maybe, but prairie rattlesnakes, like I saw one that had a greenish tint to it once. What what would it actually be?

• 1:14:57Wes Larson?

  There are prairie rattlesnakes still. It's just they don't call Pacific, southern Pacific ones that anymore.

• 1:15:03Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. I saw one in Wyoming that just, I think that is like the coolest reptile I've seen in the wild. So I'd go.

• 1:15:11Speaker 03

  That's a real prairie rattlesnake today, that one you saw.

• 1:15:15Wes Larson?

  To put a good cap on this, I did just want to talk a little bit about conservation. I know both of you are heavily involved in it. And you, especially Eric, with the the conservancy have really spent a lifetime thinking about conservation and being an active player in it. So I did just want to ask, like, what the biggest conservation issues facing reptiles are worldwide? And what people, like what individual people can do to help with reptile conservation?

• 1:15:41Speaker 03

  You know, it varies from location to location. So, you know, in in Florida and the southeast, indigo snakes are disappearing mostly from habitat loss. You know, collection for the pet trade took a toll on indigo snakes. But right now, the trade in turtles leaving the United States, it's largely the pet trade in Asia and Europe that's siphoning out all of our native turtles that are really special. I think it depends on the part of the world that you're looking at. So in South America, there's a lot of consumption of turtles and tortoises, you know, for food. In Southeast Asia, it's everything. It's the pet trade, it's traditional medicine, it's

• 1:16:22Speaker 03

  consumption. So it's kind of hard to say one thing, you know, reptile skins, you know, both monitor lizards and and pythons for leather boots and leather jackets and bags and crocodilians for leather bags is a big impact on the reptile trade. You know, it's a big part of the reptile trade, I should say. The reptile trade globally is probably in the, I don't know, the wildlife trade is in the billions, the reptile trade is up there. You know, no one knows the true statistics, but it's enormous. I just think it's case by case. But I would say consumption, probably number one of reptiles around the world, pet trade, maybe number two, skins, maybe number

• 1:17:04Speaker 03

  three, traditional medicines up there. So there's a lot of things that are taking a toll on the wild populations of reptiles. I think there's a statistic that one in five reptiles are facing extinction or threatened with extinction.

• 1:17:18Wes Larson?

  So is there anything that people can do, our listeners that are out there that love reptiles? I think we have a high percentage of people that listen to our show that really love reptiles, that they can do in their personal lives to have an effect on reptile populations?

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  I think there's a really cool, we have a landing page. If you pay attention at the end of our show, we have a resource kind of button. That says if people want to learn more about conservation resources, go to this website. And there's a website, landing page that HBO allowed us to kind of create, which lists out kind of some organizations that are doing really good things for the everyday person. One thing I'm really, you know, that doesn't get a lot of attention is this thing called the Wildlife Confiscations Network. It's a bill that's currently sitting in Congress that needs support. And if it passes, they get resources to apply to a program that allows the support of helping trafficked animals that are caught at some of these major ports of entry

• 1:18:16Speaker 02

  and relocate them to facilities throughout the country. Right now, it's a person of one facilitating local law enforcement at LAX, for example. It's right now this pilot program in Southern California covering the border, LAX mainly, Torrance and other airports. And their job is to help like facilitate rescues. Because most of these animals are, you know, in really bad shape once they get confiscated. There are many, many days without water, dehydrated. And, and so this program's going to be really exciting for helping combat the wildlife trafficking issue. It's a really, really big issue. So I think that's one real like tangible thing that an everyday person can go and support.

• 1:18:58Speaker 02

  And it's really going to do some good, I think, for combating this issue that Eric's talking about.

• 1:19:02Speaker 03

  And I think if you see something, say something. Right now, in this country, there's so much poaching going on of native reptiles, especially turtles. It's, it's just not sustainable, what's happening right now. People are getting arrested occasionally, but more animals are going through these points of entry. We recently, in the last, I don't know, four or five weeks, received about 500 turtles that are Native American turtles, eastern box turtle, three-toed box turtles, ornate box turtles. Some turtles that came in through Mexico into the US, we got through confiscations recently. But we took in 400 turtles, but we can't manage everything. There was, I think, 1,000 native turtles that were confiscated just in the last four weeks,

• 1:19:45Speaker 03

  five weeks, six weeks in California where we're located. More were confiscated in Chicago, more on the East Coast. So the trade in wildlife, especially turtles, leaving our country is, is, is just not sustainable. So if people see something, say something to law enforcement. In terms of people that breed and keep reptiles, try to only buy captive bred. Try to breed your animals, take pressure off of poaching. Just be conscious of what is going on and where you're sourcing your animals and what animals are coming out of the wild. And try not to take animals out of the wild if you don't have to. And you can be naive to it. You could be part of the chain and not realize you're buying something that was wild caught. Try to buy captive animals and take care of them and treat them like living creatures

• 1:20:30Speaker 03

  and not as disposable pets.

• 1:20:32Wes Larson?

  I like that. We'll link that resource in the show notes, the one that comes up at the end of the, the program.

• 1:20:38Speaker 02

  Great. Yeah, thank you.

• 1:20:39Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And we, we really appreciate having you guys on again. I just look forward to every new project that you put out now. It's like, I, I loved, we brought up Josh Safdie. I loved Neighbors earlier this year. And this felt like the perfect chaser for it. Like, just a beautiful, really well-made documentary that is incredibly entertaining to watch, too.

• 1:21:03Speaker 02

  I have a feeling you're going to want to talk about our next documentary.

• 1:21:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it is.

• 1:21:09Wes Larson?

  Any insider info?

• 1:21:10Jeff Larson?

  Let's book it.

• 1:21:12Speaker 03

  Thanks for having us and sorry for blabbing so much and you guys.

• 1:21:15Jeff Larson?

  No, we loved it.

• 1:21:17Speaker 03

  Very kind. Thank you.

• 1:21:19Speaker 02

  I do want your addresses. I'm going to send you this because this is kind of a cool, I think you'll really enjoy it. It's like deeper, it's like a deeper kind of analysis of, it's our wildlife trafficking issue. So it's a lot of behind the scenes and making of Monsters of Gun. I think you'll really enjoy it. So I'll look at you guys' copies.

• 1:21:34Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we'll add it to that.

• 1:21:36Speaker 03

  Thanks, Wes.

• 1:21:37Wes Larson?

  All right, thanks, guys.

• 1:21:38Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 1:21:38Speaker 03

  Take care.