My friend Jack who just returned form the show told of his air conditioner being pulled from the hotel room wall while he was in there. He checked into another hotel.He confirms this article as being accurate.
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/WestVolusia/03WVolEAST01WF081604.htm Storm doesn't deter reptile lovers from expo By VIRGINIA SMITH Staff Writer Last update: 16 August 2004 DAYTONA BEACH -- On the floor of the Ocean Center Sunday, Allen and Anita Salzberg signed copies of their newest book, "When You Dream in Green." It's a collection of little anecdotes about "herpers," or reptile lovers -- and when you know you might be one. When your arms are full of claw marks, for example. When your dreams are the color of iguanas. Or when you're in Daytona Beach, hanging out at the National Reptile Breeders' Expo, as Hurricane Charley hurtles toward your home and family across the state -- and you stay put. Or when you get bitten on the thumb by a baby rattlesnake and wonder, enroute to the hospital, how the snake is holding up. Few herpers would blink at such behavior. "I guess we're kind of like Civil War re-enactors or something. It's a self-contained reality," said Allen late Friday, as the storm beat so hard against windows of the Adam's Mark hotel, where most of the herpers were staying, that staff had to herd them deep into its hallways and ballrooms. Some attended biology lectures, others slammed beers and chandeliers flickered in a disturbingly Titanic-like setting. But the mood was generally upbeat. Certainly nobody seemed to think that the breeders' expo -- an annual, weekend-long Woodstock for reptile and amphibian enthusiasts, equal parts carnival and zoo and flea market -- should be canceled for a mere hurricane. Indeed many herpers, especially the non-Florida ones, seemed to regard the storm as a bonus to the event. One drunken British herper ran the beach, rescuing starlings that had plunged into puddles; others tempted fate and pressed their noses against the Adam's Mark's windows, watching palms bend like Gumby in the dark. Saturday morning, hundreds of herpers trickled out of their hotels, getting their first look at a post-Charley world as they crossed State Road A1A to the Ocean Center. There, while the rest of the city figured out what to do with stray tree limbs and no electricity, two reptile shows were up and running, lights on and everything. Though business was predictably slow. Downstairs was the enormous non-venomous reptile expo, where a kaleidoscope of creatures -- velvety geckos and pencil-thin snakes -- wriggled in deli cups. Corn snakes sold for $25; albino ball pythons, bred for their bright buttery color, sold for thousands. Children ogled baby turtles. Upstairs, through a separate entrance was the much smaller venomous expo, where a popular T-shirt showed a cobra eating a bright, buttery albino ball python; a snakebite paramedic roamed the halls; and no one under 18 was let in. Torsten Schweer, a vendor from Tecklenburg, Germany, sat alone behind his glass case of poisonous snakes. Before him were a pair of green mambas from Africa; the female had nearly killed him three months ago. Schweer held up a knuckle that was still somewhat swollen from the bite. Within hours of being bitten, Schweer was airlifted to a hospital in Hamburg. He got saltwater injections and his throat swelled "like a lump," he said, forcing him onto a respirator. The whole experience cost him 3,500 Euros -- that's $4,300 in American cash. "But the baddest part," said Schweer, "was seeing my family -- my mother, my wife, my two boys, all crying." His mother drove from the Netherlands, he said, weeping the whole way. When he recovered, he said, his wife did not pressure him to sell his mambas. "She knows if I lose the snakes she loses me." But soon he began selling them voluntarily --- he was down from 19 pairs, he said, to the two before him now. They were $200 each, restrained in plastic boxes. "The male is not so aggressive," he said. "She is very aggressive." As he spoke, the heavily tattooed Schweer, who is 6 feet 6 inches tall, took the female from the case and regarded her through the plastic. "I think these are the most intelligent snakes," he said softly. "The best killers." Across the hall from Schweer, Tanith Tyrr, a Brevard County snake rehabilitator, promoted her "adopt-a-mamba" program, which farms out mambas that have been injured or abused, sometimes by people who remove their fangs. She nurtures many herself, often with the help of an expert veterinarian. Tyrr had one fully rehabbed green mamba in a cage, ready to go to a loving home -- by Saturday evening, someone had adopted it. But Schweer still had his. Hours later in the Adam's Mark, the herpers staged their annual conservation charity auction. A snake-shaped walking stick went for $650; a lizard-themed quilt for $2,200, an unspeakable gag item not worth the box it came in, $1,000. Pretty soon $12,000 was raised, all for two crocodile conservation programs. Collette Adams, the curator of reptiles at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Texas, runs one of them. "When that quilt was sold I was crying," she said. "It was an overwhelming feeling that these people would be so generous. Most of these vendors have been losing money all day from the hurricane, and they spent so much." Adams' program, which began in the 1980s, aims to restore a particularly aggressive species of crocodile to rivers in the Philippines -- an animal so reviled that they're usually killed on sight, causing their numbers to drop severely. But lately, she said, the fishermen are coming around to a more herper-like world view, leaving the testy crocs to their ways. Outside the Ocean Center Sunday morning, a California vendor squeezed and stared at his hand. In a special secured room upstairs, reserved for vendors to pack and unpack poisonous snakes, a baby western diamondback had nipped Jeremy Bednarsh. Two streaks of blood ran from his thumb. Longtime herpers circled around, getting a look. Most of them had been bitten at some point, and few thought this one looked serious. They doubted any venom had gone in. "Hey, at least it's not a Taipan bite," said one, referring to a hyper-deadly Australian snake. "You gotta look on the bright side." "It's nothing," said Bednarsh. "It's more the embarrassment --I've been doing this for 12 years and never been bitten! That's what kills me." Sweat beads dotted his forehead. He was getting thirsty. The snakebite paramedic, hired for just such a contingency, was alerted. On his way to Halifax Medical Center, where the snakebite paramedic was waiting with his supplies, Bednarsh vacillated between blowing off the bite -- "I just hope I can get to the gym later" -- and mortal terror, calling friends to make sure his dogs did not go to the pound if, indeed, he died. He worried about the snake that bit him -- if he'd slammed too hard on the lid of its container afterward. But within hours, both snake and herper were deemed fine. -- --- Melody Hartley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi All, > > Did anyone go to the Daytona show that can report > back to the rest of us > on how it was, how much affect the hurricane had, > etc? I couldn't make > it this year. > > I did have a good gecko experience recently! There > had been a gold-dust > gecko living in my sunroom since last summer, but I > hadn't seen him > since Spring, and was presuming he'd died somehow. > Well, he showed up, > and he looked fat and sassy! He must have been > living outside -- I've > realized that getting in and out of the sunroom is > not much of a > challenge for a small gecko. I hope he has sense > enough to come in when > the weather gets cold. > > Blessings, > Melody > > > _______________________________________________ > Global Gecko Association > http://www.gekkota.com > Classifieds > http://www.gekkota.com/cgi-gekkota/classifieds.cgi > gecko mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.gekkota.com/mailman/listinfo/gecko > _______________________________________________ Global Gecko Association http://www.gekkota.com Classifieds http://www.gekkota.com/cgi-gekkota/classifieds.cgi gecko mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.gekkota.com/mailman/listinfo/gecko
