#ColdbloodedContributionsPodcast #KimMichael #RileyMorris #reptilepodcast #TranscriptOfReptilePodcast #zookeeping #PygmyBlueTongues #Tiliqua #herpetology #herpetoculture #Nature4You #herpingBali #KomodoDragons
Scott: G'day. Welcome to Episode 7 of the Cold-blooded Contribution Podcast. We're your hosts the Eippers'. I am Scott Eipper. With me is my wife, Tie Eipper. This podcast brings to you people in the hobby who have made an impact on us creatively. Whether it be artistically, with data, improving our husbandry, or coming from the field. Today we're stoked to have with us, Kim and Riley. Hey guys, how are we?
Riley: G'day.
Kim: G'day
Tie: Thank you for coming guys.
Riley: Oh, appreciate it. Thanks for having us.
Kim: Yeah, appreciate the opportunity.
Tie: So, how did you guys get into reptiles?
Riley: Oooh, do you want to start it?
Kim: No, you go first.
Riley: I might take a while.
Kim: You go on. You're too excited. Go on.
Riley: How did I start off with reptiles? Probably just finding skinks in the backyard. Just starting on the bug catchers and working your way up to the skinks because bugs are easy to catch when you're a lot younger than a fast-moving little skinks. (Laughter)
I was pretty fortunate because I always wanted to do stuff with animals. It was just a given. I think anyone in the field will have that answer, we sort of started off just catching skinks and those sorts of things. And then, coming into high school, I was just fortunate that Lilydale High School is right around the corner from where we lived. I actually had no idea that there was even a reptile club at the school. Had no, no idea at all. Mum and Dad obviously sent me there because of that reason, but, no one told me. (Laughter) I was at the school for about five months before they read out a thing in the bulletin saying, did anyone want to become a zookeeper? I was like, "What? What do you mean zookeeper? Surely they're having us on". And then turned out there was a room filled with reptiles that I was just absolutely oblivious to. Walking back and forth every single day for five months. And I had no clue that there were scaly critters in there. So obviously the most observant person in the world. (Laughter) If you don't know about the school, it's a little high school and Marcus founded the program probably 29, over 20 years ago, at least, so it's been a long running program and he went to the school as a student and then left, did his studies, became a teacher. I think he did a degree in ecology.
Kim: Yeah, he did his honours as well.
Riley: Yeah.
Kim: He did some research as well.
Riley: And then, he started off just bringing some snakes into the school for the science classes. And then the kids were really interested and then he brought a few enclosures in and left them there. And then the school went “How about we just give you a portable and you just deck it out?” He's like, “Sure.” You can imagine how that turned out. (Laughter) Anyone who's desperately into reptiles and the school's paying for your fit out, you go to town. So, it quickly became an entire three portable program all conjoined in the hip. You had your snake room and then your main house and then some breeding of insects and things and all this sort of stuff. So, it ended up being a pretty cool setup. And then he extended out some massive outdoor enclosures to the side of it as well. Massive community projects. Bunnings, I think helped out with it as well. It ended up being three massive enclosures to put lizards out during the summer months. So, that's what I stepped into, how it looked when I first got there. It developed about 10 years prior to me actually getting there, which was pretty cool. And then it became the largest school to have reptiles anywhere in the world. Well that we know of, and that hasn't been contested as of yet. (laughter) So I was very lucky.
Tie: Yeah.
Scott: It's pretty impressive to have freshwater crocodiles and pig nosed turtles and womas and black headed pythons and sort of everything else in between. Basically, they've got everything bar venomous, don't they?
Riley: Yeah, yeah, essentially. Well, there's some Common tree snakes that's probably the closest you could probably get to venomous in a school at least, in terms of how they move and things. But, yeah, and that took a long time to build up to as well. Marcus was the guy that, give him an inch, he'll take a mile. (Laughter) So if they're like, “You have this storeroom for an enclosure”, you come back after the holidays and there would be 6. (Laughter) We had a breeding room for crickets, we had a breeding room for our snakes, we had a snake room, we had a sort of a storage area, well, a storage area, it was probably 10 storage areas, just filled with crap that we needed, but yeah, it sort of grew. Every year we’d go to the Reptile Expo and every year he brings back a few more species to sort of add to the mix, which was always exciting for us as kids. Every year there'd be something to take care of, and we had a lot of help. A lot of people still continue to go into the room and provide knowledge and books. The VHS was a massive part of that, during the fire in 2014, the whole room burned down and the VHS contributed considerable funds to help the rebuild of that.
Tie: Ohh, that's lovely.
Riley: Yeah, I don't think the program probably would have gone ahead so, yeah, that funding was crucial.
Scott: Obviously, you're a graduate of the program and you went on to work in a zoo. Have there been a few of the others that have gone through the program and ended up landing jobs in zoos and stuff like that eventually?
Riley: Yeah, absolutely, there's been a few zookeepers come through it.
Kim: Haven't you had a couple of vet nurses?
RM: Yeah, we've had a few vet nurses and a couple of veterinarians as well.
Scott: Oh, cool.
Riley: And I have to stress when I first started, it was generally like a little club. We would go in there, do a few closure cleans, learn about the animals, but then it sort of became a significant part of the curriculum really quickly. All the science from year seven and eight when they're doing Biology would use the room flat out as they wouldn't have to go to the zoo anymore because they've got one at school. Indonesian would use it as well. Learning all the reptiles names in Indonesian, and obviously there's a lot of correlating species between the two countries as well. And then French would use it. So, all the international students would come through and they'd get to experience local wildlife. Again, not having to go out anywhere else. And then Marcus developed the certificate 2 in animal studies. So that was part of the program as well. So it wasn't just our school. It was other schools using the facilities as well. Not just us.
Scott: That's fantastic.
Tie: Also too, for the kids that don't have supportive parents at home, like, "Oh my God, it's a snake. No way." That would be educational.
Riley: Yeah. And a lot of those parents ended up having snakes in their house. My parent's being some of them. (Laughter) It didn't always work out for the parents, often at the start we'd give them a waiver and the parents would just sign their kid's life away saying (Laughter) if Johnny gets bitten by a snake, it's fine. (Laughter) And every single student would bring them back signed. So obviously the parents weren't too concerned. (Laughter)
Scott: It beats my experience bringing Tiger snakes into high school and catching Tiger snakes on high school excursions and stuff and getting in the shit for that. This is a little bit more forthright and doing things the right way as opposed to going out on field trips with school and catching snakes.
Riley: Oooh, I think we all did that too. I did that a couple of times as well, but it wasn't Tiger snakes. So, you're a step ahead of me there. The other thing that the school did too, is go out and do excursions. So, we bring a lot of the animals out to local kindergartens and other schools, community events free of charge and just support the community that way as well. It was a great experience for myself and others to develop public speaking skills. Without that, I probably wouldn't have had the confidence to do decent shows at zoos to the public, which is a crucial part of the zookeeper's job.
Scott: What about you, Kim? (laughter)
Riley: Yeah, I told you Kim should have started.
Kim: I was going to judge how long to go, based off you (Riley), and I've been watching the timer of 10 minutes of Riley rambling. (Laughter) This is welcome to my life everyone, the life of Kim. (Laughter) Well, I've decided then I'll say a little bit of the story. My Grandparents have a farm in Geelong and I've got an older brother. When we were kids we'd go out there every weekend and go muck about and whatnot. One Saturday we're inside just hanging out with my Grandma. I was about seven. My older brother would have been like eight. And he starts screaming at the top of his lungs "Snake, snake, snake." So my Mum comes running, she was outside in the garden, my Grandma comes running around, and sure enough, it's just a nice big eastern bluey. So my Mum just scoops it up, and I'm like seven years old, and I just go "Let me hold it, let me hold it, let me hold it" and she didn't care. She must have signed one of the waivers at Lilydale. (Laughter) She just handed it to me. And from there, every single weekend I would get the old red plastic spoons you'd get with your potato and gravy from KFC and banana off the kitchen bench and I'd go out and lure them out. They were hiding in a rock wall my grandfather had built. So, I'd lure them out and then I'd grab them. And that's what I did every single weekend for years, until eventually we started keeping reptiles at home.
Riley: I think that was pretty good practice considering what you do now.
Kim: Yeah, pretty much. (Laughter) Mum taught me very well how you grab it around the back of the neck, so it doesn't turn around and bite you. I was always very good at that.
Tie: Oh, that's so cool.
Scott: Excellent. So, in other words, what you're saying is when you go to KFC, you should be able to keep the tax receipts because that means capturing equipment.
Kim: Yeah, absolutely. And the Popcorn chicken actually make really good baits for mammal traps as well.
Scott: Really? (laughter)
Kim: So KFC is really good for a lot of things actually. (Laughter)
Tie: Did you have a sponsorship we weren't aware of before we started?
Kim: I should at this point, shouldn't I? (Laughter)
Tie: You should, yes. (Laughter) How did you guys meet?
Kim: Do you want the real story?
Tie: Ooohhh yeah.
Riley: It was at a VHS meeting, believe it or not! (Laughter)
Tie: You guys owe a lot to the VHS. (Laughter)
Riley: Someone was talking about something. I can't remember who speaking at the time, but they put up some photos of some birds. One of them was a Kingfisher and Kim's like "Oh my God, I love Kingfishers." And I was like, "I've got one in my car." (Laughter)
Kim: So I followed him into the dark car park and got into his car, but it's okay, because he did legitimately have a Kingfisher in the back of his car.
Riley: It's like the one time a bird will actually come in handy for a reptile guy. (Laughter) The bird was injured and it was being released and it just happened to be there that night. So it worked for me!
Tie: That is a pickup line I've never heard before. (Laughter)
Kim: He's never had anything that cool in the back of his car too. No, that's a lie. He used to always bring home such random things. (Laughter)
Riley: Hey, you want to see my Kingfisher? (Laughter)
Tie: That's sort of how we met, but it wasn't actually a Kingfisher. But anyway, that's another story that I don't think people want to hear. It's probably not audience appropriate either.
Riley: It's alright you can tell us that after the show. (Laughter)
Tie: What do you guys keep at home?
Kim: We keep a bit of everything with definitely more lizards and geckos. Riley's got a couple of snakes but I won't let him have as many as he would like. (Laughter)
Riley: It's like I'm living at home all over again. (Laughter) So, yeah, I've got a Centralian carpet python that I've had since I was 13. It actually was my first ever snake. It was at the school, we hatched them out in the incubator and we actually bred them. It was the first snake I'd ever been a part of breeding. So it was pretty cool. And then, it hatched out. It was so tiny. Brought Mum and Dad into the room and said "You can't say no to me having one now". I was like, "Oh, Mr. Whippy, how much are they?" and he just turned around and he goes "Free". That's the best part. If we ever wanted something, he'd obviously never charge us. We always got rodents for free, crickets for free. If we wanted a reptile in the enclosure, yep, no worries, he sourced it. And I've still got him now. He's an old boy now. His name's Bert.
Tie: Oh, that's lovely.
Kim: Clearly in my expert opinion, the best things we have in the collection are probably some of the simplest and those are the Sandswimmers. (Laughter) I love the Sandswimmers and Riley loves the story of I had a beautiful, beautiful pair and unfortunately, I lost one and I was pretty devastated. So I replaced it with six new ones.
Tie: Just to be safe..
Kim: I couldn't run the risk of losing another pair of Sandswimmers.
Tie: Totally get that.
Riley: When I go to Adam Elliott's house, and I come home with skinks, apparently, I'm the worst person in the world. (Laughter)
Tie: If it makes you feel any better, Scott comes home with Taipans.
Riley: And, I’ve also got a King brown snake as well, he's a good boy.
Tie: Sandswimmers though, I think are highly underrated.
Riley: Oh yeah.
Kim: Absolutely.
Tie: I honestly think more people should keep them. They're not really that prevalent in the hobby here.
Riley: Yeah. And I think the other one we've got that's similar to that would be the King skinks. I just love them. I just don't understand why they're not more around in the hobby, especially in Victoria. They're a large skink, like incredibly large considering.
Scott: Because they're fucking psychotic, that's why. They're fucking horrible things. (Laughter)
Tie: That's the only reptile bite scar I have is a freaking king skink. Opened me up.
Riley: To that credit, they're really good. (Laughter) I more meant you can keep them outside in Victoria. They're a massive skink and they're super inquisitive. They are one of the most inquisitive skinks. And even in the middle of the winter, if there's a nice day, like today was fairly nice, it was like 10 degrees with the sun out and all the King skinks were out.
Scott: Yep.
Riley: You don't really get that with other things.
Tie: They're also really intelligent, really intelligent.
Riley: Yeah, so much so that, I was at work one day, I get a message from Kim and she's like, something's out in the reptile room, and she's freaking out thinking it's the King Brown. I'm like, no.
Kim: Which we should point out has locks, the door is closed, like we abide by everything properly, but I can't help but be a bit nervous. There's one venomous thing in there with a hundred non venomous. It's got to be the venomous thing that's out. (Laughter)
Tie: Murphys Law.
Kim: So I'm very, very cautious, something's definitely out. Something's running about. There's knocked over pots and all sorts. And sure enough, one of the bloody King skinks has gotten out. I left that for Riley to deal with cause everyone says how bad their bite is. So I'm like, I'm not dealing with it. He came home that night, and he caught it, he put it back and the next morning it jumped out again.
Scott: I'd much rather deal with a fucking Mulga snake than a King skink any day of the week. (Laughter) When we sent the last of our King skinks to Adam, I wore a Midwest glove. You know the anti bite gloves? I wore one of those when I put them in the fucking bag. (Laughter) Psycho fucking things!
Kim: I use my bare hands. (Laughter)
Scott: Nup, fuck that. I don't wear gloves when I'm handling venomous snakes, but I will for fucking King skinks.
Tie: He was the one that had to patch up my finger. (Laughter)
Kim: They got evicted to outside.
Riley: Yeah, they're now outside lizards.
Scott: I caught them in WA too. In WA, the wild ones aren't as bad as the captive ones. The captive ones are absolutely psychotic, but the wild ones are pretty good.
Riley: Yeah, Kim's seen them in the wild.
Kim: I've, gone out and seen them. I didn't catch any when I was there , but I went and saw them on Penguin Island and Rottnest and stuff.
Scott: Yep.
Riley: Yeah. They're worth having. Everyone has a story.
Kim: Yeah.
Scott: Yeah. A hundred percent. The Jurien Bay ones are absolutely gorgeous too, white with the black speckles on them. They're incredible looking lizards and even the dark ones are nice. They're a great looking lizard, but just not so much their disposition.
Kim: Yeah, they're still worth it.
Tie: About a week after I got bitten, I don't know who it was, I can't remember. But it was on Facebook obviously. There was a lady holding her King skink up to her face like snuggling in and I thought anybody else would lose a nose. And she's like, “It's so tame” and I'm thinking, “Ours are pretty friendly but I still wouldn't be doing that.”
Kim: See that's crazy.
Riley: It's our version of Americans with guns. (Laughter)
Scott: What was your favourite herp trip, guys? And maybe we'll hear from Kim first this time. (Laughter)
Tie: Wow.
Kim: I'm going to beat him to it, so he'll have to say something else now. This time last year, we were in Komodo Island.
Tie: Nice!
Kim: It's got to be going out to Komodo, staying out in the boat. We were really fortunate. We got to go herping at night with some of the locals on the island and seeing Komodo's in their wild habitat. And then we of course stayed in Bali and we got to go out with some of the Bali Reptile Rescue people and we went out with someone who was finishing up his masters on some of the local herp species in Bali. He could find everything. You pointed to it. He knew where it was. He knew everything. So that was incredible.
Riley: His name was Agus and he was just an absolute legend. He and his brother drove out from Denpasar, about 45 minutes. Picked us up from our hotel and drove us a further 45 minutes to his study sites that he hadn't actually taken many people to. So, we were very, very lucky.
Tie: And Balinese are so friendly and lovely to hang around as well when you're out herping.
Kim: Absolutely. Yeah, they couldn't be more friendly and more helpful at all.
Tie: Yeah.
Scott: So, besides Komodos what else did you happen to see? Were you on Komodo or Rinca?
Kim: Yes, we did Komodo and Rinca.
Scott: Yep. So, did you see Timor pythons?
Kim: No, so one of the highlights for me, we saw the green pit viper. That was a big highlight. We were there. Was it the dry season we were in?
Riley: Yep, the dry.
Kim: So we didn't get any cobras or anything like that. I just kept running around catching geckos off all the walls everywhere, we were pretty excited to get a Tokay even in Bali, we hadn't had that before.
Tie: I've got to admit, I was too. I know they're everywhere and you see them all the time on posts and stuff like that, but to actually have one in your hot little hands that you couldn't hold here, it's pretty cool.
Kim: Yeah.
Tie: Angry bloody things.
Riley: Yeah. We really were searching for the Timor Python, but they got one a few months before we got there. So they took us to all the spots where they had been getting them. But, another Westerner just came from the spot that we were just about to go to, and he managed to get a massive male Komodo sleeping in a cave. We got the photo of that. A heap of wolf snakes, rat snakes, and a few other things. They were all spooshed by the time we got there, we were only about 10 metres behind.
Tie: Oh buggar.
Riley: Yeah.
Kim: But a highlight of the trip for me now that you bring up Wolf snakes is I got my first and only ever snake bite in Bali and that was from a Wolf snake.
Scott: They're angry little things, aren't they? (Laughter)
Kim: They are, they are. Riley got it on video too. I was just sitting there so happily just playing with this little snake, like look how cute, its patterns are so nice. It's sitting on the ground, and in my hands and then it’s just ripped into my finger.
Scott: Yeah, the dentition on those, Lycodon is the genus. It means wolf and don meaning teeth, so wolf tooth, and they've got these incredibly large teeth for their size, probably for cutting into snake eggs, or reptile eggs as part of their diet, but, they literally just open you up. It's insane how much you bleed from a little snake.
Kim: I got lucky it wasn't too bad. It didn't rip me open, but I loved reading the next day, we were just going over the Reptiles of Bali book and you just go to the snake part and it's just like, known to be ferocious when handled. It just says something along those lines in the first sentence.
Scott: Yep.
Kim: That makes sense.
Riley: It makes sense because we have your book Scott, you probably wrote that. (Laughter)
Tie: We can't take credit for that one, but we took that one with us as well. (Laughter)
Scott: Yeah, that one, was written by Ruchira Somaweera.
Riley: Oh, yeah, yep.
Scott: Ru wrote that one, and it's a bloody good book.
Tie: I actually don't remember the Wolf snake in Bali. I was so sick those few days.
Kim: Oh, did you have Bali Belly?
Tie: No.
Scott: No, she had COVID.
Tie: I don't think I had COVID, but oh fuck, I was sick. I was so sick. I couldn't move. And we're in the most beautiful hotel on the beach, infinity pool, et cetera, et cetera. And I spent the whole three days in bed. I was so ill.
Riley: Aaawwww.
Tie: Yeah.
Riley: Yeah, that sucks.
Scott: So yeah, I was off chasing monitors and snakes and stuff like that in the rice patties.
Kim: Yeah, well she survived. She was fine in the hotel.
Tie: Exactly. Don't waste the opportunity.
Riley: A similar thing almost happened to me. Kim got really sick by the time we got to Bali. And that night she was just terrible, and that was the night we were meant to go out with the guys. And I was like, they're messaging, they're on their way. And Kim's just making noises at this point. (Laughter) And I'm just like, do you mind if I leave you? I was thinking, any noise I'll take it as a yes. (Laughter)
Kim: But I manned up and I went.
Riley: We all went out.
Scott: How many nights did you guys go out with them?
Riley: We just went out the one night because we were sort of wanting to explore Bali because we both hadn't been there before. We figured we'd just find stuff along the way as well, which we did. Ideally we would have loved to go out more, but you have to be cautious of their time as well. But we went to the Bali Reptile Park and Bird Park and those guys were awesome. They took us behind the scenes straight away, and anything we wanted to see we were in the enclosure like that. So obviously being a zookeeper, I've been very lucky to be able to feed crocodiles from here, but Kim had never had that privilege. The guys were like, "Do you want to feed a crocodile?" And I was like, "How much does it normally cost?" He goes, "Oh, normally it's 10 bucks a chook. And I was like, "Well, we'll take five chooks."
Kim: I think we did three - I did two, you did one. And they had the chook just off the end of the stick. And there's a little bit of miscommunication with the language barrier and stuff. And I'm just like, "Fuck yeah, let's feed a croc." I shoved the whole thing in and they come running over. I've snapped the stick and the croc's gone nuts. And Riley's pissing himself in the corner. I've got a crowd going. I'm like, all right, let's go. Next chook. Let's keep going.
Riley: It was the best thing I've ever seen. She had the crowd. Six zookeepers all the same height as she is. So no one's actually able to see over the fence. (Laughter) It was just an absolute show. It was awesome.
Tie: That is a really good park, isn't it?
Riley: Oh yeah, yep. And then, all the Pig nosed turtles as well, like the Fly river turtles, they were all there too. They had some pretty impressive species there.
Scott: They had the six species of Tree monitor on display when I was there as well. They had Macraei, Kordensis, Resingeri, Prasinus and Beccari and they sort of had everything there. It was pretty incredible. It was a great little zoo.
Tie: And the enclosures too, they were wonderful.
Riley: Yeah, I suppose that's the ability of being able to do something in situ like that. Similar to parks that have the environment around them, like Alice Springs Desert Park Their nocturnal area is spectacular for that reason. I think that's credit to them as well, being able to just use what they've got.
Tie: So Riley, is your trip the same as Kim's? That was your favourite herp trip?
Riley: Oh, it's definitely up there, working with Komodos, you don't get much better than that. We're going to have to go back and go with a few other people this time, I think. We wanted to do it by ourselves the first time, but second time around we'll try and go with a few others. I think the other one I loved was going to South Australia with Michael Swan and then meeting up with Kim at her study site. I hadn't actually seen the Pygmies properly and gone over it all properly with her, just because work was always so hectic and she was doing so many trips and she had work to do, and I couldn't just go there and go "Oh, that's a cool lizard. Can we go now.?” (Laughter) So, sort of waiting for the right time. And Michael Swan had never seen them either, so to go on a trip with him as well is obviously a no brainer. On the way out, we got, a Western blue tongue on the road, and then we got a Shingleback, and then an Eastern Bluey, and then we went and finished it up with a Pygmy Bluey, so ......
Kim: Funnily enough, at that Pygmy site, you get Easterns, Shinglebacks, Westerns, and Pygmies without having to drive 12 hours. At one property you can get all four. (Laughter) So you just really wasted your time. (Laughter)
Scott: I really hope that you went looking for a Blotchie at some point in time, because if you got those other ones, you must have at least tried for a Blotchie on the way home.
Riley: I think we got one on the way up.
Scott: Good work.
Riley: I have to look at it, I think to me that was definitely a highlight.
Scott: Excellent. Well, I suppose that sort of leads on to everything Pygmy blueys. Kim, you know, a thing or two about these things. Do you want to tell the listeners what they are and what you're doing with them?
Kim: Sure. So the Pygmy blue tongue is the smallest member of the Tiliqua genus. So it's also known as the Adelaide blue tongue because Tiliqua adelaidensis is its scientific name. They're really, really cool and unique and probably one of the most well studied reptiles that we have in Australia because they had a really unique story. So the Pygmy blue tongue was actually considered to be extinct until 1992, until one was opportunistically discovered in the belly of a dead Brown snake. So that happened about 150 k's north of Adelaide. It was a couple of guys driving along the dirt road, saw a dead Brown snake and decided to pull over and thought to themselves, I wonder what this thing's been eating? And they found something that shouldn't have been in there, an extinct lizard, the Pygmy blue tongue.
So since then, of course, we've gone absolutely nuts researching it. We've discovered that the real reason that we didn't know where they were is that they're hide and seek champions. They live in vacant spider burrows. So those spider burrows might only be about as big as a 20 cent coin in their width, but they could be at least a metre deep, but typically maybe half a metre, 30 centimetres, sometimes less. They live on private grazing properties, only in this really small area of South Australia. They are threatened. There is a research group at Flinders University that I'm part of that is researching them to try to help with their conservation.
Tie: That's awesome. How long have you been doing this, Kim?
Kim: So I'm a PhD candidate in that group. I started in 2021 and I will be finishing in between six to 12 months. It depends if I do an extension or not. Your typical PhD is an absolute minimum of three years. It could be longer than that, depending on things. So a few years now.
Tie: Out of curiosity for the listeners who would like to have a career as you are, can you tell us a bit more about that? What's it entail?
Kim: Sure. The way it works, here in Australia is you firstly have to go to uni, you do your bachelor's, that's your undergraduate degree. It takes you full-time, maybe three, four years. Usually then you'll do some kind of research. You might do honours, which is like a mini PhD that goes for just under a year. Or you might even do a master's by research. That's typically more like two years. You need to have at least one of these degrees. Some unis are now changing that - you need to hold both and then you can go into your PhD. So when you're a PhD candidate, when you finish, you'll officially actually be a doctor. Not a medical doctor, (laughter) but I can still say, I'm a doctor and Riley is not. And that can take, like I said, a minimum of three years here, but typically in ecology where almost the majority of us are doing a lot of field-based research, you're very, very reliant on the field conditions and the weather and seasonality. You end up taking a little bit longer a lot of the time.
Scott: So what's your PhD actually on? Are you looking at site fidelity in these things? Or are you looking at population genetics? What are you looking at with Pygmy blueys?
Kim: My PhD is about assessing habitat suitability. We know that the Pygmy blue tongues are endangered partially due to climate change and that we need to move them back towards the historical range of Adelaide. Like I said, they are also called the Adelaide pygmy blue tongue. They were historically found in Adelaide, but we don't know that they are still there. We've not been able to find them there. We only know of them at least 150 kilometres north of Adelaide. But due to climate change effects, the northerly distribution is becoming really threatened, and our climate projections show they need to move back towards Adelaide, in order to not go extinct. I'm assessing habitat suitability at the microhabitat scale. The way I like to explain that is the spider burrow in which that lizard lives and what immediately surrounds it. The site scale, so that's the individual paddock or the property on which it lives or may potentially be moved to. And the landscape scale. So the factors that affect the microhabitat and the site. So that's sheep grazing or the type of land management that's happening. That's essentially the structure of my thesis.
Scott: Are they using a particular genus of spider burrows?
Tie: I was just about to ask that.
Scott: From my understanding, it's Tasmanicosa. What was Lycosa, the Wolf spider burrows, was one thing. But do they tend to be found on the same plains and stuff like that, so northwest facing slopes or southern facing slopes or anything like that? Or is there any sort of consistency to it? Or just wherever the spiders are, or where they were, is where the blue tongues sit?
Kim: They are found in Wolf spider burrows or Lycosidae. We also find them in Myglamorph or Trapdoor spider burrows. Trapdoor spider burrows are of higher quality to them. So they do prefer those if they can. But there's a bit of an issue with the spider biology, where Trapdoor spiders, particularly the females, tend to reside in their burrows for life, as opposed to Wolfies that may move about more often. And although a Pygmy can kill a spider, a spider can also kill a Pygmy. From what we understand, the Pygmies are only going into a vacant burrow. They're not necessarily going in and killing a spider that has a really nice burrow. So there's a lot of complexities going on there, but you can also find them in centipede burrows. They also can be very occasionally down mice burrows or old ants nests, things like that as well. We find them now on private grazing properties and it needs to be areas that have been unplowed. Those do tend to be the slopes that you were mentioning because typically back in the day the farmers would plow where it's flat because their tractors and things couldn't get up those slopes because there are rocks and whatnot and they get quite steep. But the flat portion of the property may have been cropped so the Pygmies aren't found there but once you start getting up those slopes you do start finding them.
Tie: What's the least favourite thing about being in the field, Kim, with the Pygmies?
Kim: You gotta just love all of it. I got very used to spiders jumping out at me constantly because it's nine out of ten burrows have a spider in them. You get really used to it. I camp everywhere I go so for me it's not really too much of an issue to not have access to a toilet. But some of my volunteers have definitely not been accustomed to that lifestyle. (Laughter) Just the typical work day.
Tie: I'm only laughing because I am the world's worst squatter.
Kim: Yeah. I've been stung by bees and stuff a lot of the time when I'm out in the field, so that's never been fun. Not while I was squatting. I'm always looking out for snakes and ants though. (Laughter)
Tie: Ohh. I just had the worst visual.....
Kim: Actually flying ants. I once went out and there'd just been this massive rain event a few days before. And for whatever reason, there were thousands, and I am not kidding you, thousands of flying ants and they swarmed just me. I was out there with two other boys and they didn't care about those boys. But they followed me, just thousands of flying ants biting me. That was not the best time.
Tie: I honestly thought you were going to say going down the centipede burrows.
Kim: No, it's not really an issue. We've looked into co occupancy and typically if a lizard is down that burrow, it's just a lizard. So if you go down the centipede burrow, you see a centipede, you can just pull the scope out and they don't come out and attack you or anything. That's more the spiders. We use, I call it a scope, and it's essentially a camera on the end of a really long coil, and then you hold almost like a video game controller in your hand, that's got like a TV screen on it. So that way we can see what's going on down the burrow and we can keep getting deep enough, but the issue is, is that while you're focusing, because the burrow is not straight, it will twist and turn and go up and down. So you're really concentrating, trying to get to the bottom of this deep burrow to look for this really endangered lizard, but if it's not a lizard, a spider can push its way out past that coil and it can climb up that coil and start climbing up to you. And that's when you decide that it's not worth conservation and you want to burn the whole paddock down because you're being attacked by a spider. (Laughter)
Tie: Actually, a spider wouldn't bother me, but if it was a roach, I'd be running and screaming. (Laughter)
Kim: No that's in the tent. Those are the surprise friends in the tent. (Laughter)
Tie: Oh, God.
Scott: So, for the people out there, do you want to explain how you get these lizards out of the burrows without damaging the burrows, if you need to actually look at the lizard? How do you do that?
Kim: Yeah, it's an amazing technique. It's really, really, highly technical and it takes a lot a lot of practice. It doesn't really, it's fishing. The key to this is you have to use a bright pink fishing rod. We quite literally tie a mealworm onto the end of a bit of string and we dangle it in front of a spider burrow, and we start to lure the lizard out until we let the lizard bite onto the worm and you pull it from its home. It doesn't hurt it or anything. You just pull it out, put it to the side and you quickly grab it. It's the best way to do it a at this point in time that we have. Because you really can't dig them up, you could destroy the burrow, which those types of burrows can take years for a spider to build, which also impacts not only the lizards, but the spiders and the ecosystem. It's not worthwhile. We do use artificial burrows, but we're starting to investigate similar to what they use for the Grassland earless dragons, which is the PVC piping inside of another artificial burrow so you can just pull that out and have the lizard in it.
Scott: The conduit inside the conduit.
Kim: Yeah, so but that's still in the experimental phase, so when I'm working out at the natural populations, we're fishing them out.
Scott: Yeah, okay. Blue tongued lizards are fairly long lived skinks. I'm assuming that you guys have got some animals in the study sites there that you've been looking at for for quite a number of years.
Kim: Yeah. There are some lizards that have been kept at Flinders University in the animal house. I believe some of those came in as adults and some of those lived for at least, I think, seven years or so before they died. I have been looking at some of the same lizards since the beginning of my PhD, and they've been in the same burrow the whole time. Typically, if it's a really high-quality burrow, they'll stay in it and they are territorial of it, except during the mating season. They'll defend it from other lizards, and they'll just stay in that burrow for a really long time. So for three years straight, I've had some of my best friends, those lizards, stay in the same burrow.
Scott: How long do the juveniles stay with the mum before they get shifted off to their own burrow?
Kim: Only a couple of weeks. So Pygmies have a live birth. And the mother could have between one to four live babies. She'll give birth in her burrow, so they'll stay with mum for a couple of weeks. We don't fully understand everything, going on at that stage. But she must get sick of them after a couple of weeks and she boots them out. They then have to go off and find their own burrow. They're dispersing in about February, so they've got a couple of months where it's warmer to find somewhere and hopefully bulk up, before the winter period. But we don't actually know how many babies are surviving to the next season.
Scott: Are they going into smaller spider burrows? Are they choosing an appropriate size burrow or will you find a small blue tongue in a relatively large burrow if it happens to be vacant?
Kim: For the adults, adults like a burrow that's about the same width as them. They want it to be nice and tight because they use their heads as like a doorknob and they'll put their head down so it stops anything coming in. They've got tougher scales on the top of their head. But for the babies, we don't fully understand. I've found babies in quite large burrows that are, not ideal for a baby. They're too big for them, so they can't defend it if something else comes in. But I've also found them in really small ones. It's one of those things that we still really need to research - what the neonates are doing.
Tie: How big are they, the neonates?
Kim: So, the baby babies, I'll have to send you one of the photos. It's smaller than my thumb. I've got a photo of a baby Pygmy on my thumb and it's, smaller than it. Whereas an adult would be a maximum 10 centimetre snout to vent length.
Tie: The reason I ask is I am assuming some of the visitors from overseas are thinking we have spiders the size of Eastern blue tongues. (Laughter) So I just thought I might get the size out there before they were sort of freaking out going, "I'm never visiting." (Laughter)
Kim: Yeah, that's a good point. That's why I made the point that its so interesting that a lizard can kill the spider, but we do have documented cases of the spiders killing the lizards. So it also puts in perspective how small they are.
Tie: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Would you guys recommend others follow in your footsteps in both your chosen paths?
Kim: I've been talking for a while, Riley, you go.
Tie: I was going to say, I've never heard Riley this quiet. (Laughter)
Riley: When it comes to Pygmies, I've learnt. (Laughter) Oh, absolutely, I think, if you love your job, everyone's going to say that. For me, I think, zoo keeping is 100 percent the way to go because it really encumbers everything. To be a good reptile keeper specifically, you have to also understand the natural requirements of that animal as well. So all the work Kim's doing is just as important to a zookeeper as what we feed it. I like that aspect of it. You can really dive into everywhere and really learn a whole lot, and I like the hands on part of it too, because I'm dyslexic. So I think any paperwork is going to be strenuous and, definitely learnt that with a few things. I think the work Kim does is excellent, but don't think I could do it. So I think for me personally, zookeeping was a no brainer. Especially growing up in that captive setting at Lilydale and just at home with animals as well. I think that really drove me towards that area, but absolutely, if you love animals and you want to work with them, zookeeping there's nothing better.
Tie: Is there a downside to zookeeping at all, do you think?
Riley: Oh, there's a few. (Laughter) I think that probably the starting one is the pay. I think historically that's just one industry where it can be easily taken advantage of. At a place I worked at, we had about 20, 000 applicants for a job. I can’t remember the exact number, but it was something ridiculous. And you just know, that if you're not working it someone else will, and I think, institutions know that as well. So, it's very easy to get low pay and for such a high output job. You have to do everything, especially in a private wildlife park or a private zoo. You're a plumber, you're an electrician, you're a landscaper, you're a concreter, you're an animal keeper, you're a public speaker, you're doing so many things. You're doing a whole different range of tasks and I think it's very easy for that industry to be taking the middle. So I think high pay is definitely needed because if you've got a car, you call a mechanic and you pay the mechanic because he's a specialist in that trade. So I think if you're a specialist in a certain area, whether it's animals or otherwise, you should be paid relevant to that skill.
Tie: And it's well known that quite a few zoos have lost awesome, awesome keepers because they can't afford to raise a family or especially now pay a mortgage on that pay.
Riley: Yeah. And I think that's the hardest part about "Do you follow in our footsteps." Because the way it is now for us, the economy and just everything in general costs a living. It'd be incredibly hard to do it if you didn't have support. You're working full time, you may have to work a second job. And there's been instances where I've had two, sometimes three jobs on the go just to support my passion. So I think it's definitely needed.
Tie: Yeah. Kim?
Kim: I've been sitting here thinking of what to say, (laughter) and I'm like, it depends. (Laughter)
Riley: How much do researchers get paid?
Kim: How much wine do we drink? Specifically for a PhD, you have to kind of follow the steps I outlined before, but I know of a lot of people who are jumping straight in. They're not leaving uni for a bit. I did my honors and then I left for a couple of years and then I didn't actually think I'd come back to uni at all. But here I am back at it. I think people need to really go out and get some life experience, look at other universities. I've obviously swapped. I live in Victoria, but my universities in South Australia, but I studied originally at La Trobe, so I've swapped universities. You don't necessarily have to, but try to broaden your horizons and don't pigeonhole yourself into one niche. It's just what I think, just to broaden out a little bit.
Tie: Who do you guys admire most in your professional circle? Do you guys have mentors?
Riley: I think for me personally, there's a few too many to name. Growing up, obviously Marcus Whitby has had a massive impact on my life and my career, as well as my parents, like making sure I've been sent to the right school and always supporting what I'm doing. There were times where I was volunteering 32 hours, 48 hours a week for years, and I didn't have to worry about too much in terms of the money coming in, because I got to live at my parents place. So, I think, Mum and Dad definitely, straight off the top and then Marcus with just everything. He still continues to do stuff for me now. If I ever need a reference or I need some advice, he's always there for a chat. He'll always, always write something up for me. Another would be Michael Swan. He started volunteering at the Lilydale High School just as I started employment there. I had just finished high school and I just started working there and he'd just come on board volunteering. He'd just finished up at Zoos Victoria, after a long and successful career. So, to have that opportunity to study under someone who'd been in the career for such a long time and written numerous books and so much knowledge and experience, and for him to volunteer that time and take me under his wing. It's, it's amazing. Just absolutely awesome. I owe a lot to him and I think a few other people in the industry owe a lot to Mike Swan as well. So that's definitely another one. Then more recently, Adam Elliott, my former boss at the Wildlife Park. He's another one, you couldn't fault the guy. He's always there to teach ya, he's always there to tell you when you've done things wrong too. (Laughter) Pretty sure you have to be told you're an idiot sometimes.
Scott: You've got to be able to fault the guy, I'm sure you can't say he's faultless. (Laughter)
Tie: Every time he calls, it's like “Why are you speaking Tie? Why aren't you in the kitchen making Scott's dinner?” (Laughter)
Riley: Yeah, no, he's got a character to him, that's for sure. (Laughter)
Tie: He does, doesn't he? (Laughter)
Riley: Yeah, he's taught me all different things. Especially, growing up with the schools, I wasn't out herping and such, I was more focused on learning how to keep animals correctly than going out in the field. That's something that you and him have a lot of experience in doing, obviously together.
Scott: Yeah.
Riley: So that's something that he's been able to teach me over the last few years as well, which obviously I hadn't been privy to before. So yeah, Adam Elliott as well.
Scott: For the listeners, Adam was in our bridal party for our wedding. I've known Adam since I was, I think I was about, 12 or 13 when I first met him. So, I've known him a little while.
Tie: I can't believe he still talks to you after all those years. (Laughter)
Scott: Neither can I. (Laughter) What about you, Kim? Who do you admire?
Kim: I struggle to answer this, because I had a very different upbringing to Riley. I didn't have any kind of animals or anything at the school that I went to. I grew up a bit more, I guess you could say underprivileged and a bit more poor and whatnot. I'm moved out straight away and I just lived on campus and just kept going from there. So, I was really kind of just doing it myself. I chose to do the PhD externally, so I'm very much more reliant on myself. I don't really have the opportunity to go to the lab very often, so it's just being very self reliant at this point.
Riley: I'm super proud of Kim too. She's doing it all from home on her own. She's had to teach herself statistics and how to write code and couldn't do any of that. And, she's driving seven hours consistently to Adelaide for two weeks or so and back again. And still feeding me as well.
Tie: Kickin' ass. There's no doubt about that. She's doing so well.
Riley: Absolutely.
Kim: Oh, well, thank you.
Tie: What animals do you enjoy working with the most, Riley? Apart from, obviously, what we'd already asked earlier.
Riley: Yeah, that's a tough question.
Kim: Birds. (Laughter)
Riley: Birds. I love obviously natives, working at a zoo, I think it's very cool that I've been able to work with exotic species, and I think any reptile keeper, if you ask anyone, would have to say Komodo dragons. You can't beat them.
Tie: They all do, yeah.
Riley: You can't fault them. Whether you're watching them on a documentary or you're seeing them on the islands or you get the privilege to work with them. They're just an awesome animal. I really mean awesome in every sense of the word. You can't get over it. I was very privileged at Ballarat. We had, we still have two Komodo dragons. The only ones in Victoria. And they're just so intelligent, so unique, so big. I think the first time I went in with Larva Claw, I ran away. (Laughter) I was not the most manly of reptile keepers at the very start. But you learn to work with them.
The giant tortoises, the Aldabrians they're incredible as well. The poison arrow frogs. Keeping frogs in Australia is obviously a pretty decent niche, they require a little bit more than you were ever told, but Poison arrow frogs are next level. If they have a bit of dust drop on their skin, their shedding, you're misting it, but they're super delicate. So it was a really big learning curve in terms of those as well. And then I think as a whole, probably monitors, skinks, and geckos are definitely things I'll always have a passion for. And I think venomous snakes too, elapids, That's something I didn't really get into till later on. I went to a few people's, homes to learn from. A select few that I didn't think were cowboys. You get a lot of elapid keepers that free handle or are in it for themselves or just want to throw the snakes around and that's not what I wanted to learn.
Scott: I Don't think I've ever met a free handling elapid keeper or anything like that. That doesn't sound right. (Laughter)
Riley: Each to their own.
Tie: If it makes you feel any better about the Komodo, I've been in three separate Komodo enclosures. Each time I have had very bright hair and the first time the keepers were a little bit edgy as well. So I'm not quite sure if it was entirely me. The first time I had bright blue hair and I'm like "He was very interested in my hair." It was an ass puckering moment, I'm not going to lie, because he kept sort of jerking towards me and the keepers were shitting themselves. And I'm like, "I think I'm going to go out now. I don't think he likes my hair." And they're like, "It's not your hair" and I'm like "Okay". Second one, I had purple hair and the third one I had pink hair. And I've just decided now that next time I go in a Komodo enclosure, I'm putting a beanie on because they were all overly interested.
Kim: It's amazing that you've had that many opportunities though. Thats' incredible.
TE: Like Riley, we're very lucky.
Riley: Yeah, you can't beat them.
Scott: The first Komodo I ever got to meet was Lava Claw. And, what a sweet lizard.
Riley: You can have her fall asleep with her head in your hand and, she was just that good of an animal. There are definitely periods where, she showed her wild side, and you always have to be cautious of that, you always have to remember they are wild animals and things can happen. And, we've had a fair share of that over the years. And it's not so much that they're in food mode or anything like that. It's more just seasonal, like they're very protective at certain seasons, especially around breeding season. They can get a bit more boisterous and a bit more defensive. Having all the measures in place to make sure accidents don't happen is a very good thing.
Scott: What books would you guys recommend to our listeners and, what sort would you look for? What are the three books that you really like?
Riley: First off the bat, would be Steve Wilson's A Complete Guide to Reptiles of Australia. For me, it's got everything in it, of course. I know Coggers are exceptional as well, but in terms of my dyslexia, I find Steve Wilson's ones easier to navigate. The size of it too, I can chuck it in the car, bring it with me and no hassles. It's not a awkward size. So yeah, that's definitely number one on the list. Second one for me would be Biology and Evolution of Crocodylians by Gordon Grigg and David Kirschner. When I started working in the park, I had very little knowledge of crocodiles, so that was my saving grace, that's just an awesome book if you want to know about crocodiles. That's the one.
Tie: It's a cracker of a book. It's just impossible to get at the moment.
Kim: Sorry. He's just dropped his headphone yet again. He's getting it back in.
Riley: Sorry about that. (Laughter)
Tie: All good. All good.
Riley: The final one would be yours and Scott's book. The elapid one, that's just absolutely awesome.
Tie: Oh, thank you.
Riley: It's on the coffee table every day. It's just insanely cool.
Tie: There's a lot of arguments, blood, sweat and tears in that. Thank you.
Riley: Massive, congrats to both of you. That's easily one of the most comprehensive venomous snake books I've ever seen.
Tie: Oh, thank you. Kim, what are your three go tos?
Kim: Well, Riley stole one of the Steve Wilson field guides, for me. But to be fair, there's some mini versions of his version of that. As well as I do love the Frog Bible, which is Marion Anstis' Tadpoles and Frogs of Australia, and there's a mini field guide version of that as well. They're pocket sized, which is great when I'm doing fieldwork as a field ecologist here in Victoria. Those are incredible. But because I did grow up as well keeping reptiles, but we didn't really do any kind of breeding. So some of the Danny Brown books I've found are really, really handy for me to get a little bit of guidance on hopefully having some successful breeding projects, and not having to be fully reliant on Riley's zookeeper knowledge. (Laughter)
Tie: How do you guys balance life and work?
Riley: When I get in the door, that's it. (Laughter) I'll tend to my animals, I love every bit of that. Play some video games, watch a movie, just try to switch off as best you can. I think zookeepers everywhere always have the issue of, "Did I leave that enclosure unlocked? Did that animal get fed? Is that going to survive the night if I did this, this and this?" it's easy for your mind to run wild. So, I think just trying to shut off and know that you've got confidence in yourself that you've done a good day's work, and just chill out.
Kim: For me, it was a little bit more difficult because I've worked from home since pre Covid. Particularly for the PhD, doing it externally away from home. So it gets quite difficult to differentiate between life and work, especially when we have so many animals as well to take care of. I try to follow a similar work schedule as Riley, so when he gets up and goes to work, so I get up and go into the study and I don't come back out. Except for when he comes home again, then I can turn off as well. And being a bit more easy that even though, if I don't necessarily work 8 full hours like what's expected of you in a typical work day, but if I achieved my goals, my to do list, I got stats right, or I put that grant application in, being satisfied and being able to turn off. I used to just stress all weekend long if I should have been doing writing, or stats and learning that I did need to take a break in order to work better. We also like to go fishing. Riley is a shit fisherman though, (laughter) and I'm a very good one because I have lots of practice from the Pygmies. And I do a lot of gardening at home as well.
Scott: So that leads right into it. What's your guilty pleasures?
Kim: Well, I guess for me, it's Nutella and wine. Sounds horrible.
Tie: Together? (Laughter)
Riley: At least in glass. (Laughter)
Kim: Yeah, just a spoon in each. (Laughter)
Riley: Yeah, I watched too many movies probably, too much Netflix, probably stay up too late watching random crap.
Kim: And eating crap.
Riley: And eating crap, definitely. Yeah. Chocolate. Chocolate's awesome. I think everyone should get around that. (laughter)
Tie: I hear ya.
Riley: I love tennis as well. I'll go down and have a hit at the club and, watch it on online as well. I think not too extraordinary in terms of guilty pleasures, but that's all right.
Tie: Where do you guys see yourselves professionally in the next five to ten years?
Kim: I'll be finishing my PhD hopefully in the next 12 months. I would like to do a postdoc, which is essentially I continue doing research in a different lab, but I actually get paid a livable wage instead of what I'm currently on. I would at some point like to be doing a postdoc, and hopefully here in Victoria. So I'm not doing as much traveling.
Tie: That would be awesome.
Kim: Yeah, it's so hard because you see opportunities come up. I love Sandswimmers and having now just put a manuscript in for them, and when you read about them, particularly after the amount of re descriptions and new discoveries of new species of them, but they know so little on their actual ecology. To go to Western Australia or the Northern Territory and actually work on those little data deficient species would be incredible, but also there's a lot of work in packing up your whole entire life. So it's a double edged blade to do both.
Tie: Yeah, yeah.
Riley: They've got zoos over there too, so you know. (Laughter) I think for me, just continuing keeping and just developing more in my field. I think, identifying the areas where I'm lacking in knowledge and skills and just developing those areas a little bit more. I think taxonomy, definitely, Kim's way more advanced at that than me. That can be partially to me reading the word wrong eight times and then having to listen to it 20 times to get it through my brain. I think, yeah, that's probably one good focus and then, just more specific designs of enclosures for animals as well, trying to get it more on point to their natural habitat than just doing the bare minimum that we know works. I think that's definitely something too, as a zookeeper, you always try and hit that marker. With reptiles, we are a little bit more advanced in terms of keeping that way, because we have to be. I think we can definitely do a lot more. I think the hobby is definitely going more that way now than there ever has been. I think social media's had a bit to do with that too. And just for us as well at home, we're here all the time. We've got species that we absolutely love and that's why we've got them. We want to be able to walk into the room and have no issue sitting there for an hour or two and just looking at the enclosures. You know it's ecstatically pleasing but also beneficial to the animals and seeing them do their natural behaviors. I think “Would you want any more?” I don't think you would.
Tie: It's good to see the change. We've been keeping long enough, it was always in a tub sort of thing back in the day. It's really good to see the change that's happening with keeping.
Riley: Oh, for sure. But, I think you can't let go of the past either. I think the best keepers do a bit of old style and a bit of new and continue to develop both of them. I think people that just only see the future and see what's online and only keep that way will be narrow minded. And people that, again, focus on the past and bottleneck themselves that way, again, I think the best keepers mix both and develop both.
Tie: Exactly. You nailed it.
Scott: Have either of you ever witnessed or experienced misogyny in your careers or in the hobby and what do you think could be done to stamp it out?
Riley: Yeah, that's a question definitely worth asking. I think zookeeping wise it's come a long way. I think traditionally there'd be a lot more women with fuzzy, furry animals and that could be, I think partially due to the reptile people being mostly male dominated and a bit more cowboyish. I think it's come a long way since then. There's definitely a lot more female reptile keepers now than there ever have been. Pretty much all the zoos I've worked in have had a pretty good balance and honestly some of the best reptile, or a lot of the best reptile keepers are female, I think. It has come a long way, but definitely have a lot more to go.
Kim: Unfortunately, at the same time, we're both in herpetology, but Riley's the captive, I'm academic, but we also cross paths, and go to expos and conferences and things together as well, and unfortunately I have experienced misogyny. I imagine it's getting better. I've been to some conferences and the ratio is 50:50 men to women and there's none of that happening, but then you obviously go and it could be that one, that one outlier. And I've had some pretty crappy experiences. I've had, grown men try to talk down to me and then when I've tried to speak back to them, turn their back to me and not acknowledge me. I used to get a lot of people who weren't willing to talk to me because I was just seen as the girlfriend to Riley. Which wasn't ideal, especially because Riley has never treated anyone else's partners like that, even if, they were there helping for the day or something, and they weren't necessarily in the herp field, you know, they're just another person to talk to, another human.
Riley: I think that for me really, honestly, that pissed me off. Because, I'm always on the basis that you treat people how you want to be treated. I didn't care if they worked an office job and they hated reptiles,like they were disgusted by them. I couldn't care less. I'd always, make the effort to talk to them and have a nice conversation. But there's been a lot of instances in the last few years where we've been at conferences and expos and I've seen people that have come up to talk to me, ignore Kim completely. And then when she started to talk, turn their back on her and then continue like nothing's happened. And I'm meant to be okay with that?
Tie: You're the arse when you call it out. That's the problem.
Riley: Exactly. Yeah, and you try and say, "Hey, be a bit more courteous". Those same people have come to the zoos that I've been at and expected excellent treatment with their partner. Obviously I've always delivered, but it definitely sucks if they think they're the be all and end all. I think that can be ego, but it can also be a lot of misogynistic aspects to it as well. And this is not a conversation that's not being said. I was at a mate's place recently, and he was talking to me about it - he's a prevalent guy in the reptile community, and has been for a long time. And his partner's experiencing the exact same thing. You know, we've both been talking about it recently. So it's not like it's only happening to a select few. It's happening across the board.
Kim: But in saying that, we're definitely not saying that it's every single person. it's the odd bad cookie or the bad egg whose doing it.
Riley: Most people are excellent, but yeah, there’s definitely a select few, repeat offenders on some cases and, and others you just wouldn't expect it. Especially since some of these people I've known for a long time, you just wouldn't expect it from them.
Tie: And whilst most people are good, the ones that are rude can be that rude and I guess silently derogatory is probably the best way I can describe it, that it makes you feel really shit and really low at the time. And it's usually publicly too. And you're like, Oh my God, everyone's just seen him snob me. You feel like a dick.
Kim: Yeah, and like you said before, if you say something back, then suddenly you're the arsehole.
Tie: Yeah, yeah.
Scott: It's one of the reasons why we actually ask this question. To highlight, I suppose, and make people aware that it is out there. It's a bit of an uncomfortable subject. Some people it's not so much of a thing that affects them, but for others, it certainly does. And, I can sympathize a little bit with Riley here. It becomes so difficult to stomach a conversation with that person after they've just snubbed your partner. And they don't even realize half the time that they've done something wrong, which is pretty poor as well.
Riley: Thanks for asking the question. I think, definitely keep up with it.
Tie: what's the one takeaway that you want the listeners to get from this episode guys?
Riley: I think for me, it doesn't matter who you are, or where you come from If you've got a passion, follow it and just be determined to work incredibly hard for it. I think a lot of the people that I say that have been my mentors would not have had the time for me, Adam definitely would not have had the time for me, if I didn't work hard. That's just number one, you can't get anywhere without really digging in and it's not just for a few months or a year until you've got your job set, in your head. It's continuously doing it, always. And I think, if you've got a learning difficulty or whatever it is, not just having that be the excuse. Not learning something just because it's hard, or just because it's too much, just to go “No, I can't do it” is, I think, is bit of a letdown on yourself. You've definitely got to push yourself and when I first started the school at the Reptile House, I was 13. I hadn't yet been told I'm dyslexic, but all the other kids in the program were in the Accelerate class. So they're already talking Latin. They're already talking scientific names. They're already, a few steps ahead of what that all means. And I'm having to work 40, 50 percent harder than most people just to get to the same conclusion. And it definitely makes you feel a bit crappy at times thinking, “How come I don't have this already, and how do these people already understand it?” But you just know that you're going to get there. And at the end of the day, that's why I'm here. That's why I'm a zookeeper. That's why I've had the chance to be in charge of others and in a leadership role. And I think that's why I've done so well.
Kim: Which also kind of brings me to bounce off Riley to not compare yourself to others. At least try not to. It's really, really difficult with social media. Riley and I both at this point stopped with social media a lot because it does get quite difficult when you constantly seeing everyone else for these amazing achievements. Not to say we're not having them, but we're just not as vocal about it. I did a lot of work with underprivileged schools in those kind of areas. And I was even a TAFE teacher for a bit. And I had some of these tafe students where people who didn't quite get the ATAR that they were looking for and couldn't get into the university course or things like that. And the whole point that I'd always have for them is that it's not the end, like the ATAR is not the end school, uni doesn't have to just be three years cause that's what it took me to do my undergrad. It can take you longer to get to the same place. You don't have to compare yourself, it would have taken Riley a lot longer to learn those things. But he did get there, it just took him longer and there's nothing wrong with that.
Tie: No, there's not. Everyone learns at their own pace.
Riley: Oh, for sure. And leaning on others as well, like, Michael Swan. Every day I’d walk in, every week, I should say, he'd have a list of species that I have to learn Latin for, and then that next week he'd quiz me. And if I didn't get it right, we wouldn't move on. Or I wouldn't get to do something cool that day. And that would just be it. Adam Elliott as well, I'll get him to say the scientific names in my phone on recording, because I couldn't read them, so I couldn't say them. And then I'd go back and listen to them, and then, eventually I'd get it. but you've got to do it at home as well.
Tie: But you found a way around the problems that you were facing, and you did it yourself. You got the initiative yourself.
Kim: So he didn't give up.
Riley: No, exactly.
Scott: Funnily enough, it's one of the reasons why in the the forthcoming field guide that Tie is the lead author of, why she was so adamant that we needed to have that pronunciation of the scientific names in there, is so that people have an opportunity, something that they can reference and go well this is how to actually say said name.
Riley: Yeah and that's where the Danny Brown books are really good. He's got a few of those in there as well. It opens it up to everyone, not just people that can easily understand it.
Tie: I understand it because of Scott, but I will sit down with Hal and Scott sometimes and they're talking about a species in a foreign country and then Hal looks at me and he's like, "Do you know what we're talking about?" and I'm like, "I know it's a lizard". (Laughter)
Riley: On that note, I would never want anyone to stop speaking Latin to me. I'll have a conversation with Scott at an expo or, whenever we see each other, Adam as well, and he'll say something that I completely do not understand. I'll go home and research if I don't get the chance to ask at the time. You don't want people to not say those things because they know that you have to struggle with it. I thrive on those people saying those things.
Scott: At the same time though Riley, the amount of times that someone asks me, or anyone else, if they go, "Hey what did you mean by that? Or can you explain that to me in a different way?" No one's ever going to have an issue with that. No one should feel bad about not understanding something. It's important for everybody to ask questions. There really is no such thing as a dumb question in that frame, so if you don't understand something…. We all had to learn it at some point, and people learn in different ways. Some people are better at reading. Some people are better at oral. Some people are better at learning things, via their hands and doing things themselves. So understand that there's there's more than one way to skin that proverbial cat, so to speak.
Riley: Absolutely. I heard, Tie laughing in the background when you said oral.
Tie: I couldn't help it. Thanks, Riley. (Laughter)
Kim: Thank you for pointing that out.
Scott: Well, on that note where can our listeners find you if they wanted to ask any questions? Have you got social media that you'd like to share ? If someone's chasing you up what's the best way for them to get in contact with you guys?
Kim: Yeah, we've each got social media so we can send you the links. I've got instagram, I like instagram and also probably my email if people had inquiries about potential volunteers or even research questions and things like that. I can also give out my student email for any kind of things like that. Or if anyone wants to donate money to the poor university student fund.
Scott: That's a really good point. Doing this research and doing this stuff is not cheap. Replacing borescopes because they've been attacked by myglymorphs and things like that. I would assume petrol to get to site, all that sort of stuff is obviously costing money. So if you guys have got any volunteer, funds or anything like that that you're aware of, feel free to share it out with our listeners.
Kim: Yeah, I'm very fortunate. I'm at the point where I've received the majority of my field grants. I can always send, just some of the other, like the lab funds or anything like that as well. And also particularly if any audience member actually really wants research papers because a lot of research papers, aren't open access, you have to pay for them. But if there's something that they can't get access, I think mine mainly are open access, but I can always email them anything like that.
Tie: So are you swapping for wine and Nutella, or are you just happy to email them?
Kim: It will have to be in equal exchange. (Laughter)
Tie: No flies on you, babe. (Laughter)
Riley: I'm pretty simple, just Facebook me. (Laughter) No one wants to email the dyslexic, because you're going to get a terrible, terrible response. (Laughter)
Tie: Thanks for listening to the Cold Blooded Contributions podcast. A massive thank you to our guests Kim Michael and Riley Morris. We really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us. Usually, we will be releasing our podcast monthly so make sure you follow us so you don't miss out on an episode. Give the Cold Blooded Contributions podcast a like on Facebook so you don't miss any updates, giveaways or guest announcements. The links discussed in today's podcast will be in the show notes. And remember, always trust your creativity, it's intelligence having fun.
Kim Michael can be reached here:
Email: mich0224@flinders.edu.au
Riley Morris can be reached here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/riley.morris.50
Nature 4 You
Website: www.wildlifedemonstrations.com
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com.au/scott_eipper
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naturefouryou/
Nature 4 You’s Podcast: Cold-blooded Contributions
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095066316571
If you enjoy these blogs, please share, or let us know what you think in the comment section. Don't forget to sign up to our mailing list and follow us on Social Media.
Comments