Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:19:07 — 72.4MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS | More

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Fifty Three!  Things are good here in central Illinois, and I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there.  I wish you safe travels if you are journeying for the upcoming Christmas holiday season.

Patrons!  I want to give a shout-out to new Patreon member Ben Stegenga!  Thank you Ben, much appreciated!  And thanks as always to all of the folks who help keep the show going and to reach fifty-plus episodes!. To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

Calendars – if you listened to the Bob is Back episode a few weeks back and then bought a calendar from Bob Fersuon,, I want to say thank you very much! Bob broke last year’s record for calendar orders, by more than three hundred! He received over 1100 calendar orders and as most of you know, all of the proceeds go to preserving rainforest habitat for herps and birds and jaguars and so forth. Great work, Bob, and thanks again everyone who participated..

Our guest this week is Tony Daly-Crews. I was on a conference call a few weeks ago with Tony and some other folks, and he was representing the Rattlesnake Conservancy. And while we were talking a little bell went ding somewhere in my brain, and at the end of the call I asked Tony if he would come on the show and talk about the Rattlesnake Conservancy and he graciously said yes. I knew a little but not a lot about this non-profit organization, so I learned quite a bit from my conversation with Tony, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  And folks, be sure to check out the Rattlesnake Conservancy webpage and you can also follow them on Facebook and Instagram. You can also buy some merch and/or make a donation to support the organization ( I just did! ).

Thanks for coming on the show, Tony, and thanks for listening everyone!  And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, tips for herping better, etc.

Cheers!  Mike

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:21:39 — 74.8MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS | More

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Forty Nine!  Things are good here in central Illinois, and I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there. Here we go with another midweek episode because once again I will be out and about this weekend. A lot of folks say that May is THE month for finding amphibians and reptiles, here in the Northern Hemisphere. But I have to say that I am nearly as busy in October as I am in May, and I see herps in comparable numbers. So I have a big block of away-time coming up in mid-October so I will be working in new episodes as I can. And as always, I will be bringing my mobile recording rig on my journeys in order to talk with people, because those opportunities are too good to pass up. And I’m looking forward to some long hikes on warm October afternoons, and cool nights around a campfire. And I’m looking forward to seeing some old friends and maybe making some new ones.

Patrons!  Thanks as always to all of the folks who help keep the show going. To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

So this week’s show features another one of those rambling around-the-room discussions that I occasionally capture. And one was recorded this past June, in Mexico City. To be more precise, in a hotel next to the airport in Mexico City, and I had to do some fancy filtering to remove most of the sounds of jet engines taking off and landing. This was at the tail end of a herping adventure in Puebla and Veracruz, mostly Veracruz, and about half of our group had already flown home and the rest of us were waiting our turns. This was a long trip, two full weeks plus travel days, and everyone was very tired when I turned on the recorder. So you can tell from the show’s opening minutes that the energy level in the room was lower than low, but as the discussion progressed you can hear folks getting a little more animated about the subject material and their brains were getting fully engaged, just proving that many of us are never too tired to talk about rattlesnakes.

I want to thank Mack, Andy, John, Bryan, Tim, Armin, Andrew, Pat, and Max for pulling themselves up on one elbow and joining in the discussion.  And as always, thanks for listening everyone!  Please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, tips for herping better, etc.

Cheers!  Mike

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:11:31 — 65.5MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS | More

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Forty Six!  I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there. It’s the dog days of summer here at So Much Pingle world headquarters and the afternoons are plenty hot and humid. The flower garden still looks pretty good, but the tomato plants are scraggly and tired. But in my general area it’s also the time of year when female copperheads and rattlesnakes are close to giving birth. I got to see a couple gravid timber rattlesnakes last weekend while out with some friends, and the snakes looked ready to pop and I expect they will do so in just a few short weeks. And of course when gravid snakes are encountered, I prefer just to hang back and observe them without any real disturbance, just let them do their thing and I’m grateful just to see them.

SMP Patrons!  I want to thank our latest Patreon member, Benjamin Genter!  Thank you so much for supporting the show, Ben!  And thanks as always to all of the folks who help keep the show going. And folks, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

This week’s episode features a conversation with Joe Ehrenberger, and while the main thrust of the interview concerns the venomous snake training that Joe provides to first responders and other professionals, we talk about much, much more. Joe and I have been friends for quite a while, and we’ve shared some cool adventures over the years, including trips to Mexico and Cuba. Joe and his wife Kelly are new parents to a little cutie bug named Emma, and they are quite busy as you might imagine, so I was happy to get a little chunk of time with Joe for this interview. Joe has environmental consulting company out in the Denver area, and we talked about some of the projects the company is involved with, including one in particular. And there is a bonus guest appearance by Matt Cage, friend of the show and my Peruvian herping buddy. Matt works with Joe doing venomous snake training modules and so we’re getting two perspectives on that important work.

Thanks Joe and Matt for coming on the show!  And thanks for listening everyone!  And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, the best gloves for wrangling caterpillars, tips for herping better, etc.

Cheers!  Mike

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:25:11 — 78.0MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS | More

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to Episode Forty Four!  I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there!  It’s hot, humid, and full-bore summer here at the SMP world headquarters, so I took a little time off yesterday for some creek walking and queen-snaking.  The cold water felt great and there were plenty of Nerodia sipedon and Regina septemvittata to observe.  I like the fact that when it’s miserably hot, I can change my game a little and still get some herp-time in.

Patrons!  Thanks as always to all of the folks who help keep the show going. To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

This week’s guest is Dr. Heather Bateman, an associate professor at at Arizona State University’s College of Integrative Science and Arts, and a wildlife ecologist as well as an educator.  Heather is the recent co-author of the paper “Unwanted Residential Wildlife: Evaluating Social-Ecological Patterns for Snake Removals” published in Global Ecology and Conservation earlier this year  It’s an interesting paper and a little complicated, and I’m grateful to Dr. Bateman for unpacking the publication and breaking it down for me.  Also, ASU put together a short 3 min video that gives a little back story to the Bateman et al. paper – it’s very well done and it features Heather and Bryan Hughes and some cute buzztails, so be sure to check it out!

Thanks for coming on the show, Heather!  I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and we also chatted about some of her other projects (she is a busy person!). And as always, thanks for listening everyone!  Please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, tips for herping better, etc.

Cheers!  Mike

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:26 — 58.1MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS | More

Welcome to Episode Twelve!   In this installment, I talk with Dr. Emily Taylor, professor of biological sciences at Cal Poly (California Polytechnic State University), and we cover a number of topics, including rattlesnakes and leopard lizards.  Dr. Taylor is pursuing some fascinating lines of research and her passion for her work comes shining through.  Now this episode comes with some homework – I want you all to read “Squirrels vs Rattlesnakes“, an article Dr. Taylor posted to medium.com just a few days ago.  You’ll be glad you did!

We also talked about her Rattlesnake Beauty Pageant Calendar project – I know many of you will be interested, and 100% of the proceeds from sales of this calendar will benefit Advocates for Snake Preservation.  Dr. Taylor sent out a call for high-quality photos of our buzzy pals, and when the herp world responded, she chose the best of the best for this calendar.  Check it out!   I pre-ordered mine today.  You can also follow Emily on FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram – she’s “@snakeymama” on TW and IG.  The cartoon image of Emily featured here is her Twitter avatar, and was rendered by Ethan Kocak, who also did the artwork for this show!  He does good work.

Thanks so much for coming on the show, Emily, I enjoyed our conversation and my brain is still in high gear thinking about some of the things we talked about!

Thanks for listening, everyone!  The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, robot burrow-cams, herp confessions, tips for herping better, etc.

Stay tuned for more episodes! And don’t forget to herp better!

-Mike