John Fowler BIO

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I was born in England in 1954, moved to Australia in 1966 (age 11) and soon developed an interest in reptiles.

I remember that soon after moving into a house at South Brighton SA. we found some Marbled Gecko's and a Shingleback in the back garden. The Shingleback, or what we locally call a sleepy lizard turned out to be the neighbors escaped pet. I think they used to sell at Petcenta for 50 cents each.

It wasn't long before I was going out with friends from school catching bluetongue's, Shinglebacks and bearded dragons and many smaller species. I remember going to Brownhill Creek and seeing a Brown Snake - I told my parents that I would catch it and take it home, however my father casually remarked "are you sure it's not poisonous?" - I hesitated then decided that maybe it could be poisonous so I'd better leave it alone!

A friend at school showed me his pet carpet snake, and I just had to have one, they were $1 per foot in those days and I soon had Carpets, Common Tree Snakes, Brown Tree Snakes, Spotted (Called Children's in those days) Pythons, and Freshwater Snakes (Keelbacks) - prices ranged from $4 to $6 at the time for those species.

Water Pythons, Scrub Pythons and Diamond Intergrades were a bit more expensive at around $9 each. One day I really lashed out and paid $20 for a Blackheaded Python.

Monitors were sometimes in stock and these were several dollars each. There were also other less standard species I remember purchasing such as a Black Whip Snake and Ornamental Snakes.

I soon made contact with collectors all around Australia and we used to exchange reptiles through the mail. There seemed to be no incentive to breed among keepers in those days as reptiles were too easy to acquire and very cheap.

I joined the South Australian Herpetology Group when it started with Harald Ehmann (author of "Encyclopedia of Australian Animals - Reptiles") and Dr. Julian White ( Now an International Snake Venom Expert), and soon after that reptiles became protected, and even Carpet snakes were difficult to obtain for a while, prices rising from $1 to $100 per foot.

I held various positions on the committee of the South Australian Herpetology Group and was President for a while.

I also worked at the Dreamtime Reptile Reserve Bundaberg Queensland for a short while with Peter Richardson when I was 17, and at that time made friends with Bob Irwin when he first opened his Reptile Park at Beerwah, which is now called Australia Zoo. At that time Steve Irwin was still a child, it is amazing that this small boy went on superstar fame.

I sometimes used to visit Joe Bredl's Reptile Park at Renmark, the original park was near his home, Joe would always chat to me and whoever was with me and I admired him greatly. I remember going out with 2 of his sons, in a mini moke looking for reptiles. One of his sons, Rob went on to become "The Barefoot Bushman", and another of his sons became, Sir Joe Bredl.

In my teenage years I made contact and often went herping with or traded with reptile fanatics all around Australia.

It is amazing how many of these people that I met in those days are still around and active in Herpetology. Many have written books, appeared or helped with documentaries, work with reptiles, or Fauna Authorities.

When I worked at Wang Computers I would regularly visit Sydney for training and on these visits would try and catch up with Harry Ehmann, visit the Australian Reptile Park which was at Gosford then and often stay with John Cann (The Snakeman of La Perouse), and went herping with George Cann (Jnr), Gunther Schmida, and others.

One day when I visited the Australian Reptile Park I met John Weigel, we hired a taxi to take us somewhere to search for Land Mullets. Little did I know at the time that he would eventually be running the Reptile Park and receive the Order of Australia.

When I became a Father, I decided that I would no longer keep dangerous snakes, mainly because of the safety on my children, but also because I had been bitten several times, including bites from Red Bellied Black snakes a Death Adder, a Copperhead, and other less dangerous species. This was despite feeling that I was very safety conscious and careful !

After my wife left me in the late 80's, my reptile collection dwindled to a few species, however one day I went into Petcenta with my girlfriend Rachel Barnes and we were shown some Bredl's Pythons. Rachel was then hooked and wanted to get a pet python. She really wanted a Blackheaded python but settled for a young carpet snake which thrived and she was keen to get more reptiles.

I suggested that we should only get pairs of animals, and to keep my interest we should steer away from most common species that I had kept before. I wasn't too enthusiastic to get a large collection but preferred a smaller collection of pairs of harder to get species, I liked the idea of getting hatchlings and raising them.

Being a computer technician, I got onto internet before most Australians had heard of it, and started the Australian Herpetology page which is now located at australianherpetology.com .

John Hollister in Texas contacted me and suggested that a listing of all Australian species and varieties with pictures would be a good project, but I explained that I had lots of slides, but no scanner or much time to produce such a page. He offered to scan the slides and do the bulk of the page layout (In those early Dial-up internet days the coding could only be done manually).

The site is called REPTILES OF AUSTRALIA

The project soon got under way, however after a few years, he lost interest in the site.

I took over the coding using programs like Frontpage, Word, and then various versions of Dreamweaver, which is why the code looks so messy.

Most of my working life I have been an Computer Engineer, however in 2000 I started investing in Real Estate with my partner Rachel Barnes, and were extremely successful, which allowed us both to retire early. I retired in 2002 and although Rachel retired in 2004 she still works part time.



 


LINKS OF INTEREST

More Information about Australian Reptiles

 

RECOMMENDED AMAZON BOOKS
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Australian Snakes In Captivity (A Guide to) Working with Snakes: A comprehensive information and training manual for professional Australasian snake consultants Kindle Edition

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OTHER LINKS

Find a Random Species of Australian Reptile

Visit the Australian Herpetology Website







REPTILE SPECIES LISTS BY STATE OR TERRITORY

 

Reptiles of South Australia
REPTILES OF VICTORIA
REPTILES OF NSW REPTILES OF QUEENSLAND REPTILES OF NORTHERN TERRITORY REPTILES OF Western Australia Reptiles of the ACT(Canberra)

Reptiles of South Australia

Reptiles
of
Victoria

Reptiles
of
NSW

Reptiles
of
Qld

Reptiles
of
NT

Reptiles
of
WA

Reptiles
of the
ACT

Reptiles of Tasmania




Reptiles of Lord Howe Island

Reptiles of Christmas Island

Reptiles
of Cocos Keeling Islands

Reptiles of Norfolk Island






About John Fowler | About John Hollister | Report Faulty Link | Report an Error

Contact John Fowler Author of the Australian Herpetology Website, Pythons of the World, - Owner of the Adelaide Reptile Forum

Contact John Hollister Author of John Hollister Reptile Collection - Herping the Trans-Pecos & Sweetwater, Texas Rattlesnake Roundup

Copyright 2020 John Fowler, Rachel Barnes and John Hollister. All rights reserved. Reproduction or re-use of information or materials from this web site is strictly prohibited and against international law. (NOTE:- No permission is needed to link to this web page)



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Updated February 17, 2023

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