|
|||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Snakes Alive!
Robinson, a 36-year-old, first-year med student, is a herpetologist, or someone who studies reptiles. He’s cared for them ever since he was a boy growing up in the Los Angeles area. At one point he had about 1,500 reptiles, including 700 snakes. It was during a 10-year stint as a counselor for California’s Department of Mental Health that Robinson began breeding reptiles professionally. By chance, he produced specimens with color or pattern mutations. He enrolled in community college, took a biology course and was soon able to refine his breeding techniques. Meanwhile, his 2,400-square-foot garage was teeming with chameleons, lizards, geckos and snakes. Lots of them. Pythons, boas and dozens of colubrids, a family of smaller, non-venomous animals like king snakes, rat snakes, garter snakes and water snakes.
“It was exciting to see the mutations I was able to create,” says Robinson. “To be the first on the planet to do something is not a place everyone knows, and I can say I’ve been there more than once.” Realizing he had a real affinity for science, Robinson enrolled at UC Davis and pursued biology. “I tried to figure out how I could put together my interest in working with people and science,” he says. “The best way to do that, for me, was a career in medicine.” He downsized his business, concentrating only on California native rattlesnakes. He estimates that today his snakes are dispersed in more than 200 collections around the United States. Many have made their way to Europe.
He realizes that medical school will make increasing demands on his time. “But once I’m done, I’ll have my hobby at home.” And then, he says, he’ll never live without snakes again. —Lydia Levis Bloch |
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
