Reptile Outreach Ideas??

[sorraia]

In my area there was an "earth fair" (about a month after earth day, to avoid competing with too many other earth day events) I was invited to hold a booth at. I brought some of my snakes, tortoise, and bearded dragon, had some little species information write-ups (if I had more time I would have made pamplets for people to take home), brought a couple books for people to thumb through, and basically just sat there all day talking to people, answering questions, and showing off the snakes. The kids LOVED the booth, I was probably one of the more popular, and those poor snakes had hardly a break all day (but were no worse for wear at the end of the day, and ate like nothing happened two days later on their normally scheduled feeding!). Even people who were afraid or didn't like snakes came over to see them. There were no negative comments directed toward them, just one lady who was like "Why aren't these snakes in the wild?" To which I calmly explained all of them were captive bred and could not be released even if they were native (although my rosy boas are a native species, the two I have are not local morphs). She walked away silently. It was great for the kids, great for the public, and I had a lot of fun too. I took 3 of my ball pythons (including my normal, so people could see what the "wild type" looks like, with a couple morphs to compare to), both rosy boas, and did not allow the bearded dragon or tortoise to be held (I didn't want to have to watch too many things at one time, nor stress them out too much). If you have local events like this, you can ask about holding a booth for outreach and education purposes.