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May 2009 Editor's Note

A fun time can be had making your own reptile videos.

Students At Maryland’s Great Mills High School Build Salamander Fence
Petfinder.com’s Birthday Wish: Find Homes For 15,000 Pets
Reward Offered For Info Leading To Killers Of Costa Rican Sea Turtle Activist

These days it can be hard to determine which takes up most of my time: REPTILES magazine or our website, ReptileChannel.com. The fact of the matter is a ton of effort — other people’s too, not just mine — goes into both.

ReptileChannel.com members can now upload their own videos. This is a fun new feature of the site, and you never know what kind of video you might find. Well-known herpetologist Romulus Whitaker’s rat soup video (a big hit at last year’s International Herpetological Symposium in Nashville, Tenn. — that’s where I saw it, and I quickly sought permission to post it on ReptileChannel.com) is there as well as videos of people’s pet herps. Python breeder Brian Barczyk’s SnakeBytesTV videos are always fun to watch, too. Check out all the videos, or post your own, by going to ReptileChannel.com/Videos.

Speaking of videos, BowTie’s Animal Network sites (of which ReptileChannel.com is a part) are uniting for the “Yes You Can!” public service announcement campaign, which has been designed to help promote proper petkeeping. Visitors to most of BowTie’s website channels — ReptileChannel.com, DogChannel.com, BirdChannel.com, CatChannel.comSmallAnimalChannel.com and HorseChannel.com — may participate. You could end up a star!

Each month a script written by BowTie’s Web editors will be posted on all the websites. Each script will focus on a different aspect of petkeeping. The first one, available now, is about pet appreciation. Go to ReptileChannel.com/PSA to access the current script, and use it to film yourself making a public service announcement. Be creative! Then submit your filmed PSA via any participating website. One winner will be chosen each month. That person’s video will appear on all Animal Network websites for a month and be seen by thousands of viewers. Winners will also receive a complimentary one-year subscription to the BowTie magazine of their choice.

Check out the videos, and make your own, too. Help promote proper petkeeping!