Kentucky Reptile Zoo

Amber Freeman heads out to Slade Ky, to the Kentucky Reptile Zoo to talk to Co-Director, Kristen Wiley, about what all we can expect to see and what cool things they do with their snakes.

New that you will be right back c1 3 an overnight crash in lexington that caused a power outage.

Police say they were called to tates creek road near alumni drive, just before 1:30 tuesday morning.

According to police, maurice moberly crashed his car into a pole in the area.

Police say the vehicle then caught on fire.

The road was shutdown for several hours.

K-u crews worked to replace the pole.

According to the outage map, about 100 people were without power early this morning due to the crash.

Power has since been restored.

We now know the name of a missing paris kayaker found dead in stoner creek.

According to the department of fish and wildlife...43- year-old charles insko...was kayaking with a group sunday, when his kayak started to drift toward a dam.

Another member of the group started moving towards the kayak and insko got back into the water to help.

Witnesses tell investigators insko pushed that person downstream...lost his footing and the turbulent water swept him under.

Crews found his body around noon yesterday... about 150 feet from the dam.

A good samaritan in montgomery county..

Has died after trying to help another driver.

According to the fayette county coroner.... shana dawn cunningham- terrill stopped to help a driver on the side of i-64 east at mile marker one-oh- eight at around four monday morning.

The coroner says she was hit bythe interstae was taken tounced dead just before who stopped to help..

And where this time.

Now lets send it over to lysshe.

Coming up if yollison davis has you covered.

But youngs going on and all the cool creatbe right back.

Amber- host: s fo're in slade, kentucky at theor of the.

Wefinally came to yewhile.

Amber- host: i'm excited're here.

Amber- host: well, youfpet all-director: that' host: and so cool to actually behere in person.

Thank you for having us.

Kristen- co-director: no problem.

We appreciate youbeing here.

Amber- host: tell us about the kentuckyreptile zoo and what all you have going on out here.

So peaceful to begin with.

Kristen- co-director: sure.

Yeah, it's been reallybeautiful.

We've had some really nice weather recently, so it's been nice toenjoy that.

So we're a little bit odd because we do a variety of differentthings here.

So first and foremost, i think what most people know about us isthat we do provide venoms that are used in medical research all over the world.so for that reason, we have a lot of animals here.

We have probably around 1600individual snakes here right now.

And most of those are animals that are usedfor extraction.

So they're venomous animals like mambas, cobras, rattlesnakesof various sorts, different sorts of vipers.

Kristen- co-director: and then because the animals arehere, we do think that they should be able to be appreciated by everybody.

Sowe're also open to the public.

You can come and see all of those differenttypes of snakes.

We also have a few turtles, a couple of lizards, an alligator,a few large constrictors, like pythons, that people can see.

Kristen- co-director: and then we also try to makeour animals available to people who are doing research on them as well.

Sowe'll make them available or help out a researcher if they're doing dna work orthey're interested in the behavior of the snakes and we can help them out aslong as it's not going to hurt the snakes.

We try to make them available forthat too.

Amber- host: you do all kinds of things.and i think it's really cool that you let people come and see them because alot of people's first instinct when they see a snake is... you probably knowbest.

What do you usually get?

Kristen- co-director: well, i think people are kindof, of two minds.

So there's definitely the people who really appreciate natureand wildlife and they enjoy seeing them and they have a fascination with them.and then of course there are people who are afraid of snakes and i don't have aproblem with that.

I think the world would be a boring place if we all enjoyedthe same thing, so it's fine with me if people are unsure.

I do hope that ifthey visit us here or if they take the time to learn in any way about snakes,that that can help them be a little bit less afraid.

I mean, i personally don'tenjoy being scared.

I don't think anybody does.

And i hope that we can helppeople understand them a little bit and know that they don't really have to bequite so afraid if they do see one.

Amber- host: that's good advice.

A lot ofpeople are probably wondering, especially like these mambas and these venomoussnakes that you have, you don't just go out into the gorge out there and catchthem?

Kristen- co-director: no, no.

Amber- host: where do you get youranimals?

Kristen- co-director: so we get them from a varietyof sources.

We actually have been breeding snakes here for 30 years and jen,the other co-director, has been breeding them for even longer than that.

Somany of them are actually third or fourth generation that have been incaptivity and their grandparents were also in captivity.

We also do exchangeanimals sometimes with other zoological facilities or other researchfacilities.

And then when you collect things, sometimes they show up.

Sothere's been a few odd instances too, where an animal was abandoned somewhereand we got it or something, maybe it was a confiscation, but really the vastmajority are bred here or by another facility.

Amber- host: and information-wise, wherecan we find you, cost, all that stuff?

Kristen- co-director: sure.

So admission is $11.50for adults and $7.50 for kids between four and 15 right now.

And three andunder are free.

There is more information on our website, which iskyreptilezoo.org.

We also have a facebook page, which is just kentucky reptilezoo.

We have an instagram @kyreptilezoo.

We have a twitter, which has also@kyreptilezoo.

And then we have a youtube channel as well with videos ofextractions and things on it, which is also kyrepitilezoo.

Amber- host: all kinds of cool things.

Kristen- co-director: we should be pretty easy tofind.

Amber- host: we appreciate you having usdown here, kristen.

Kristen- co-director: no problem.

Amber- host: thank you so much.

Kristen- co-director: thank you for coming.

Amber- host: really cool seeing all theseanimals actually in person.

Come check it out for yourself.

Learn a little bitabout everything out there and maybe even find you're not so afraid of some ofthese animals.

And they do a lot of good in our world.

Kristen- co-director: absolutely.

Amber- host: we appreciate it.

Stay withus.

Kristen- co-director: thank you guys.

Amber- host: yeah.

Thank you.

Come backwhen we're having guests back.

Kristen- co-director: yes, yes.

For sure.

Amber- host: mid-day kentucky will beright back.

Stay with us.