Joe Rogan Experience #2536 - Eric Goode & Jeremy McBride

1. 0:00 – 0:02

   Intro

   1. SPSpeaker0:00

      [upbeat music]

2. 0:02 – 2:51

   Monsters of God: why the reptile trade, and Florida’s invasive python problem

   1. SPSpeaker0:02

      Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. JMJeremy McBride0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. SPSpeaker0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. [upbeat music]

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      Good bro. Gentlemen, good to see you again. You're back in the world of crazy people and animals.

   5. EGEric Goode0:17

      [laughs]

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      I watched episode one today. Like, oh, God. W- first of all, where the fuck do you find these people? You, you live in that world. Like you, you're in the world of reptiles.

   7. EGEric Goode0:28

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:28

      We should just explain. It's a docuseries. It's on HBO. It's called, uh, Monsters of God, and it's all about the reptile trade, which may or may not be responsible for Florida having 500,000 pythons.

   9. EGEric Goode0:42

      [laughs] Yeah.

   10. SPSpeaker0:43

       [laughs] Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       It's, it's debatable, right? Like, it seems like it was partially pet owners who let them go, and partially there was some sort of a reptile research facility or something like that.

   12. EGEric Goode0:52

       Well, there's different theories. There was a hurricane theory. There was the people let it go go. I think the more reasonable one, 'cause I had a Burmese python in the '70s when I was a teenager. I have a photo of it around my neck.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:04

       What happened to it?

   14. EGEric Goode1:05

       Pe- people buy them when they're this big, and then when they're 15 feet, they let them go, 'cause what are you... You know, and they're easy-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       Is that what you did?

   16. EGEric Goode1:12

       I did not let it go, but I let-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       What did you do?

   18. EGEric Goode1:14

       I have no idea what happened to it, to be honest. I have a lot-

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       That's weird.

   20. EGEric Goode1:17

       I know.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       You had a monster and you, it just-

   22. EGEric Goode1:19

       [laughs]

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:19

       ... you don't know what happened to your monster? [laughs]

   24. EGEric Goode1:21

       I, I, I think when I went to college, briefly I gave it to someone, and then I don't know what happened to it. But I gave my whole menagerie away to people when I went to college. I had reptiles in my room.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:30

       Is there an extra level of responsibility when you're giving away monsters?

   26. EGEric Goode1:34

       [laughs]

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:34

       You know what I mean? Like, if you have a chihuahua and you say, and your friend's like-

   28. EGEric Goode1:37

       Yeah

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:37

       ... "I'll take her. I love her," that's, you know-

   30. EGEric Goode1:40

       Yeah
3. 2:51 – 6:04

   Eric Goode’s lifetime in reptiles—and a brutal rattlesnake bite story

   1. EGEric Goode2:51

      ... when you watch two and three and four. But, um, and five. Um, yeah, uh, uh, it all started, um, I mean, first of all, I'm a reptile guy. I've been keeping reptiles and studying reptiles for over... You know, I'm an old guy. I'm older than you are. So, uh, you know, I've kept them for, I don't know, 60 years, you know, plus. I've kept reptiles since my parents gave me a tortoise when I was six, and I was catching rattlesnakes in my lunchbox, and horned lizards. And you got horned lizards in Texas here that are really cool, and rattlesnakes. Um, I've been bit by rattlesnakes. It's not fun. Uh-

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:25

      You got bit by a rattlesnake?

   3. EGEric Goode3:27

      Yeah, but that's another story. But-

   4. JRJoe Rogan3:28

      More times than one?

   5. EGEric Goode3:30

      No, I got bit once 'cause I learned my lesson after the first one.

   6. JRJoe Rogan3:33

      What happened?

   7. EGEric Goode3:34

      It wasn't good. Don't get bit by a rattlesnake.

   8. JRJoe Rogan3:36

      Where'd you get bit?

   9. EGEric Goode3:36

      On my foot.

   10. JRJoe Rogan3:38

       Did you experience necrosis? Necrosis rather?

   11. EGEric Goode3:41

       You know, so normally you would get necro- ne- ne- necrosis, necrosis where you would, you know-

   12. JRJoe Rogan3:47

       Dead tissue

   13. EGEric Goode3:47

       ... your finger would rot. And then this, the guy that, uh, you know, the doctor that I went to at a hospital, you know, in the emergency-

   14. JRJoe Rogan3:54

       Pull, pull up to the microphone a little

   15. EGEric Goode3:55

       ... the doctor, uh, uh, you know, in the emergency room said, "The last guy in here that got bit by a rattlesnake lost his toe or something, or lost his digits." And he said, "Good thing you didn't get bit on a finger, 'cause the necrosis can rot away your finger." And he said, "Good thing you got bit on the middle of the foot. You're gonna be okay." But this type of rattlesnake I got bit by, uh, there, there's, the most venomous rattlesnake in the country is called a tiger rattlesnake, but it's not the most dangerous. The most dangerous is probably a Mojave rattlesnake or an Eastern diamondback rattlesnake. But you have Western diamondbacks here. But I got bit by a rattlesnake that had both hemotoxin and neurotoxin. So the necrosis was less e- evident with me. It was more like a cobra where I s- was starting to stop breathing, and I felt like somebody had put sandbags on my chest an hour into it. But the first thing you, you sense is obviously the, s- it feels like someone jabbed me with an X-Acto knife. And I looked down, and the rattlesnake was retracting into a burrow. I looked at my foot. But then you taste a metallic taste in about 15, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and you realize, uh-oh, this wasn't a dry bite. But it's not fun. I got a lot of antivenom. They make a different antivenom today. I got bit 25 years ago.

   16. JRJoe Rogan5:03

       And how long does it take you to recover from something like that?

   17. EGEric Goode5:06

       You know, the most painful part was the serum sicks- sickness from the antivenom. The, the lose, stop breathing thing, I remember I was on a gurney and I just felt like I was gonna stop breathing, but weirdly not that painful. But like you, but yet you feel like you're gonna die and stop breathing. [laughs] But the serum sickness is just unbelievably intense for weeks, and you just have the most insane fever, and you got these red blotches all over you. But they make a different serum now. Uh, that, that, that one was made out of horse antibodies that y- they put into you-

   18. JRJoe Rogan5:36

       [laughs]

   19. EGEric Goode5:37

       ... and my body didn't like those horse antibodies. [laughs]

   20. JRJoe Rogan5:39

       Oh, God.

   21. EGEric Goode5:40

       Yeah, yeah.

   22. SPSpeaker5:41

       It's also maybe don't wear Birkenstocks when you hike. That's probably the-

   23. EGEric Goode5:44

       River sandals.

   24. JRJoe Rogan5:45

       [laughs]

   25. EGEric Goode5:45

       Yeah.

   26. SPSpeaker5:46

       Okay. All right.

   27. EGEric Goode5:46

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan5:47

       Yeah.

   29. EGEric Goode5:47

       'Cause I got bit-

   30. JRJoe Rogan5:47

       Did you see that?
4. 6:04 – 8:52

   Rattlesnake risk: dogs, myths, and what to actually do after a bite

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:04

      They're fucking scary, man. I've, I've had dogs bit. I had this one dog, he got bit twice.

   2. EGEric Goode6:09

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:09

      It was a real problem. His face would swell up. I had to bring him to the vet, but luckily they have anti-venom for dogs. It works pretty well.

   4. EGEric Goode6:16

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:16

      He was kinda out of it for a few days, then he came back.

   6. EGEric Goode6:19

      Yeah.

   7. JMJeremy McBride6:20

      How fast a response?

   8. JRJoe Rogan6:21

      Not bad.

   9. JMJeremy McBride6:22

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan6:22

       Not bad. It was funny, 'cause he got bit once. He was c- he was a crazy dog. He was always killing lizards, like, that was his thing.

   11. JMJeremy McBride6:29

       [laughs]

   12. JRJoe Rogan6:29

       Like, anything in the backyard, he would kill.

   13. JMJeremy McBride6:31

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan6:31

       And, uh, he got bit by the rattlesnake, and I knew it, 'cause I was, I was out there. I heard him, I heard the commotion. I saw the snake. I knew what it was, so I got him to the veterinarian immediately. They got him the... And he fa- his face swole up, but they got him the anti-venom and he was good. And then he got bit again, like, maybe a year later, and I brought him to the vet, 'cause I said I saw him get bit by a rattlesnake. And the vet was like, "Well, I don't see any swelling-

   15. EGEric Goode6:57

       Mm

   16. JRJoe Rogan6:57

       ... and I don't see a hole." But he had developed a resistance to it-

   17. EGEric Goode7:01

       Yeah

   18. JRJoe Rogan7:01

       ... because he had gotten bit once. And so then I got him home, and all of a sudden, his face started swelling up. I'm like, "Ah, fuck."

   19. EGEric Goode7:07

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan7:07

       And I bring him back to the vet, then he had to get the anti-venom.

   21. EGEric Goode7:09

       But a good-sized dog, not a little-

   22. JRJoe Rogan7:10

       Yeah, he was about a 90-pound dog.

   23. EGEric Goode7:12

       Yeah, yeah. And that was a western diamondback rattlesnake, I gather.

   24. JRJoe Rogan7:16

       California, I don't know.

   25. EGEric Goode7:17

       Oh, it was in California.

   26. JRJoe Rogan7:18

       It was in California.

   27. EGEric Goode7:18

       Oh, so it was-

   28. JRJoe Rogan7:19

       It wasn't out here

   29. EGEric Goode7:19

       ... Oh, it was-

   30. JRJoe Rogan7:20

       Yeah
5. 8:52 – 11:21

   How the series was born: from ‘The Lizard King’ to a dark, guarded subculture

   1. EGEric Goode8:52

      Yeah. Yeah. No, no, listen, I, I was, you know, a closeted reptile guy living in New York City, hanging out with, you know, Madonna, cool people in the '80s and '90s. I had a nightclub, and I had friend, friends with lots of artists, Andy Warhol, and I never really talked about reptiles. Actually, Andy asked me, what am I gonna do with my money? He interviewed me one time for Andy Warhol TV, and I said, "I'm gonna buy reptiles." [laughs] And he-

   2. JRJoe Rogan9:17

      [laughs]

   3. EGEric Goode9:17

      I actually said I'm gonna buy tortoises.

   4. JRJoe Rogan9:19

      Oh.

   5. EGEric Goode9:19

      He used to have tortoises. But I was pretty closeted, but I still kept them in New York. And, uh, you know, fast-forward, when I decided to try to do a f- film about it, I'd been traveling all over the world, to Madagascar and Sulawesi and different parts of South America, trying to study reptiles, and especially turtles and tortoises that were very rare. I started photog- filming people, like, you know, kind of notable people, Christopher Walken and, you know, Slash, and, uh, yeah, I don't know, all kinds of people that I knew in New York City, and I would just ask them to hold a turtle or tortoise [laughs] and, and say some words for, like, PSAs. And I was doing that with these two guys named the Safdie brothers. And fast-forward, they now... Josh has just had a film called Marty Supreme with Timothée Chalamet that was up for an Oscar. Little did I know that I was working with these kids that were gonna be these new filmmakers, and we were making these films, and then we made a short film about reptiles that's crazy called Trophy Hunter. It's very short. Um, and we did that together. And then I said to them, "Hey, man, you guys will read this new book called The Lizard King. It's, uh, about the reptile world. Let's do a doc about the reptile world." And I'd already told Fisher Stevens, a friend of mine, "Hey, l- let's do a doc about this w- you know, book, The Lizard King." And he said to me, "How are you gonna do that doc without getting killed, Eric?" And, you know, he'd won an Oscar for The Cove, and I thought, "You know, I'm gonna get these good guys and do a doc about reptiles." So anyway, we started in 2000-

   6. JRJoe Rogan10:46

      Why did you think, why did he think you were gonna get killed?

   7. EGEric Goode10:48

      He read The Lizard King and he said, "You know, you're gonna do a story about this guy that went to prison for 100 years, and this other guy that, you know, is the Pablo Escobar of reptiles." And he just said, "It's a dark world. I don't know how you're gonna do this without getting killed."

   8. JRJoe Rogan11:01

      So what is it about the lizard world or the reptile world that makes it so dark? Like, why are those people, do you think, attracted to it?

   9. EGEric Goode11:08

      Well, not all of them are scary people, and I would say a lot of them may be misunderstood a little bit. But there's... In the case of Mario, there was a crossover with drugs, smuggling drugs and animals into the country.

   10. JRJoe Rogan11:20

       Oh.

6. 11:21 – 13:57

   Wildlife trafficking economics: portability, pre-TSA smuggling, and industry scale

   1. JMJeremy McBride11:21

      But for, but for background, you know, what, what, what is different than these other films that we've done, you know, this was an industry story, um, that kind of looks back at the half, the, you know, past half-century. Um, you know, what most people don't know is illegal wildlife trafficking represents about a $20 billion a year industry. It's kind of underreported, actually. Uh, only after guns, drugs, and human trafficking. And what's really interesting about that is it's, there's, there's a convergence of all of it. You know, wildlife trafficking also involves drugs and trafficking of-

   2. EGEric Goode11:55

      At times, at times

   3. JMJeremy McBride11:56

      ... of guns. There's a, there's a lot of mix, mixture of it.

   4. JRJoe Rogan11:58

      Right. Whenever people are bringing in things illegally, they tend to be a risk-taking type.

   5. JMJeremy McBride12:03

      Of course. But, you know, in the, in the kind of pre, you know, uh ... customs TSA days when it's as intense as it is now-

   6. JRJoe Rogan12:09

      Right

   7. JMJeremy McBride12:09

      ... it's very easy to, you know, carry animals and carry wildlife.

   8. JRJoe Rogan12:13

      Yeah, that was something that I didn't even think about until I was watching. I was like, "Oh, God, I remember those days where they didn't check your bags, and they didn't even check your ID."

   9. JMJeremy McBride12:21

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan12:21

       You just had a ticket.

   11. JMJeremy McBride12:23

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan12:23

       And you would just get on the plane. So you would just get on the plane with lizards.

   13. JMJeremy McBride12:26

       Yeah. Now, most cases-

   14. JRJoe Rogan12:27

       In a suitcase

   15. JMJeremy McBride12:27

       ... yeah, y- uh, strapped to your body, right?

   16. JRJoe Rogan12:29

       Psh.

   17. JMJeremy McBride12:29

       Uh, the thing with about what was so interesting about reptiles in this case w- within the trade is they're portable. They're nature with handles. You go, you see in the early episode of episode one, people traveling around the world, you know, finding rare, endangered animals, putting them in their suitcase and bringing them back, putting them on a price list, then selling them to a consumer, and that was the kind of early days. I mean, the, the, the story, The Lizard King, but many, much, you know, in our series, it's handful of guys, mainly guys, you know, start a multi-billion dollar industry. And you see this kind of innovation happen over the course of the series as, you know, as the years go on.

   18. EGEric Goode13:11

       Yeah. But when we say multi-billion, uh, I have to kind of contextualize that. It's... When you, when people say that the wildlife trade is multi-billion dollar industry, you gotta remember, it's, a lot of it's consumption. You know, the Asian population eats a lot of turtles, a lot of snakes.

   19. JRJoe Rogan13:27

       Mm.

   20. EGEric Goode13:27

       A lot of it's traditional medicine. A lot of it's skins, you know-

   21. JMJeremy McBride13:31

       Yeah, plant material

   22. EGEric Goode13:32

       ... alligator skin bags-

   23. JMJeremy McBride13:33

       Yeah

   24. EGEric Goode13:33

       ... crocodile skin bags, lizard skin bags, snake skin bags. So it's, it's a lot more than just the exotic pet industry. But that's gotten enormous in Asia. They picked the, they took a page out of our playbook about 25 years ago. Uh, you know, China is now a huge consumer of not just eating these reptiles, but keeping them as exotic pets. That didn't happen before 25, 30 years ago.

   25. JRJoe Rogan13:55

       Interesting.

   26. EGEric Goode13:56

       In Asia. Asia.

7. 13:57 – 28:34

   Regulations and unintended consequences: python skin bans, Florida iguanas, and ‘fulfillment centers’

   1. JRJoe Rogan13:57

      Why, why does California have a ban on python skin? Isn't, uh, pythons are not endangered, right?

   2. EGEric Goode14:02

      Well, it depends on the type of python, but yeah, the python skinning business actually is where all the Burmese pythons came from in the '70s that I had as a kid. They would skin the pythons, take the eggs, incubate the eggs, sell the baby pythons to the United States and other c- consumer countries that wanted baby pythons. Um, most of the pythons that are skinned in Southeast Asia, and I've s- been to python skinning places in Sumatra, blood pythons, reticulated pythons, Burmese pythons, but mostly blood pythons. Reticulated pythons, pythons are wild caught, and most of them are not endangered. But they're, it's, but, you know, there are less and less pythons out there, but they're not endangered, those pythons.

   3. JRJoe Rogan14:42

      Well, there's a shit ton in Florida. That's what I don't understand. I mean, there's this giant problem in Florida where they're overrun with pythons, and yet California, you can't sell python skins. It seems like there's a solution there.

   4. EGEric Goode14:52

      [laughs]

   5. JMJeremy McBride14:53

      [laughs]

   6. JRJoe Rogan14:53

      You know? And people want python skins.

   7. EGEric Goode14:55

      Yeah.

   8. JMJeremy McBride14:55

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan14:55

      Oh, look, a place that's overrun with pythons. Maybe you should get your python skin there.

   10. EGEric Goode14:59

       Yeah, the cooler python skins are not Burmese pythons, the ones in Florida. The cooler ones-

   11. JMJeremy McBride15:04

       Reticulated

   12. EGEric Goode15:04

       ... people like, like Nick Cage in, uh, what was that film where he was wearing that python skin jacket? It's a reticulated python that's gold.

   13. JMJeremy McBride15:10

       Wild at Heart.

   14. EGEric Goode15:11

       That's, yeah-

   15. JMJeremy McBride15:12

       Yeah

   16. EGEric Goode15:12

       ... Wild at Heart. That's gold and black. The cooler python skins just happen not to be Burmese pythons, which are the ones running rampant in Florida. Although, they should m- make those trendy and use Burmese pythons. But, but they're not usually. You don't r- you rarely see Burmese-

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:27

       There it is.

   18. JMJeremy McBride15:27

       Yeah, there it is. Yeah.

   19. EGEric Goode15:28

       That's, that's a reticulated python.

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:29

       Oh.

   21. EGEric Goode15:29

       That's not a Burmese.

   22. JRJoe Rogan15:30

       Yeah.

   23. EGEric Goode15:30

       That, that's the one people want. That's from Southeast Asia. That's not the one running wild in Florida.

   24. JRJoe Rogan15:35

       Is that, that's illegal in California right now then, that jacket?

   25. EGEric Goode15:38

       Is, is that right?

   26. JRJoe Rogan15:39

       I believe so. I don't believe you can get it imported.

   27. EGEric Goode15:42

       Yeah, I mean, let's-

   28. JRJoe Rogan15:42

       I think-

   29. JMJeremy McBride15:43

       Let's try

   30. JRJoe Rogan15:43

       ... I had read something about-
8. 28:34 – 42:24

   The reptile obsession: scarcity, ‘herp’ culture, and why reptiles get vilified

   1. JRJoe Rogan28:34

      But it's just, you don't want... You know, I get, I just get the appeal of it. The appeal of the reptile thing, to me, is just very strange. Like, these people love them.

   2. EGEric Goode28:44

      Yeah. Well, I loved, uh, what, you know, I used to keep snakes and lizards, but I ultimately, they were my gateway drug, and then I ultimately got into tortoises 'cause I like the tortoises coexisting in the garden. I like plants. I like gardens.

   3. JRJoe Rogan28:58

      Yeah.

   4. EGEric Goode28:58

      And so they didn't-

   5. JRJoe Rogan28:59

      That makes sense

   6. EGEric Goode28:59

      ... it didn't feel like they were in a cage, and they kind of, you know, maybe I'm anthropomorci- morphizing my tortoises, but I kind of felt like they were having a pretty good life in my garden, so-

   7. JRJoe Rogan29:09

      For sure

   8. EGEric Goode29:09

      ... so I like keeping tortoises. They don't, you know, wanna eat a rabbit particularly. They wanna eat some lettuce or some greens or... So turtles and tortoises is what I gravitated to, and then I found out one day they're the most endangered group of animals on the planet, along with primates, if you measure it by how many turtles and tortoises there are in the world and how many are facing extinction, along with primates. So then I was like, "Okay, I wanna do something to help them." And, and this show we're doing is really to teach people about the evolution of the reptile trade and to make people realize they're cool and they shouldn't be disposable pets, and-

   9. JRJoe Rogan29:46

      Also, freak show.

   10. EGEric Goode29:48

       And freak show, of course. I, I can't-

   11. JRJoe Rogan29:49

       You guys are really good at freak shows.

   12. EGEric Goode29:51

       [laughs] As I said, it takes one to know one. [laughs]

   13. JRJoe Rogan29:53

       Of course. But it's, but, but what's different, then what's different, though, is that this isn't some, like, side hustle for animal love gone wrong. It, you know, it, it's, it's, there's these people, there's a, ab s- this, uh, the animal, the, the, the reptile people, the herp people are incredibly obsessive about, you know, living art, about these living things. They like the, it's like a baseball card, like the scarcity. Well, is that a word you use, the herp people? Herp, herp, yeah. Could we, herp, herp-

   14. EGEric Goode30:20

       Herpetology

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:21

       ... herpetology.

   16. EGEric Goode30:21

       Herp people, herpetology, amphibians and reptiles.

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:24

       Mm. Okay. Yeah. Um, sorry, well, you know, coded.

   18. EGEric Goode30:27

       You're in-

   19. JRJoe Rogan30:27

       You decoded

   20. EGEric Goode30:28

       ... the, the herp-

   21. JRJoe Rogan30:28

       I decoded

   22. EGEric Goode30:28

       ... the herpy people

   23. JRJoe Rogan30:29

       ... herpy, herpy people.

   24. EGEric Goode30:29

       The herpy people, Joe.

   25. JRJoe Rogan30:31

       No, but, um-

   26. JMJeremy McBride30:32

       But it, it's, um, you know, it's a, it's, it's really a trade formed around scarcity. And, you know, this sort of desire and adventure people have going out to find the rarest of the rare, you know, and bringing it back and selling it-

   27. EGEric Goode30:46

       Well-

   28. JMJeremy McBride30:46

       ... trading it, keeping it

   29. EGEric Goode30:47

       ... I'm in that category.

   30. JMJeremy McBride30:48

       You are in that category.
9. 42:24 – 52:48

   Miami crime era crossover: Mario Tabraue, law enforcement, and smuggling tactics

   1. JMJeremy McBride42:24

      Well, that's, this, this is the next episode. There's an entire episode that talks about kinda the '80s in Miami and the sorta overlap between the drug trade-

   2. EGEric Goode42:32

      Mm

   3. JMJeremy McBride42:32

      ... and the illegal wildlife trade, and the reptile trade, and he's a central character in it. Um-

   4. EGEric Goode42:36

      The '80s in Miami

   5. JMJeremy McBride42:37

      ... now he's kind of more tangential, because it's really about this, this guy- Ray Van Nostrand

   6. EGEric Goode42:42

      Yeah

   7. JMJeremy McBride42:42

      A guy from New Jersey, moved down to Florida, started a business, um, that became Strictly Reptiles, as I was referencing. But, um, yeah, I mean, the re- I, I don't think there was anything, like, particular, but he would get very particular about very specific things. Like, if you were... You could be right about a million things that he hated, but wrong about one thing that he cared about the most, and he would categorize you to be this person, not this, you know-

   8. EGEric Goode43:07

      There's, there's an expression, honor among thieves, and he weirdly has this kind of honorable side

   9. JMJeremy McBride43:12

      Unredeemable, yeah

   10. EGEric Goode43:13

       And, and certain things I would say to him would make him really upset. But I have to say, the only time I was ever shot at in my life was in fucking Miami. I was shot at, you know, going to a payphone in the early '90s in a van trying to go to a nightclub with a bunch of people, and these guys were walking towards me, and they started just blowing out the windows of the van. I remember I didn't go to the nightclub. I went back to my hotel, and I woke up in the morning with that chopped b- air, you know, car glass all in my hair. I had long hair back then. I had hair back then. But Miami was, you know, the, it was pretty wild in the '80s and early '90s.

   11. JRJoe Rogan43:50

       I have a good friend of mine, my friend Steve, did his residency, he's an ophthalmologist, his residency in Miami in the '80s

   12. EGEric Goode43:56

       Yeah.

   13. JMJeremy McBride43:56

       Yeah

   14. JRJoe Rogan43:56

       And worked in emergency rooms. And he said it was fucking insane.

   15. EGEric Goode44:00

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan44:00

       It was just, like, so many gunshot wounds-

   17. EGEric Goode44:02

       Yeah

   18. JRJoe Rogan44:02

       ... so many drug deals gone bad, so many heists.

   19. EGEric Goode44:05

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan44:06

       He said it was, like, an insane place to work.

   21. JMJeremy McBride44:09

       At the, uh, primary-

   22. EGEric Goode44:09

       It's funny you say that, 'cause I said to all my characters, I said, "What's it like, you know, having been in and out of prison so many times?" And he goes, "Bro, everyone in Florida's been in prison." You know?

   23. JRJoe Rogan44:20

       [laughs]

   24. EGEric Goode44:20

       And I was kinda like, "Well, what, what's it like?" You know? [laughs] Everyone in Florida's been in prison.

   25. JMJeremy McBride44:24

       A sunny place with shady people, right? Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan44:26

       Have you seen Cocaine Cowboys?

   27. JMJeremy McBride44:27

       Yeah.

   28. EGEric Goode44:28

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan44:28

       Yeah.

   30. JMJeremy McBride44:28

       Yeah.
10. 52:48 – 1:27:12

    Captivity ethics: keeping ‘monsters,’ enclosure welfare, and disposable pet mortality

    1. JRJoe Rogan52:48

       Um, but you gotta think that the type of people that are gonna be even interested in having a snake as a pet, that's a very unusual person.

    2. EGEric Goode52:57

       I like snakes.

    3. JMJeremy McBride52:57

       Yeah. You?

    4. JRJoe Rogan52:58

       Yeah. I don't-

    5. EGEric Goode52:58

       Come on. You know people that have snakes.

    6. JRJoe Rogan53:00

       No, I don't.

    7. EGEric Goode53:00

       Kids have ball pythons. You've got kids. They like a, a baby, a ball python. They're clean. You don't have to feed it every day like a rabbit or a dog. You can go on vacation, leave your ball python. They're, they're, they're a good pet. A lot of snakes-

    8. JRJoe Rogan53:13

       I don't think of them as a pet. I think of it as a monster that you feed that allows you... You know, it's not big enough to eat you, so it sort of allows you to feed it. And then you have to keep it in this box, which is kinda weird.

    9. EGEric Goode53:26

       Yeah, well, that's-

    10. JRJoe Rogan53:27

        But that's the, the-

    11. EGEric Goode53:27

        That's why I like tortoises. You don't have to keep them in a cage or a box.

    12. JRJoe Rogan53:30

        'Cause does a, does a snake-

    13. EGEric Goode53:31

        Yeah

    14. JRJoe Rogan53:32

        ... do they experience discomfort because they're in a terrarium?

    15. EGEric Goode53:36

        Listen, there's a lot of myth out there that, oh, snakes can live in a little teeny, like, sweater box or a shoebox, and you can put them in rocks like you see in snake stores and, and snake breeders'.

    16. JMJeremy McBride53:46

        Like a rack of shoes in a, in a store.

    17. EGEric Goode53:47

        The truth is, real snakes in the wild do not live in little boxes. They may go in the underground at a certain time of year and hibernate. They may- But they come out, and they hang out like us, and they move around. And most snakes do not live in a little teeny box. But yes, they can survive in a box, but there's all different kinds of snakes. There's racer snakes and indigo snakes, and snakes that need to move fast and go places. And, and then there's some snakes, like a ball python, that can be in a more confined space, but you can't generalize.

    18. JRJoe Rogan54:15

        But generally, like when people keep them as pets, they keep them in, in some kind of an aquarium, right?

    19. JMJeremy McBride54:20

        Yeah.

    20. EGEric Goode54:20

        Yeah. And they should, they should give them more space. They, they should absolutely give them more space. I mean, part of what we're trying to do in this show is try to tell people, "Be responsible. Don't treat reptiles like disposable pets, like a toy that you break one week, and then you buy another one, and you break it, and the parents buy another one." You know, they're living creatures. The death toll when you import these animals is amazing. I mean, it's so much mortality. And we don't talk about mortality, whether it's zoos or people bringing in these reptiles. Or even myself over the years. You ask me what happened to that snake. It probably died. It probably was flushed down a toilet by someone's mom.

    21. JRJoe Rogan54:54

        Geez.

    22. EGEric Goode54:55

        You know? You know, like baby green turtles that you had as a kid, like what happened to most of those

    23. JRJoe Rogan54:59

        How long do snakes live? Like how long does a python live? This episode is brought to you by Visible. It's officially summer, folks, and boy, what a summer we are having. It feels like one of those good old-fashioned summers where you just wanna enjoy every moment and keep up with the action. Your best companion this summer, Visible Wireless. Visible gives you unlimited 5G data and unlimited hotspot powered by Verizon for just $25 a month, so you can make this the summer of fun and savings. Visible is more than just a wireless plan. It's unlimited wireless designed to always keep you connected with no contract to tie you down. Switch today at visible.com. Plans start at $25 a month, or get our premium Visible+ Pro plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code ROGAN. Terms apply. See visible.com for plan features and network management details.

    24. EGEric Goode55:58

        So the longest-lived animal, terrestrial animal on the planet is a giant tortoise. They can live almost 200 years.

    25. JRJoe Rogan56:04

        Right.

    26. EGEric Goode56:04

        I have tortoises that are over 100 years old.

    27. JRJoe Rogan56:06

        But what about snakes?

    28. EGEric Goode56:07

        Snakes generally, most snakes don't live more than 30 to 40 years, but there are a few that might... Lizards can live 70 years. Some of the big land iguanas can live a long time. So-

    29. JRJoe Rogan56:16

        Those like ones in Florida?

    30. EGEric Goode56:19

        Uh, those-
11. 1:27:12 – 1:42:55

    New direction in trafficking: America’s turtles exported to Asia, mules, and big money

    1. JMJeremy McBride1:27:12

       Yeah, the, the... We're no longer bringing wildlife in to buy and collect. It's actually coming out of our country into China.

    2. EGEric Goode1:27:19

       Yeah.

    3. JMJeremy McBride1:27:19

       Really?

    4. EGEric Goode1:27:19

       Yeah.

    5. JMJeremy McBride1:27:20

       What, what stuff are we exporting to China?

    6. EGEric Goode1:27:23

       Well, there, w- a lot of it's, Eric, the one recently that happened-

    7. JMJeremy McBride1:27:26

       I just took, I just took-

    8. EGEric Goode1:27:27

       Uh, for your organization, right

    9. JMJeremy McBride1:27:28

       ... I just took in a confiscation three weeks ago of 300 three-toed box turtles that come out of the central part of the US, Oklahoma, Missouri. And two weeks later, a guy was busted coming into Mexico with turtles, and I took those turtles from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. So animals are coming into the country out of Mexico, you know, different countries, and then we're exporting now, which is new in the last 10 years, a lot of native, uh, turtles and, and s- reptiles and other wildlife to Southeast Asia and Europe. So I- And how are they getting there?

    10. EGEric Goode1:28:02

        Mostly, uh, i-t's mostly, uh, air cargo, a carry-on. This particular confiscation three weeks ago, they busted the guys with more box turtles in their, in their luggage once they got to Hong Kong and China. Um, like I said, China, Taiwan-

    11. JMJeremy McBride1:28:20

        A lot of socks, reptile socks

    12. EGEric Goode1:28:21

        ... M- Malaysia, Jakarta. The reptile industry is enormous for now keeping them as exotic pets, enormous. I mean, it's, you know... You know, i- in Asia, like the bird world, the, the birds are called the cut flowers of the wildlife tra- in Asia 'cause, like, we c- we might have a bouquet or a plant in our house. They have a birdcage in Southeast Asia, and there's something like, some ins- insane statistic about how many people have a bird in their house. And when you go to the bird markets in Jakarta, it's just surreal. Or in Thailand, there's, I mean, there's one in Bangkok called Chatuchak Market, these huge r- you know, animal markets, you know? We talk about where COVID came from, but the scale of these animal markets, you know, bush meat, wildlife, it's, it's on a scale that's beyond your imagination where you actually see it.

    13. JMJeremy McBride1:29:05

        So cool. What kind of, what are they selling? Like-

    14. EGEric Goode1:29:08

        They're selling reptiles. They're selling birds. And there's-

    15. JMJeremy McBride1:29:10

        It's for meat.

    16. EGEric Goode1:29:11

        No, no. These are for pets.

    17. JMJeremy McBride1:29:12

        Okay.

    18. EGEric Goode1:29:12

        The birds are, uh, ornamental in your house. You, you have a songbird. You have an owl. You have a whatever. You can't b- There are people that are-

    19. JMJeremy McBride1:29:19

        So they just have, like, a wildlife mall?

    20. EGEric Goode1:29:21

        It's effectively like an enormous wildlife mall.

    21. JMJeremy McBride1:29:24

        An outdoor mall.

    22. EGEric Goode1:29:24

        Yeah.

    23. JMJeremy McBride1:29:25

        Wow.

    24. EGEric Goode1:29:25

        And that, and in that, within that mall, there's also seafood. And then there's the reptiles.

    25. JMJeremy McBride1:29:30

        [laughs]

    26. EGEric Goode1:29:30

        And then there's the birds. It's, like, messy.

    27. JMJeremy McBride1:29:32

        Yeah. Wow.

    28. EGEric Goode1:29:32

        No wonder maybe COVID came from that. It's like-

    29. JMJeremy McBride1:29:34

        But COVID didn't come from that.

    30. EGEric Goode1:29:35

        I don't know if it came from that.
12. 1:42:55 – 2:15:02

    Conservation whiplash: the plowshare (plaster) tortoise, breeding breakthroughs, and controversial solutions

    1. EGEric Goode1:42:55

       But you know, uh, back to our show, I wanna just say one other thing about sort of the ending, which it was really fortuitous. I, I just wanna bring it up even though you're not there yet, but-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:43:05

       Spoiler alert. [laughs]

    3. EGEric Goode1:43:06

       Well, it's not really the spoiler alert, but I'll say this. I, I spent about 20 years working in Madagascar with some rare Madagascan tortoises, and I eventually, I was trying to save this tortoise in Madagascar, and I did a 60 Minutes piece with Lesley Stahl, took her to Madagascar, a New Yorker piece on this tortoise. I failed. Everyone failed. The tortoise functionally went extinct in Madagascar. The poaching was so intense, and the-

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:43:30

       Wow

    5. EGEric Goode1:43:30

       ... the tortoise had a very high-

    6. JMJeremy McBride1:43:31

       So what is it? What is a plaster tortoise?

    7. EGEric Goode1:43:33

       Well, it's a, a reptile that arguably has the most value in the pet trade over almost any other reptile in the world. There may be something close, like a Fiji island iguana or maybe a Komodo dragon, but it's You know, some of them can be worth as much as 100 grand. And people in Madagascar are so poor in the, in the, especially in the area where this animal comes from. And it, it only existed in a tiny part of northern Madagascar. That's it.

    8. JMJeremy McBride1:43:57

       There it is.

    9. EGEric Goode1:43:58

       Yeah.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:43:58

        So where are they going? Like who-

    11. EGEric Goode1:43:59

        Mostly to Asia. There's a direct flight out of Madagascar to Bangkok. And so-

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:44:04

        And they're pets?

    13. EGEric Goode1:44:05

        Yeah. And some of those photos, I mean, it-

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:44:07

        So is it possible to buy them in Asia and bring them back to Madagascar?

    15. EGEric Goode1:44:11

        Well, so this is where I'm going. Um, very hard to do that because of health screening. I took that photo over there of that little guy. Um, I, I took the f- you know, some of these photos I even took, actually. Oh, that's, that's the guy that works for us. [laughs] Anyway, I've been working with this species of tortoise for almost 20 years, and we were able to get some confiscated plaster tortoises out of China and Taiwan, and we waited patiently for 15 years to try to breed them. And right when we finished this show, and this is a tortoise that's never been bred successfully in the Western world.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:44:45

        Mm.

    17. EGEric Goode1:44:45

        No zoo, institutions have tried to breed them and failed. We were lucky enough to get our first hatchling of this really endangered tortoise right when we finished the show. And, and so we filmed it, and it made it into the end of the show. But it's a story about the reptile trade, and this was the story in the end of the show about a confiscated group of animals that came from the reptile trade, the rarest and most valuable tortoise in the world. And today we're trying to bring it back to Madagascar, which we're working on, which is happening as we talk today.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:45:14

        And is the problem that if you bring them back to Madagascar, people are gonna go to Madagascar and steal them again and then use them in the pet trade?

    19. EGEric Goode1:45:19

        So, yes, to be blunt. And so it's somewhat symbolic. It's somewhat about showing Madagascar that we're not trying to profit and take their natural, you know, heritage and, you know, what they sh- rightfully should have. So part of it is showing that we can go full circle, confiscate an animal that was in the i- illegal exotic reptile trade, breed it, and then return it to Madagascar. But the part that no one wants to talk about that's really controversial is, in this particular case, and noth- it's not like one thing fits all. I, I, I said this to the folks that are working with this tortoise in Madagascar to try to save it. You know, "Hey, the only way you're gonna take pressure off of this tortoise, it's like drugs, is if you either legalize drugs or y- you know, in the case of drugs, or make this tortoise available for people around the world so they can have it." 'Cause it breeds quite easily. Breed them. Try to have them in the private sector, in institutions, in zoos. They turn out not to be that difficult to breed, even though no one's ever bred them in the Western world, in Europe or, or, or the US. Um-

    20. JMJeremy McBride1:46:23

        Well, it takes a long time to reach maturity, right?

    21. EGEric Goode1:46:25

        Well, it's an animal that takes-

    22. JMJeremy McBride1:46:26

        Yeah

    23. EGEric Goode1:46:26

        ... longer, twice as long as a hum- or three ti- they, they don't reach sexual maturity until they're about 30 years old, 40 years old. Or they can do it f- you can raise them faster in captivity than in the wild, so they've, are very slow to reproduce. They're not like rabbits. They're the opposite. And there are so few of them, and so they're very, very rare, very valuable. The only way, ultimately, I think you can really take the pressure off of the poaching is-

    24. JMJeremy McBride1:46:50

        Yeah

    25. EGEric Goode1:46:50

        ... to allow people to start to have them.

    26. JMJeremy McBride1:46:52

        That's a radiated.

    27. EGEric Goode1:46:53

        That's a radiated tortoise, which we also breed.

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:46:54

        Wow. That is wild.

    29. JMJeremy McBride1:46:56

        So the Dremel-ing is a way to-

    30. EGEric Goode1:46:58

        Well, so, so-

Episode duration: 2:15:43