June 9th 2016

Reptiles - Sally Shapter

With an interest that grew after a family member became a proud owner of a reptile, Sally acquired an amazing knowledge and interest in reptiles. Sally owns and runs a reptile rescue and sanctuary. These reptiles, insects and amphibians are cared for in the appropriate environment and some even help with a variety of entertaining and educational talks.

Touch them if you dare! There will be reptiles and insects to touch and hold for those of you who are willing. For those who are not, please do also come along and keep a distance!!

Review of evening
Sally currently has over 260 reptiles, cockroaches, parrots, a cat, a pig and innumerable insects at her home. She talks to them all and many have names. 
They often arrive at her home having been abused, so she nurtures them back to life and rehouses some of them, where possible. She is very particular about rehousing and has a strict vetting procedure to ensure that the animals are going to be well looked after.
The reptiles she brought with her were, Sebastian, a corn snake with very pretty markings, Ghost, a royal python, Kat a large yellowy snake, Bruce and Brenda, who were bearded dragons, Wilbert the skink, Pumba the tortoise and Charlotte the tarantula.
We were able to hold all the animals except Charlotte and Pumba. She insisted that she trains them to obey her and certainly they sat very still when we were holding them, as most of us did. She had loads of stories to tell and was very entertaining.
She works with special needs children, people with phobias, elderly people in hospital and all sorts of social groups.

Competition:  A Slippery Customer was won jointly by Sheila and Paula who were the only entrants. Paula wrote an acrostic poem using the title of the competition and Sheila brought a montage of photos of her youngest son's first visit to Twycross Zoo on a school trip along with the plastic snake that he bought whilst there.