What is Andre's Amazon Reptiles?
Well, it is a growing changing thing. It began years ago, back in
1994 when I met Andre, a young wild caught Green Anaconda and realzed just how much accurate information about them was NOT
available. At that time I was living in North West Arkansas. Because Andre had a deformity in his skull his owner
did not want him anymore since he was not "perfect". Even though his vet there had already warned that it was likley
that Andre would not live more than another 3-4 years becuase the deformity was going to prevent proper growth I wanted him.
I bought him from the other party and even though he was wild caught and
young Andre loved people and never once in his entire life did he bite anyone.
When I moved to Colorado in 1996 I brought Andre with me. I soon discovered
that in Colorado in the Denver Metro area there was a substantial need for people doing rescue work with reptiles. A
lot of people buying them and then not wanting them anymore or finding out too late that the City in which they lived had
racist laws regarding reptiles. So I began doing rescue work here. I licensed as a Rescue the first couple of
years, and then later, learning even more about the laws I licensed as a Shelter instead to help better protect the animals
till they could be gotten to safer areas.
Then I stopped getting calls to adopt or surrender animals and since it
costs $300.00 a year to license to be a Shelter and since there was no way to make that kind of money and feeding and covering
the medical care and electric bills...for the animals is NOT cheap I had to temporarilly stop doing it. Instead currently
i serve as a middle person helping people find animals and people find homes for their animals with an offer of free connection
and interviewing..to screen out not so desirable future animal owners...
Time went on, and I started getting calls with people wanting to adopt animals
and some people wanting some where for thier animals to go again, so I was about to license as a Shelter again ( licenses
are done in March and there is no pro rating either) but 12/22/04 I was in a realy bad car wreck, and my back was injured
leaving me unable to do my job and so my boss had to hire someone else in the mean time.
In January while trying to figure out why I was continually losing blood
we learned that I had Cervical cancer. I was assigned to the Cetan Womens Clinic who reufused to take my calls or to
call me in for an exam even.
In February I had nearly bled completley to death, and was hospitalized
and given 2 transfusions. The Dr.s there were enraged that I had not recieved care, and refused to allow me to leave
until I was recieving care.
The wonderful people at the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center started me on radiation
immediatley to stop the bleeding. I continued the radiation monday through Friday for weeks and weeks. The bleeding
stopped.
I was supposed to have surgery a complete hysterectomy. But I could not
get the medicaid applicaiton done right, and had it not been for the great people at Denver Communicy Resources I still would
not have. These are the people who handle the bokings for my programs throught the Denver School system for Family ScineceNights
each year...They found me someone who was actually willing to help me get it done right and I finally got the medicaid and
the surgery only 3 months late. All traces of cancer had been eradicated by the radiation!
It was now Summer and I had a few weeks of recovery before I would be allowed
to do any lifting over 5 pounds. I was beyond flat broke as well. I could not license in 2005.
It is now July 2009:
I still have taken calls to go remove snakes from garages....but I am doing
no surrenders or adoptions. I am not currently licensed and due to financial complications from the current economy, at
this time can not be so.
HOWEVER I may still be able to help. I have now created pages for
this site devoted to advertising the information about people looking for animals and advertising people needing new homes
for their animals. I am willing to screen prospective owners for those seeking new homes for their animals...to
try to help find the best possible new home.
At this time Andre's Amazon is a place where you can make connections to
find a new home for your animal or connections to find a new animal for your home. It is a place where you can find
care information about various reptiles, and amphibians. It is also a place where you can book local Denver Metro area
live reptile entertainment and educational programs for audiences of all ages. Buy hand made Party masks & supplies...
and seek Reptile related advice.
If you want to know about an animal or get one or part with one and you
do not want all your information where you live...to be known I will help you. I am willing to be the intermediary and
the only one with that informaiton and NOT give it out.
I will have informaiton on Native Colorado Reptiles and Amphibians here,
and I will have information about local exotic veterinarians and societies...here for your convenience.
Everything here is done by me personally and I have been advised that I
should now include a little more information about myself here.
Who am "I"? Barbara
A Huggins. Andre's Amazon is a one person operation. I personally do all the public
educational and entertainment programs with the animals. I make all the masks, do all the work on this site...
You will NOT find my snail mail address here, and the reason for that is two-fold.
First and foremost is because there are a LOT of people that if they knew where I lived would simply drive by and dump animals.
Now can you imagine my neighbors, who are utterly terrified of snakes, coming home to find one or more 6-12'+
Burmese pythons crawling all over both yards? The 2nd is that there are some humans
out there who really are awful and they might come by and harass my children. I really don't want to go to jail for beating
the juice out of some creep for harassing my kids you know? ;) Even though I might enjoy beating the juice out of them. :)
In addition to the animals there are other things that I really like to do
or that are important to me.
I have most of the time been a single mom of three kids. My son Earnie, who
is 23, Jasmine, my oldest daughter who is 21, and Miranda my youngest who is 17. All of them also love reptiles.
I love dancing, the rock/techno (aka Goth) style of dancing to those
kinds of music. I am a fully trained belly dancer, though I never do it professionally. I normally go dancing down stairs
at "The Church" on Friday or Sunday nights WHEN I go out dancing.
I enjoy doing art work, watching action, and science fiction movies...and
like old movie monsters, the real monsters not the human ones. :) Creature from the Black Lagoon and Gamera are two of my
all time favorites.
I run a spiritually based e-mail group, and as a legally ordained minister I
have offered various sorts of counseling to various people who have asked for it.
I enjoy communicating through phone, e-mail, and I.M. with my friends who
are all over the globe, and many of whom I met because of the Internet allowing people far apart with close interests to meet.
:)
I like to cook, especially to bake, breads, cookies, cakes, pies....anything
on the grill too especially a personal specialty, lamb roast!
I like Enya, Enigma, Alice Cooper, older rock, TECHNO.... I am kind of a music
freak Metalica, ACDC, older Kizz...
I live in a house with my youngest daughter, and her BF, and my
son.
I myself am totally straight but I have dear friends of both genders who are
otherwise.
I love black and silver more than any other colors.
If I could have a wish it would be to get to go to Africa, Australia, and
Brazil to see my favorite animals in their natural habitats. Or to visit the country side of Romania. I
think it is gorgeous there. I know full well though that none of these are ever going to happen. :)
I live to role play (RPGs), I have played Live Action Were Wolf and Vampire,
but now mostly only play a dice and paper Super Heros game run by my friend Sam Burlingame. I have a LOT of characters in
this game and each have their own personality and their own ideas of what they want in their lives even though they are all
in the same organization of super heros out to save the world. :) I call role
playing the poor persons vacation because it you really get into the characters you can, while playing them let go of your
own problems and worries for an hour or 4.
I spend a fair amount of my time on the PC writing people, researching animal
info, and seeking out good photos of various things to use as basic models in my various mediums of art work, and working
on this site.
Most of the time I have no problem helping other people or trying to, through
communicating with them about whatever the problem may be, but every once in a while I refuse to answer the phone or IM or
e-mail just so I can have a break from it all, playing back the messages after they are left in case it really is something
important like an animal emergency or program booking...and letting everything else wait an hour or few.
I am also the night manager for a travel plaza. This at present means
that I work Sunday-Wednesday from8pm-6am and then am of Thursday-Saturday.
Anyway that is my description of me.
