Reptile Channel (UPDATE: 450,000+ subscribers in 2020, joined in 2016) — not the same as former The Reptile Channel (joined in 2014).

Love your pets. But don’t eat your pets. And definitely don’t stomp them to death for sadistic sexual pleasure. That’s known as crush fetish, a thankfully illegal practice that qualifies for the Internet Hall Of Shame because of kitten murder. Such animal abuse has earned news and legal bans, but corporations have a problem with keeping it off their platforms. (Gizmodo: YouTube Won’t Ban A Guy Who Crushes Animals to Death.)

We can talk about weird stuff here. If you have gone down some shady alleys on the internet, you might have seen vore fetish. (That’s the erotic fantasy for consuming others or being consumed, which might involve dragons.) It’s usually harmless and imaginary in fiction and role-play.

A tip came in about a story that blurs the lines between those things. Youtube’s Reptile Channel is a producer of videos that show small animals being fed to larger ones. They use a reasonable-sounding cover story about science, education and necessary feeding. But it’s tainted with a nasty secret: it was founded in vore fetishism, with a history of being protested.

Pets have to eat. Forcing feeding for pleasure and profit begs the question: whose appetite is really being served? Calling it animal abuse may need careful attention or reading between the lines – but that has been the reason for account bans and efforts to hide this story. Meanwhile this content is taking advantage of policy loopholes and corporate apathy.

The tipster, Tanookicatoon, poked the underbelly and made it cough up some ugly truth. Links, images and info in italics are added by editor. (- Patch)

From Youtube:

“Reptile Channel is for people who enjoy reptiles, learning about them, and plain ol’ just enjoy watching them. The channel focuses on the science of reptile feeding behavior. Back in the day when we were working on our thesis of reptile feeding behavior we created videos weekly or twice weekly to support a master’s dissertation. The focus has always been on creating high quality reptile videos to support the thesis, and more diverse the better. Reptile Channel is distinct from the vast majority of reptile content today in that we focus specificaly on the science of feeding behavior and reptile (and avian) anatomy and physiology. Reptile Channel was created to freely share original content with everyone. Our goal from the beginning is to create a comprehensive scientific portfolio of reptiles hunting and feeding. This is such a quixotic goal that in the last decade the unique project has grown far beyond any of my expectations in becoming a valuable educational resource.”

This is Reptile Channel’s most popular video that had 1.2 million views between 5/19/17 – 6/19/17 … a fast growing audience. “This video focuses on the science of snake behavior to support a master’s thesis. Video is for citation for junior high school, high school science reports… Filmed with the University of Guadalajara for Biological and Agricultural Sciences”.

UPDATE NOVEMBER 2018: 13 million views, behind this one that rose to 19 million.

(Tanookicatoon:) I couldn’t help but notice a new channel breaking out on Youtube, and by noticing, I couldn’t help but feel that the videos I was watching were all too familiar. Sure enough, the more I looked into it, the more the signs began to point to the owner of the channel being JonahVore. If you don’t remember who that is, he is a notorious animal abuser, using reptiles nature of swallowing animals whole to indulge in his vore fantasies. This person was exposed years ago, when he was originally posting content to YouTube in 2007 and was banned.

I began to look at his old website and in the old Big Gulp Message Boards, and noticed that a lot of his posts and videos from his original site were now missing. On top of it, I actually found the Reptile Channel being advertised on the Big Gulp Message Boards. Of course, when this was mentioned, the links on the message board quickly disappeared.

I didn’t get a screen shot of what was in the Advertisements, but the first read something among the lines of, “new RL vore channel, HD video, some of them a lot you might remember.” Which prompted me to start using the Wayback website. Sure enough, you can see that, while you can no longer read the advertisements, you can still see that they, indeed, were made, and dated.

Screen of Big Gulp boards with ads for Reptile Channel

Screen of Big Gulp boards after ad removal.

Going to Reptile Channel on Patreon, you can see that the dates which certain posts were made match up very closely. This gave me the big idea to simply go to the original JonahsVore website through the Wayback to see if I could find anything. Sure enough, I found one matching video. A video of his raven being forcefed a mouse, which is on his Youtube channel as well. I recognized it right off the bat.

Reptile Channel raven video, and Patreon post about it (screen) dated close to the Big Gulp ad.

Archived Jonahvore site with same raven movie, and current site with video removed.

The old archived raven video is lo-res. It can’t be the source for an HD upload.

Reptile Channel’s new post of this video is in HD, so it isn’t just sourced from the web, it’s directly from the original.

He’s doing the same thing that he did last time. Hiding under that vague “educational” disguise. His original account lasted for a couple years before his original videos got him banned. There are users that take account of his old videos as well. This was the one that got him in the most trouble – he clearly does things to force his animals to do this. (Repost:) “Snake / Python Eats Chick / Bird Alive”. (- Tanookicatoon)

(Patch:) I see the Youtube channel claims to be part of study for a zoology degree. Tanooki comments on a FurAffinity journal post about this: “A lot of their videos claim to be college studies in labs, but they’re obviously in their bedroom, or kitchen.” There are more comments worth reading there.

Tanooki showed me a FurAffinity note that confronted the owner of the Big Gulp message board about the JonahVore/Reptile Channel connection. He refuses to confirm or deny it. There’s an excuse about owner safety, but no mention of evading bans. Tanooki also documented Vore furries supporting the Patreon. Besides furries, thousands of regular viewers may have no idea about hidden motives.

Here’s transparency about a channel that appears to be claiming professional goals and legit science. Remember, even testing on lab animals is supposed to have rigorous standards.

The farthest fringes of fetish can be harmless fantasy. But there’s a boundary that calls for awareness expressed by Tanooki’s FA journal:

I do not, in any way, condone animal abuse whatsoever. Vore is a fetish that should remain a fantasy, and should not be brought into reality by human hands. Abusing the true nature of animals for your sexual needs is disgusting.

UPDATE 6/20/17:

1) This 2009 Livejournal post describes in detail what JonahVore did to be banned from Youtube in the past:

Amidst the horrors of his videos, I’ve seen a monitor lizard savagely bitten around the face and eyes by a rat over 20 times while it attempted to kill the rat, with no attempt made by the owner to prevent such harm to his animal. I have seen video of a python that has obviously been pre-fed a rat have a live chick fed to it, the objective being that the snake will not be able to swallow the chick right away and he can closeup of the poor bird struggling and peeping desperately as it lunges half out of the mouth and the python grasps it, over and over. And then, when the chick is finally swallowed, focus in on the snake’s throat to see the still struggling chick’s outline and hear it still crying. This is all done with the implication through his name and certain of his actions that he is doing this for sexual gratification. I have seen him callously toss animals together that were not providing the response he wanted. This man does not care about or for the reptiles he is keeping. He does not care about humane feeding methods.

2) This 2014 Livejournal post has a screencap of JonahVore’s face and other personal details.

3) From Reddit’s r/reptiles:

I’m a huge fan of The Reptile Channel – HerpersTV. They make quality, educational videos and I’m happy to share them everywhere I can. I know that in talking with Dāv Kaufman who owns The Reptile Channel, that he’s taking steps to protect his copyright and trademarks, but aside from this, every reptile person should condemn channels like this open and publicly… I’m going to forward it on to Dāv, and I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

UPDATE 7/9/17:

Tanookicatoon linked here and reports deletion of many Reptile Channel videos:

So, about a month ago now, I went ahead tipped Patch on his blog about Reptile Channel on Youtube. Showed them all the evidence I had gathered and they went ahead and did some high quality snooping that I wasn’t even aware could be done, finding about 99% more info than I had originally connected to the channel… Needless to say, within that week, Reptile Channel had deleted more than two thirds of their videos in order to hide the evidence. And the offending people in the article have now blocked me here. LOL. So, BIG BIG BIG THANK YOU to Patch for getting this news out way better I could have. It may have not gotten Reptile Channel/most likely JonahVore off Youtube, but it certainly cast a very wary eye over them. They haven’t done a live feeding since the article, but still occasionally have a video inside the house with their savannah monitors.

Reptile Channel’s description has changed on Youtube. It downplays the previous “focus specificaly on the science of feeding behavior”, and adds a supposed purpose for accepting other people’s videos. (Very convenient that it didn’t say that before, when a commenter below said it:)

Channel is about reptile education, care & feeding, avoid accidents and injuries, online degree programs, and bachelor degree accreditation. Pet insurance for health and medical emergencies. Recommend shop around for best health premiums. Not just for dogs and cats, take care of your reptile friends too! Videos that we produced were created in the pursuit of a M.Sc. in Zoology with a focus on predatory reptile feeding behavior, strategy and anatomy in acquiring of resources; created to both support and defend a master’s thesis. Content is created and available to academia for herpetological biostatistics. Also, for people young and old who like reptiles, learning about them, and plain ol’ just enjoy watching them. 🙂 If you have reptile feeding videos (predatory or plant-eating) you would like to contribute to this channel, and you are the owner, and don’t mind us monetizing, please contact us! Videos must have general public/educational interest which we may narrate over.

UPDATE 11/20/18:

A tip came in that the channel is proudly featuring its 100K subscriber “Silver Play Button” award. And in a few months since then it has risen to 270K subscribers. This problem hasn’t gotten better since the info was published – it’s getting worse, and Youtube isn’t listening to reports.

The Patreon account is down now so perhaps they listened. You can try flagging the channel on Youtube here, but Youtube appears to offer no option for reporting animal abuse.

In 2017 a popular "science" channel on Youtube was exposed as a front for RL animal abuse fetish content: https://t.co/nM0zqWzqrn



Youtube isn't listening to reports. In 2018 the channel got an award for reaching 100K subscribers (now 270K). RT for corporate accountability. pic.twitter.com/TF4zRvJv2T — Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 21, 2018

UPDATE 4/28/20:

Atrocious Youtubers Wiki has a page for Reptile Channel. The channel has risen by 10,000 subscribers a month since last update to 450,000 now.

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