Richard and Tara with Platinum, their new python
The ocean-mimicking blue light and the hum of pool pumps in The Aquatic Critter shop on Nolensville Pike can calm the nerves. The slow, effortless swimming of the Spanish hogfish and the African marble knife fish and the silver arowana adds further to the peacefulness inside this 30-year-old family-run fish and reptile store. The snakes in the adjacent reptile-focused room seem lazy, too. Staring into their brightly illuminated glass enclosures, a visitor might wait an hour to see a green anaconda or a reticulated python perk up its head or flick its tail.
But all that tranquility belies a quiet intensity in both the humans and animals at The Aquatic Critter.
One employee shows off a black-, white- and red-ringed Sinaloan milk snake, a species that he can easily distinguish from its more primitive cousins in the Mexican desert. He does so as if the ability to instantaneously differentiate between nearly identical desert snakes were the most natural thing in the world.
But that stuff is ordinary — Jeremy’s eyes light up at the mention of his real passion: turtles. One species of turtle in particular fertilized his reptilian passions at a young age, but unfortunately, so few of them exist in the wild that they can’t be imported to the United States from their home along the Yangtze River in eastern China. While he dreams of breeding these turtles, he can only wistfully describe their hunting habits to captivated visitors. (They climb trees, then dive from high above into the river to snag fish. Amazing.)
In a long conversation with one of the browsing customers, another employee reveals his own passion: a 117-year-old act of Congress. His joy is nearly palpable as he recalls a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling from April limiting enforcement of the Lacey Act of 1900. He discusses the century-old law with the immediacy and passion of an SEC football fan.
This law, signed by William McKinley, is just another example of government interference, he says, and until the court reversed one part of it last month, it was a drag on The Aquatic Critter’s business, restricting which lengthy snakes could be shipped across state lines.
Their business wasn’t struggling on a recent Thursday morning, though. A couple from Bon Aqua, Tenn., stopped in and purchased a 15-foot reticulated python, worth several hundred dollars, on a whim. The two customers pulled the newly purchased snake out of a cooler resting on the back seat of their green Buick in the parking lot to show to two intrigued strangers. Tara did most of the handling, shouldering the 100-pound snake as Richard looked on.
For Tara, the 100 snakes at their home southwest of Nashville are part of a pet love affair no different than anyone else’s love for, say, a golden retriever.
For Richard, though, it’s more of a love affair with Tara. He hates snakes, and physically recoils when their new pet turns its head toward him. He helps only when the python begins to wriggle off her shoulders. The snake’s head hits the hot pavement, and it makes for the shade underneath a car before Richard can help his wife corral the tropical predator. It just about escaped into the wilds of South Nashville.
A week later, Tara reports that the snake, since named Platinum, is getting along well with the others at their Bon Aqua home. She — Platinum’s a she — has been spending time with one of Tara and Richard’s albino Burmese pythons, and the couple hope that babies are on the way.
Jeremy, an employee at The Aquatic Critter
