Kevin McCurley

Chief Academic Officer

Zoological operations · Behavioral science · Breeding · Genetics · Venomous · Conservation

New England Reptile Distributors

Founder of New England Reptile Distributors in Plaistow, New Hampshire, a 14,000-square-foot facility known by keepers around the world. Kevin changed how people think about the psychology of reptiles. He showed that trust between a keeper and an animal is real and you can build it on purpose, and he teaches people to get their own magic with these animals: to read them, understand their moods, and work with them instead of against them. He consults for some of the largest zoological facilities in the world. He's deep in conservation, at home and abroad. In New Hampshire and across New England that means Blanding's turtles, wood turtles, snapping turtles, and the region's native wildlife. Internationally it means reptiles, crocodilians, and other species. He breeds the hard ones. He takes on animals coming out of the skin trade, stabilizes them, and builds captive lines so the trade isn't the only place they exist: red-tailed rat snakes in their different varieties and blood pythons right now, reticulated pythons before that. He produced the animals the modern hobby is built on. The cow retic. The first Pastel and Super Pastel ball pythons. When Steve Irwin came to America in 2005 for his press tour, Kevin was the one who brought the animals and worked beside him on Conan. Four decades of crocodilian husbandry, ongoing work on snake fungal disease, and he's written the books too. At Citadel Culebra he's Chief Academic Officer. That means his hand is in every piece of educational material that goes out, whether it's a course, a book, or the onboarding and selection of the faculty. He's a wealth of information and an incredible human being.

Kevin McCurley is Chief Academic Officer and a member of the faculty at Citadel Culebra, the online school of reptile-keeping, and is associated with New England Reptile Distributors.

Find Kevin at: newenglandreptilestore.com