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About Dr Laura

I've always been a passionate animal lover, and even as a very young child, I always wanted to be a veterinarian.


One memory I have as a child was getting to meet my then childhood idol, Dr Harry Cooper, who shook my hand and signed a copy of his book for me. Throughout school I had the target of making it to university- and I made it! I studied a Bachelor of Veterinary Science at James Cook University in Townsville, graduating in 2011. 

In addition to my passion for all animals, their care and wellbeing, I have always had a soft spot for the unusual pets. The ones you find fascinating and captivate you, but that you don't see very often.


For me, that is the reptilian family! From the smallest of geckos to the largest of pythons, I love and admire them all.


At University, I chose to spend my elective placements at places like the Australian Wildlife Hospital, Currumbin Wildlife Hospital, Australia Zoo and Seaworld (Ok well that last one didn't involve reptiles, but it was too cool to not mention). 

Whenever I have travelled, I have focused on visiting as many animal based locations, quality establishments where the husbandry and enrichment of their animals is of paramount importance.


I spent years researching and reading about native Australian reptiles (the best kinds in the world, in my humble opinion), and back in 2012 I purchased my first pet snake, a hatchling Windorah locality Stimson Python from a fantastic, kind, helpful breeder in Ballina NSW- I remember my father drove down with me to meet my new baby.


Over the next year I added a high yellow Central Bearded Dragon, two Proserpine Coastal Carpet pythons, and two Rockhampton Downs Woma’s to my reptile ‘collection’ as they call it.


Unfortunately after a few years, work and life and a lot of other hurdles got in the way, and I made the decision to downsize and no longer keep reptiles.


At the time, the co-dominant Jaguar carpet python morph had been popping up more... 

A few years later... something sparked in me. I started looking for the reptile websites I used to frequent- most of them had disappeared or were no longer active. Old classified sites were gone.


And I soon found that, in my opinion at least (SO many would disagree, but too bad, this is my page!) the Morelia portion of the reptile hobby has been disfigured.


Jaguars and Zebras, which originated outside of Australia, had somehow made it back and have been bred into what seemed like virtually everything.


The majority of what I found on classifieds and breeder pages were Morelia hybrids, jags, jag sibs, and zebras. It was very hard to find trustworthy pure snakes, let alone locality pure ones that I treasured.

Through Real Aussie Reptiles, we will focus on protecting locality species, by:

  • Keeping and breeding healthy and robust Australian native reptiles, including both locality specific animals and some morphs. 
  • Continuing healthy lines of animals for future generations to enjoy, without compromising the health and quality of life of the animals. 


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