Brian Barczyk, a world-famous reptile skilled whose upbeat movies attracted thousands and thousands of followers on social media and who starred within the actuality TV present “Venom Hunters” on Discovery died on Sunday at his home in Michigan. He was 54.
The trigger was pancreatic most cancers, based on Stephanie Kent, a consultant for The Reptarium, a reptile zoo that Mr. Barczyk based together with his spouse, Lori Barczyk, in Utica, Mich.
Mr. Barczyk’s love of reptiles started as a boy. He has mentioned his earliest reminiscence was coming throughout a ball python on the Belle Isle Aquarium in Detroit.
“I remember that like it was yesterday, and ever since, I’ve just been obsessed,” Mr. Barczyk instructed the Hollywood Soapbox in 2016. “No one taught me this obsession. I always tell people, I was born with a reptile gene because it’s just in me. I spent every summer catching garter snakes out in the local woods.”
A local of Southeast Michigan, Mr. Barczyk spent a long time commercially breeding snakes. His firm, BHB Reptiles, had tens of hundreds of the reptiles in a warehouse at any given level, Mr. Barczyk instructed the Detroit Free Press in 2015. His prospects included Saul Hudson, higher generally known as Slash, the guitarist from Guns N’ Roses.
His rise to prominence started with the 2008 launch of an academic YouTube channel, SnakeBytesTV, in addition to posting from his private internet web page. The movies are cheerful how-tos on numerous snake-related matters, together with some by which Mr. Barczyk explains how you can safely breed and transport them, how you can cope with snake bites and why, opposite to common opinion, the bites aren’t so dangerous (relying on the snake).
At the time of his dying, Mr. Barczyk’s following on YouTube had grown to greater than 5 million, whereas his TikTok account has greater than 7 million followers, together with an account on Instagram with 1.7 million.
Asked as soon as on Reddit to call his favourite python, he wrote in response within the Ask Me Anything thread: “I just can’t pick. It’s like asking a Mom to pick their favorite child. I love them all.”
His largest break got here when he was tapped to star in “Venom Hunters,” which ran for six episodes on the Discovery Channel in 2016. In the present, Mr. Barczyk was certainly one of a number of consultants who traveled to far-flung places to reap venom from the world’s most toxic snakes.
Brian Henry Barczyk, who was raised by his mom and stepfather, Karen and Mike Miller, was born Sept. 6, 1969. He is survived by his spouse, and their kids, Jade Albrecht, 31, and Noah Barczyk, 24, in addition to two grandchildren.
Mr. Barczyk had introduced that he was beginning hospice care in a video posted on his YouTube web page on Jan. 5 with the title, “This Is Goodbye.”
