Brian Barczyk, Macomb County reptile expert with worldwide reach, dies at 54
Kathy Canapini has memories of Brian Barczyk from high school. From rock and roll. From decades of New Year’s Eves, the Barcyzks and the Canapinis together.
And, from watching a snake dig its fangs into his arm ― and watching her old friend treat it like something less than a mosquito bite, waiting for the snake to disengage in its own sweet time.
“He’d just say, ‘It’s part of the job. You’ve got to let nature take its course,’ ” Canapini said.
Barczyk, who turned a childhood fascination with snakes into multiple reptile-related businesses and more than 15 million social media followers worldwide, died Sunday at 54 at his home in Warren.
Unfazed by what he estimated at tens of thousands of bites from nonvenomous snakes, he was felled by pancreatic cancer after two weeks of hospice care. He’d been in a race with the disease since his diagnosis a year ago, hoping to see yet another innovative dream come to life ― an interactive zoo and aquarium in Utica called LegaSea.
LegaSea, scheduled to open in mid-March, sits across Van Dyke Avenue from BHB Reptiles, his breeding and sales operation, and a public museum known as The Reptarium.
They were open as always Tuesday, said social media director Stephanie Kent. Snakes need to eat, and people need to learn.
"People love what they can touch," Barczyk told the Free Press in June, so he and his wife, Lori, designed the Reptarium to be as interactive as possible when exhibits are full of massive boa constrictors or a 125-pound alligator snapping turtle named Bowser.
“He truly was a visionary,” said Kent, an employee of nine years.
Barczyk ― pronounced BAR-check ― bred varieties of snakes rarely seen before, in quantities rarely achieved. He also invented tools and products, she said, among them improved snake hooks and incubation accessories.
The interest was clear at Center Line High School, said Canapini, even if the entrepreneurial bent needed to be developed.
A bass guitarist, Barczyk dropped out to pursue rock and roll, though he later earned a GED. Meantime, he worked at a since-closed shop called Pet Vendor at 10 Mile and Van Dyke, and badgered his mother into letting him keep a few snakes ― and soon a few hundred ― at home.
"He created a name and a niche for himself that went far beyond our little mile-by-mile town," Canapini said.
In a YouTube vlog titled "This Is Goodbye" posted in early January, Barczyk asked his 5.3 million subscribers to "continue to fall in love with the things I love."
"I apologize," he said. "I fought as hard as I could."
As word spread of his struggles and then demise, tributes came from as far away as Australia, where the father of the late conservationist Steve Irwin sent a farewell, and as near as Utica city hall.
"Thank you Brian Barczyk for leaving this sometimes sad world in such a better way than you found it," wrote Mayor Gus Calandrino. "Thank you Brian Barczyk for your message of love and kindness and spreading it to so many, many people."
"Your LegaSea," Calandrino concluded, "will continue."
Barczyk is survived by Lori, whom he married when they were both teenagers; children Jade (Michael) Albrecht and Noah; brother Glen Barczyk; sister Cynthia Rivera, and two grandchildren.
The family will hold a "Public Memorial Walk-through" from 1 p.m.-3 p.m. Wednesday at Heritage Church, 44625 Schoenherr Road, in Sterling Heights.
Memorial options for the millions of supporters known as the Reptile Army, and others who might want to be involved, are outlined online through the Reptarium.
Among the possibilities is a wall plaque at LegaSea, where Barczyk's handprints will grace the entrance of an attraction he didn't quite live to see completed.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Reptarium founder Brian Barczyk of Warren dies of pancreatic cancer
