Fino’s Rainforest Brings Exotic Reptiles to El Paso and hundreds to Sunland Park Mall

Fino’s Rainforest is an Exotic Reptile Shop located in the Sunland Park Mall that features everything from slithery snakes to Iguanas and even fish that have legs, but the biggest takeaway from the reptile shop is the experience.

Michael Fino, the shop’s owner, is brilliant when it comes to his knowledge of reptiles – and has an incredible desire to share that knowledge with the community.

“I started off as a youngster growing up in pet stores and seeing all the cool exotic pets,” Fino said.

He said that he started buying those reptiles, breeding them and then selling them back to the pet store to make enough money to support his hobby.

His love for exotics grew into a large wholesale business. He noticed that some of the shops he sold to, did not know how to properly care for Reptiles, so he decided to open his own shop and educate people about reptiles.

Some of the exotics in the pet shop, like the Giant Leaf Tailed Gecko, come from as far away as Madagascar. Others from Indonesia and Africa. But some reptiles in his shop, like the black and white Tegu – come from places as close as Florida.

Fino said the Tegus come in different colors such as red and albino.

Fino is actively breeding certain species that are going extinct in the wild, like a very rare fish that is able to regenerate brain stem cells and limbs.

Most of the reptiles in Fino’s Rainforest are captive bred and do not come from the wild, and he has a veterinarian visit the shop to make sure his reptiles are healthy.

Fino has a desire to set up an educational program in the back of his store, where he can showcase the different reptiles and how to care for them. He also would like to bring in experts to put on different animal shows and have displays set up for people to be able to see how to properly house a reptile.

A program he would like to offer free to the public, but he is having trouble with the City, who has not yet approved the program.

Also, some have complained about the ‘pet shop’ setting, to them, Fino asks them to, “Come down, educate themselves a little bit, See some of the breeding programs that we’re on. We’re trying to change the way people look at pet stores, we’re trying to make it an experience for them.”

He said, “What they don’t understand is that not all of us are big box pet stores, a lot of us are activists, a lot of us do a lot of things for the survival of these species as far as when it comes to breeding.”

He said most people just don’t understand what he is doing for the reptiles, and that breeders like him are actually helping the populations of reptiles and not harming them. Fino said, “I just don’t think they understand. We’d love to see the animals in the wild, of course, that would be in a perfect world. That would be great but that’s just not being realistic,” he said, “These animals are not missing because of the pet trade, because we’re pulling them out or anything like that. You know if you drink coffee, if you have wood in your cars and your houses, that’s where most of these animals are having issues.” Fino said, “The forests are getting decimated because of that, it’s not because of us, so what we’re trying to do is breed these species so they’ll still be around for our kids.”

He also said that breeders help to extinguish the illegal animal trade, “There’s high dollar in illegal animals that they bring in on the trade, so if we’re able to captive breed them, we actually bring the price down, and the people that are doing this illegally show no interest in doing that anymore”

Fino said that they see around 400 to 500 people in his store on a daily basis, and is excited about the direction of the Sunland Park Mall. Fino said, “This mall is actually doing a lot of things to bring people back, they’re making it more family oriented, there are a lot of stores that are locally owned…everybody wants to do a story on how the malls going but since I’ve been here, I’ve been getting 400-500 people here a day.”

Fino said Most of these reptiles are captive born and bred and would not survive in the wild. The enclosures they are in are smaller and designed to be temporary because the reptiles only stay in them for a short while. Fino said that he gives information to the buyer on the proper size of enclosure and care that should be given to each reptile they purchase.

**The efforts of breeders like Michael Fino are helping to keep certain species – that are going extinct- alive and in the world