Beach Tool: The Reptile Scoop

By Julie Cajigas

Photo of my and my scoop by my son, who cut off my face and most of my body. He was actually taking a photo of his own hand with glass in it, so this is technically a blow up of the background, which explains the quality.

What's the deal with the reptile scoop? Well, usually I get the question asked a different way. I will be busily digging through gravel on the beach looking for glass, and another glass hunter who is using a stick or their foot will come up and say, with desire in their eyes, "where did you get that and what is it?"

I always kind of laugh and say, "it's a reptile poop scoop." Then I inevitably feel the need to say that I don't currently own a reptile.

I would say never, but when I was a kid, I had exactly two lizards. The first was named Jeremy. We caught him in Florida and brought him home with us (were my parents insane??). Jeremy had to eat live crickets, but in a sad twist of fate that would cause nightmares for years to come, one day I came home to find that jeremy had a bone sticking out where his leg should have been.

What was the pet shop's supposition? The crickets. ate. his. leg. WHAAAAAAAT? Yeah, I'm still not over that one. In fact, I told my daughter and now she repeatedly tells that story. Jeremy joined the flushed pets soon after that horror show.

Oscar? I don't remember at all what happened to Oscar. I mean, clearly he died, but I guess it wasn't as traumatic as boney peg leg Jeremy.

Anyway - I digress.

The reptile litter scoop was something I found after rabidly googling tools for beach glass hunting for a while. I was sick of poking around with sticks, but not serious enough to buy this intense tool I had seen one guy use that he plunged deep into the gravel and pulled up core samples or something. He seemed like he had a glass business or perhaps had found a way to use the glass to power his space ship.

Plus, I shouldn't poke fun, as I methodically shuffle and turn pebbles for hours looking for tiny flecks of glass.

Why and how do I use this thing?

First of all, beach glass washes up frequently on the shores of Lake Erie. I've heard this is due to an old glass factory on the lake. I've also heard that this is because of our many shipwrecks including the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Given the number of brown beer bottle bottoms and tops I find, I'm gonna go ahead and guess a fair amount of it has to do with our love of beer and brewing and general sloppiness with bottle disposal.

Regardless, glass is washing up nearly each time a wave comes in on some of these beaches. The glass is lighter than stone, so it gets washed further in most of the time. You can often find it sprinkled in the gravel right where the waves end.

A few things happen because of that pattern of washing in:

Visible glass is picked up by glass hunters pretty quickly.
Glass gets hidden under the heavier rocks and pebbles that wash up after pretty quickly.
During the night when there are no glass hunters, the glass gets buried layers down by the waves and won't be found without digging.

Because of this, I often find the best glass by excavating layers of the pebbles. The reptile scoop is amazing because the flat end allows you to shift aside one or two layers of stone/shells at a time. That way, you don't bury glass that's right under the surface by digging like you might with a shovel. If you do need to dig though, the mesh basket will function just like a shovel.

It is also handy to grab glass that's just washed in before another wave comes and moves it. You can reach out with this scoop, scoop up the piece and all of the pebbles around it and then sort through it at your leisure, rather than getting hit by a wave trying to pull glass out of the water with your hand.

Very occasionally, I will find that under the top layer of sand there is a layer of small pebbles. By digging into that layer with the scoop, I have found some of the coolest glass ever.

I love this little reptile pooper scooper. I carry it with me everywhere I go just in case. I have a "beach glassing" bucket in the trunk of my car and this is always in it. More on the bucket in another entry.

Lastly, the scoop is cheap. Like, $10 cheap.

You can't beat that with a stick.

(Photo courtesy of Casidoxi brand. Available from Amazon here)

Pro-tip: Splurge for the comfort handle. Sometimes I get a sore spot on my finger from the repetitive way I use this tool. Photo courtesy of Casidoxi brand. Available from Amazon here.

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