School holiday visitors were surprised to witness a deadly and dangerous event at The Australian Reptile Park recently as the Park’s popular Venom Milk Off was held to coincide with World Snake Day on July 16.
The challenge involved keepers Zac Bower, Jake Meney and Billy Collett bringing out three of Australia’s deadliest snakes and milking them to see who would produce the largest yield of venom.
Although the Australian Reptile Park hosts a huge variety of Australia’s deadliest snakes, selecting the species of snakes to use was not a tough one.
The Venom Milk Off included the Tiger Snake, The King Brown Snake and the Coastal Taipan.
All three snakes are known for being incredibly deadly, and the task had everyone’s hearts racing as each snake was revealed from its bag.
The Milk Off saw the Coastal Taipan victorious at a massive 2.4 grams of venom, while the King Brown came second at 1.6 grams and the Tiger Snake came third with 0.2 grams.
All venom produced from the display has been processed and ready to be shipped off and contribute to the lifesaving antivenom program.
Operations Manager, Billy Collett said while staff were backing the Coastal Taipan to come out victorious considering how dangerous it is, a few thought the King Brown might have had him beat.
“It was a really impressive display from these amazing animals, and we loved taking the time to educate the crowd on snake bite first aid and showing the world just how deadly these snakes can be,” he said.
The Australian Reptile Park is the only facility in the world that milks Australian terrestrial land snakes for the production of antivenom.
Seqirus transforms the raw venom into the final product of lifesaving antivenom.
The Park extracts venom from five groups of Australia’s deadliest snakes including Taipans, Brown Snakes, Tiger Snakes, Death Adders and Black Snakes.
Every year there are an estimated 2,000 reported snake bites in Australia, with over 300 people receiving antivenom and having their lives saved by the program.
In early 2023, the Park will commence construction on a new state-of-the-art venom milking facility where visitors will be able to walk through and witness the lifesaving work first-hand.
The NSW Government has committed $300,000 to the project with initial planning stages well and truly underway.
Primary source: Media release, Jul 15, 2022, Australian Reptile Park