School holiday visitors were surprised to witness a deadly and dangerous event at The Australian Reptile Park when the Venom Milk Off was held recently to coincide with World Snake Day (July 16).
The challenge involved keepers Billy Collett, Sam Herrmann and Dylan Wallis bringing out five of Australia’s deadliest snakes in one space and milking them to see who would produce the largest venom yield.
The Park hosts a large variety of Australia’s deadliest snakes, so selecting the species of snakes to use was not a tough one.
In the end the Milk Off included the Tiger Snake, The King Brown Snake, Coastal Taipan, Eastern Brown Snake and Common Death Adder.
All five snakes are known for being incredibly deadly, and the task had everyone’s hearts racing as each snake was revealed from its bag.
The King Brown took out the Milk Off with a whopping 2.58 grams of venom.
The Coastal Taipan came in second at 1.53 grams, then came the Tiger snake at 0.56 grams, the Common Death Adder with 0.44 grams and lastly, the Eastern Brown snake with 0.09 grams.
All venom produced from the event has been processed and is ready to be shipped off and contribute to the lifesaving antivenom program.
Operations Manager Billy Collett said the results were not surprising.
“I think we all knew that the King Brown would come out victorious considering how dangerous they are, but a few of us thought that the Coastal Taipan might have had him beat,” he said.
“It’s crazy to think that this amount of venom combined is enough to kill more than 1,000 humans.
“It was an 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.”
The Australian Reptile Park is the only facility in the world that milks Australian terrestrial land snakes for the production of antivenom.
CSL Seqirus then transforms the raw venom into the final product of lifesaving antivenom.
Every year there are an estimated 2,000 reported snake bites in Australia, with more than 300 receiving antivenom and having their lives saved by the program.
In early 2023, the Australian Reptile Park commenced construction on a new state-of-the-art venom milking facility, which will allow visitors to walk through and witness the lifesaving work first-hand.
The NSW Government has committed $300,000 to the project with ground works well and truly underway.
Source:
Australian Reptile Park