Snakebusters always have the most leading edge shows.
Anyone can do a show bringing out a reptile
one at a time and giving a spiel on it.
Lots of people try doing just this.
But in terms of breaking new ground in terms of getting the audience captivated
and interested, Raymond Hoser/Snakebusters has been first with all the
major innovations (save a few, which we've happily taken from others).
Raymond Hoser pioneered the "hands on" method way back in the
1970's.
That's the audience touching, holding and handling reptiles.
Back then, Hoser's detractors claimed it was "too risky" but
now "hands on" is the method of choice for schools, groups and
even parties!
Raymond Hoser was the first to shift the emphasis of snake and lizard talks
away from the "fear factor" to talk about the nice things about
snakes, including rodent and pest control and other reasons they are "good".
Raymond Hoser was the first to push the conservation message in all his
live reptile shows and that was back in the days before it was trendy to
claim an interest in all things environmental. In fact it was Raymond
Hoser's ground-breaking book "Endangered Aninals of Australia"
published in 1991 that was a major part in pushing the environmental message
along.
Raymond Hoser happily does live venomous snake milking displays, something
that was pioneered by others in the 1960's.
A major innovation from the 1990's was Fred Rossignolli's venomous snake
shows.
His weren't the typical, one snake at a time and handled with sticks method.
Rossignolli instead free-handled several deadly snakes at a time giving
the audience unprecedented views and comparisons of the snakes.
Put simply, the show style was vastly superior to anything else before
him. However it also took immense intestinal fortitude on his part in terms
of the ever-present bite risk and yes he sometimes got bitten.
Raymond Hoser's adopted this show style and can now push the boundaries
even further knowing that he is using venomoid snakes (see below), meaning
that the risk to handler and snakes is (now) nil.
You see, most recently (2003/4), Raymond Hoser did the first successful
operations on Australian snakes to remove the venom glands.
The result is new levels of safety and latitude when doing shows that others
can only dream of. At the moment, Raymond Hoser and snakebusters have the
only risk free venomous snake show for handler, audience and snakes themselves.
However there is little doubt that as Raymond's now published papers explaining
this operation in all it's detail, others will emulate it. Hoser has also
been inundated with requests to do more operations on other people's snakes,
but so far he's refused all, not wanting to be seen to do such operations
for commercial or other purposes. However these requests do indicate a
huge interest in the venomoid operation and an underlying demand for the
venomoid snakes.
As snakes aren't necessarily immune from the venoms of other species, the
idea of mixing different species was always fraught with hazards, until
the use of venomoid snakes. Now a Copperhead, Black, Tiger, Brown, Death
Adder and Python can all be displayed together with no risk at all and
allowing an unprecedented face-to-face comparison of the species.
That's education at it's best!
Other innovations by Raymond Hoser include shows with snakes eating, mating,
feeding lizards and so on.
To get the latest innovations in snake education and entertainment nothing
compares with Raymond Hoser and Snakebusters.
Please scroll through this entire list before making a selection
All species of Australian reptile and frog.
Surgical removal of venom glands in Australian snakes. Details of the first successful operations.
This is a trademark that is registered and protected (R, TM)
... unauthorised use is prohibited.
Scientific Paper - Melbourne's Snakes - pdf file.
Litteratura Serpentium, 10(2), pp. 82-92 and 10(3), 122-145. (4.1 mb)
(not for the squeamish)
(including snake and related images for download and free reproduction, including as high resolution jpegs).
E-Mail inquiries to Raymond
Hoser adder@smuggled.com