In the late 1960's Snakeman Raymond Hoser invented the so-called reptile party.
Since then he has registered the trademarks for reptile party and reptile parties in all configurations and the whole concept has come a long, long, way.
Initially, Raymond Hoser and his reptile collection were a curiosity piece among friends and others who would come to his home to see them.
Raymond was more into the science of the animals that dealing with other people, but his parents were regularly entertainers of friends and invariably everyone would want to see the animals.
Rather than wait for this to happen, Raymond would simply take the animals to the party, do his show and tell, and then get back to what he had to do.
From there the 15 minute "show and tell" expanded and then word-of-mouth did the rest.
The show extended to an hour or more and people wer more than happy to pay to have Raymond take time out and do the reptile party.
Raymond Hoser's activities were effectively outlawed in the 1970's, as the government-run and owned zoos saw a potential break in their monopoly of the wildlife space.
Raymond fought against the banning of private ownership of wildlife in Australia for two decades and got nowhere until in 1993, he published the best-selling book, Smuggled: The Underground Trade in Australia's Wildlife
True to form the Australian government had the book banned, seized from the shops and destroyed.
The state controlled media, including the Murdoch Press refused to report the story of the corruption book that was banned and were it not for the corageous efforts of a veteran investigative journalist, Fia Cumming, this story would have gone no further.
Employed at the Murdoch owned News Corporation, her stories about corruption were censored and banned and her sub-editors, better known as government-assisting censors made sure none of her stories about full-blown corruption ever got printed.
Aware of this, Fia Cumming decided to sabotage the system and get the story of the banning of the book run when the censor wasn't looking.
Her story ran on the front page of all the Murdoch rags on the Sunday, a media frenzy followed and next thing you know, the Australian government through the environment minister at the time (Chris Hartcher) apologised for the government's fascist behaviour and formally "unbanned" the book.
Smuggled:The Underground Trade in Australia's Wildlife went on to become a best seller!
It has been republished many times since and remains an Australian classic. It is mandatory reading for all wildlife lovers and those with an interest in entrenched government corruption in Australia.
The book forced a rewrite of wildlife laws across Australia and for the first time in decades, private people could keep and study native wildlife without getting locked up if caught doing so.
This also meant that privately owned travelling wildlife shows could operate again.
Once it became clear that mobile wildlife displays were legal and those who did them were not going to jail, Raymond Hoser was again able to do his reptile parties.
Seizing on from ideas from others and refining them, the business plan and the nature of the reptile parties changed dramatically.
Instead of owning species that he liked, Raymond Hoser targetted those that were best suited to being handled, ease of looking after and with a wow-factor for audiences at events like kids parties and birthday party shows.
The reptile party for kids included crocodiles, snakes, lizards, frogs and turtles, with lots of different kinds and massive numbers at a time, so that even in a group of 30 people, everyone can hold the animals at the same time.
In the state of Victoria, Kinders, primary schools, secondary schools and even universities seized on the opportunity to have a mobile zoo come to them and so business boomed for the reptile party shows.
The concept has now been copied across Australia and also elsewhere, including in the UK, USA and even South Africa.
Raymond Hoser taught people in all these places, who now run successful wildlife education and reptile display businesses.
In Melbourne, reptile parties are seen most weekends and in pretty much all suburbs.
On weekdays when not at schools, kinders and the like, reptile displays can be seen at corporate events and even team building exercises for bored business people.
Occasionally Raymond Hoser will spend the day simply cleaning cages, a neccessary chore that comes with owning animals.
However most fo the time, he does this at night, because, put simply, he is too busy by day to do such things.
Did I mention that Raymond is also one of the world's best known wildlife conservation icons.
In terms of actual results, no one on the planet can match his score.
But when it comes to wildlife conservation, Raymond Hoser stresses that it is a team game and everyone needs to be a part of the solution.
