1.
venom once a week and then
released after a month. The venture
has been spectacularly successful,
and is now essentially the sole
source of venom required for
antivenom production in India,
supplying venom to seven different
laboratories. In 2016, venom sales
yielded 30 million rupees (nearly
$600,000AUD). The Co-operative
has a government licence to catch
8,300 snakes per year, but would like
to see a threefold increase in this
number. There are currently 370
members, 122 of which are women.
and Saw-scaled Vipers being milked
for valuable venom. Collectively
referred to as the ‘big four’, these
species account for the vast majority
of fatalities from snake bite in India.
Rom himself is now immersed in
what he calls the ‘Indian Snakebite
Mitigation Project’ which aims to
address the incredible number of
snake bite deaths through interaction
with government and the medical
fraternity, research and public
education.
‘The Irula Co-operative is now
essentially the sole source of
venom for antivenom production in
India.’
Today, visitors to the Madras
Crocodile Bank Trust and Centre for
Herpetology, which Rom and his
former wife, Zai Whitaker, founded
in 1976 about 40 kilometres south of
Chennai, near the tourist precinct of
Mahabalipuram, can conduct a short
tour of the corner of the facility
devoted to the Irula Co-operative,
and watch Spectacled Cobras,
Russell’s Vipers, Common Kraits
Irulas in the Everglades.
Burmese Pythons were first sighted
in the Florida Everglades in the
1980s, and were acknowledged to be
a reproducing population in the early
2000s. Python bivitattus is native to
southeast Asia, where it is found in a
diverse range of habitats, although it
is often associated with water (it is a
strong swimmer and can remain
submerged for extended periods).
One of the largest snakes in
existence, the Burmese Python is
capable of reaching a total length in
excess of 5.5m (18ft). ‘Baby’, a
celebrated captive Burmese Python
held by a herpetological exhibit in
Illinois, was first listed in the
Guinness Book of World Records in
1999 as the world’s heaviest living
snake, with a reported weight of
183kg (403lb) and a total length of
up to 8.2m (27ft). Immediately after
her death in 2003, Baby’s actual
length was confirmed to be 5.74m
(18ft 10ins) – obviously much
smaller, but still arguably the
maximum reliable recorded length
for the species.
The Burmese Python has become
popular in the pet trade due to its
easy temperament and attractive
colourations, however it also has a
rapid growth rate, which can quickly
present problems for owners. The
population in the Everglades is likely
to have originated from escapees or
over-sized pets that were deliberately
released; a number of specimens
were liberated when a pet shop was
destroyed in a hurricane in 1992. The
vast, subtropical wetland was per-
fectly suited for their proliferation,
and by 2007 wildlife management