Venomous-snake "dry bite" lie needs to be junked!
Third snakebite death this year in Australia leads snake expert Raymond Hoser, The Snakeman to call for clean out of wildlife education business!

21 April 2018

After another wholly avoidable snakebite fatality this week, being Mr. Aaron Bryant of Townsville, Australia’s foremost reptile expert has called for a clean out of law-breaking sharks in the zoo and wildlife business.
Snakeman Raymond Hoser confirmed that two of three snakebite deaths this year arose from so-called “dry bites”, which is when a snake supposedly does not inject venom. These two are on top of over 20 other avoidable snakebites involving snake handlers bitten by deadly snakes in the last decade by people who have not sought medical treatment based on the false assumption they had received a so-called “dry bite”.
Dry bites are actually very rare, but in 2008, a number of people new in the reptile education business commenced spreading a lie that the “dry bite” is the most common situation for venomous bites involving people and snakes.
The claim was invented as a secondary claim to that of Snakeman’s world first surgically devenomized deadly snakes (being the only ones in Australia) had regenerated venom and were therefore unsafe to be shown in public.
In response to the false claims of regenerating venom (invented to cast doubt as to the safety of Snakebusters world’s best reptile shows), Hoser created videos of himself and his family taking bites from the world’s deadliest snakes at major events to prove that the snakes had not regenerated venom.
Imitators of Hoser without devenomized snakes and unable to steal his clients with their less safe offerings, recruited another business rival of Hoser in the form of Melbourne Zoo and others in the wildlife display space to claim that Hoser, his kids and his staff were merely getting “dry bites” and that the snakes were in fact still venomous.
This is the “dry bite” lie that has over 10 years been so widely repeated by people in the snake display space (to attack Hoser’s business), that many people both within and outside believe “dry bites” to be common when in reality they are not. The attack on the Hoser business, Snakebusters / Reptile Parties was because Hoser alone could advertise totally safe venomous reptile shows (using the devenomized snakes) and most of the general public shunned all the potentially dangerous alternatives on offer. With his totally safe devenomized snakes, Hoser had shopping mall displays booked 3 years ahead, while business rivals were unable to secure a single event.
This led to dozens fabricated criminal charges being laid against Hoser to disable his business, by his main business rival, the government-owned Zoo’s Victoria and the associated government wildlife department, eagerly supported by rival businesses without devenomized snakes who gave evidence in court against Hoser.
In court in 2008, 2011 and again in 2012, Melbourne Zoo vet surgeon Dr. Helen McCracken gave sworn evidence that the Hoser snakes had regenerated venom and were giving dry bites. In each set of proceedings, Hoser lost each case and written judgements were published on the official record stating that Hoser’s devenomizing surgery did not work, his snakes had regenerated venom and were therefore potentially dangerous because they were giving dry bites.
One magistrate and two separate judges went further and stated as court proven fact that “dry bites” are the most common outcome of venomous snake bites in Australia.
Snakeman Raymond Hoser fought these lies and in June 2012, the Victorian Court of Appeal provisionally overturned the earlier findings.
Significantly also in 2012, McCracken confirmed that the claims of venom regeneration of Hoser’s snakes were made up and she had no knowledge of the said snakes, going on to state (in court) she had merely done a Google search of Hoser’s business competitors. The full Court of Appeal formally ruled in 2014 that the claims against Hoser’s devenomized snakes were wholly made up and false, as was the lie that dry bites are the most common outcome of venomous snake bites. This judgement was published on the government and legal website, but on instruction of the government wildlife department, it was not reported in the tabloid media at the time. Hence the lies about Hoser’s devenomized snakes regenerating venom and “dry bites” being common remain believed by millions of people.
Two months later in 2014, Zoos Victoria and their controlling government department formally confirmed that they had fabricated the claims that the Hoser devenomized snakes had regenerated venom and that dry bites were the most common result of venomous snake bites. They undertook to cease and desist from making these claims again.
However the department did not publish corrective advertising as ordered to and as a result, a huge number of people, including improperly trained snake catchers still believe the twin lies that devenomized snakes can regenerate venom and the even more dangerous lie that dry bites are the most common outcome of venomous snake bites.
In 2015, family man, Wayne Cameron of Rockhampton did a snake handler course taught by one of Hoser’s business competitors and was taught point blank the twin lies of devenomized snakes regenerating venom and that dry bites are common. A few months later when bitten by a Taipan he was catching, he erroneously thought it was a dry bite and by the time he collapsed and died, it was too late to save him.
A few months prior to Cameron’s avoidable death, another Victorian Court (VCAT) formally overturned the tree adverse judgements against Hoser from 2008, 2011 and 2012, confirming the lie of the “dry bite”, but it was too late to save Mr. Cameron, who was unaware of his misconception.
This year in January, another Queensland snake handler Bill Pledger nearly died after erroneously thinking he’d got a dry bite from a Brown Snake.
This week, family man 46 Year old Aaron Bryant, died from a venomous snake bite in Townsville after mistakenly believing he had not been envenomated.
A 24 year old snake handler in Tamworth also died from a so-called “Dry bite” after getting bitten by a Brown Snake he was catching in January this year.
Noting that the death of Aaron Bryant is the latest in a string of so-called “dry bites” killing people, Snakeman Raymond has said “It is time for the evil “dry bite” lie to be killed off, in the same way that the liars have been killing off innocent victims with their lie”. Hoser has also called for a scrapping of licenses to conduct snake handler courses by the many non-experts being trained to do such training as he says the evidence shows that this is exacerbating the problem.
Before anti-venoms were developed an average of 4 Australia’s a year died from snakebite.
This rate of death dropped by half following the advent of antivenoms in the late 1960’s and following the publication of Raymond Hoser’s definitive book, Australian Reptiles and Frogs in 1989, the fatality rate dropped to just 1 persona year in all of Australia. Hoser notes that since 2006, which is when a lot of criminals entered the snake handling business, the fatality rate has shot up to 6 or more a year and most have been involving supposedly trained snake handlers who have received so called “dry bites”
Hoser said "Dry bites do exist, but they are probably rarer than the Tasmanian Tiger!"

Further information Phone Australia: 0412777211.

Raymond Hoser is The Snake Man.
He is Australia's best known authority on reptiles, having appeared on TV documentaries globally, authored nine major books and contributed to hundreds of others.
He is also the world's leading reptile expert.
He has discovered and scientifically named far more species, genera, tribes and families of snake than any other person in history, totalling over 300 species and genera and from all parts of the world, as well as species of lizard and turtle, giving a grand total of over 1,000 taxa.
It is almost impossible to find a reptile book published in the last ten years from anywhere in the world, that does not cite Snakeman Raymond Hoser as a global name authority.
Hoser's contribution to wildlife conservation is unmatched and includes world-first captive-breeding of rare and endangered species and being the first on the planet to develop and publish a simple means to breed reptiles by artificial insemination, which has since been used to breed tens of thousands of reptiles globally.
His world-first successful surgical devenomizing of the world's deadliest snakes, since copied elsewhere, has directly saved the lives of dozens of snake handlers.
Hoser is also the man who owns Snakebusters, independently rated as Australia's best reptiles ® shows, incursions, courses and for kids the legendary reptile parties ®.
Snakebusters are Australia's only hands-on reptiles ® shows where audience is allowed to handle the animals®. Less experienced imitators only allow "show and tell" or boring "static displays".
Snakebusters are also the only vet certified and guaranteed safe deadly snake shows in the world, with surgically devenomized snakes, proven so by testing (on people …) over the last twenty years!