PREVIEW

The Australian Reptile Park has just reached an incredible milestone in venom history. For over 70 years, the Park has kept meticulous records of every snake milking conducted, and today, their sheer dedication has paid off. The Park has just celebrated their 1 millionth snake milking since the inception of the lifesaving venom program.

Since the 1950s, the Park’s venom keepers have dedicated their role to risking their lives daily to handle some of Australia’s deadliest terrestrial snakes. The Australian Reptile Park’s venom program extracts venom from five groups of Australia’s deadliest snakes including Coastal Taipans, Eastern Brown Snakes, Tiger Snakes, Common Death Adders and King Brown Snakes.

Every year there are 2,000 reported snake bites in Australia, with over 300 receiving antivenom and having their lives saved by the milking program. Once the venom has been milked at the Australian Reptile Park, the raw venom is then sent to Seqirus in Melbourne where the venom is made into antivenom and distributed throughout Australia’s healthcare system. The Australian Reptile Park is the only facility in Australia to do this dangerous yet lifesaving work.

Operations Manager, Billy Collett, expressed his pride for this milestone, “I cannot believe that we have reached this massive achievement. I couldn’t be prouder of the venom team we have now, as well as the team that have sustained this program for 70 years.”

Mr Collett has been an integral part of this life-saving initiative. During his remarkable 10-year career with the Australian Reptile Park, he has single-handedly milked over 50,000 venomous snakes. His dedication and expertise were highlighted last June when he achieved the extraordinary feat of milking 150 snakes in a single day.

In his continued dedication to the Park's mission, Mr Collett added, "The 1 millionth snake milking is not just a numerical milestone; it represents a million moments of teamwork, bravery, and a shared passion for wildlife. Every drop of venom extracted contributes to saving lives and expanding our knowledge about these remarkable creatures."

Since the 1950s, the Australian Reptile Park has been the sole suppliers of terrestrial snake venom for the purpose of making antivenom. This process is not for the faint of heart and requires staff to risk their lives daily to handle some of Australia’s deadliest snakes by encouraging them to bite on plastic pulled to the same tension of human skin to inject their venom. The snakes are milked on a fortnightly rotation and treated with the utmost care.

In early 2023, the Australian Reptile Park commenced construction on a brand-new state-of-the-art venom milking facility that visitors will be able to walk through and witness the lifesaving work first-hand. The NSW State government has committed $300,000 to the project with ground works well and truly underway and the project to be completed by the end of 2024.