Bite Me
 

Bite Me

Bill Haast, human pincushion, explains the pain and profit of being nailed 163 times — and counting — by his little scaly friends
By Anne Goodwin Sides


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Bill Haast, human pincushion
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Venom is a subject Bill Haast knows like the back of his hands — hands that are gnarled and mangled from having been bitten 163 times by some of the world's deadliest snakes. At 86, Haast still works year-round at his Miami Serpentarium Laboratories, an indoor-outdoor facility in the chiggery flatlands of rural Florida near Punta Gorda. Home to more than 400 snakes, the 80-acre Serpentarium also boasts a one-of-a-kind serpent "propagation enclosure" — a grassy, palmetto-filled space designed expressly to get its languorous inhabitants in the mood.
A typical day at the Serpentarium finds Haast heading to his "venom library" and choosing one of many large metal cages. He lifts the cover. The snake du jour — a cobra, say — springs up, hisses, and weaves side to side. Waving his left hand to distract it, Haast seizes the serpent with his right, presses its fangs against a polyester membrane stretched over a test tube, and voil€: A "yield" of amber liquid spews forth. Each day Haast extracts venom from as many as 100 snakes. Ounce for ounce, this poison can be worth more than gold. Antivenin manufacturers and research labs pay up to $6,000 for a gram of freeze-dried venom from an African tree snake, and business is steady enough that Haast parks a cherry-red Rolls-Royce convertible in his garage. Obtaining a gram of venom, however, may require 100 or more extracting sessions. Which explains Haast's scars — and why he has no obvious successor. Each of his three children has politely declined offers to inherit the family business.

So with Haast entering his second half-century at the Serpentarium and with the annual man-meets-snake season about to peak — the American Association of Poison Control Centers estimates that as many as 5,000 Americans will be bitten this summer — we checked in with him for some advice about snaky behavior and coolness in the face of fangs. There can be an upside to serpent poison, after all: Haast, who's been injecting himself with a "vaccine" of diluted venom for 50 years, has blood so rich with antibodies that it's been transfused into numerous bite victims. His venom shots also have saved him, he swears — not just from death by snakebite, but from aging, infirmity, and even colds. "I've never been sick a day in my life," he says. "Never have to go to the doctor." Which turns out to be, well, a slight exaggeration.

So what was the worst bite ever?

If you mean the closest I came to death, that would have been in 1956, when I was bitten by a Siamese cobra on national television. It was during a live broadcast of Marlin Perkins's Zoo Parade. The snake struck at my arm, my wife screamed, and the network cut to a commercial. I stopped breathing and was put in an iron lung. It was two days before I was breathing on my own.

Not long before, you'd been bitten by a blue krait, whose venom is even more more lethal than a cobra's. What happened that time?

Krait venom usually makes you stop breathing — it paralyzes your diaphragm. In fact, I've never heard of another krait bite victim surviving. But it also stimulates the nervous system. My sensitivity — touch and sight — was exaggerated by maybe a hundred times. There was nothing horrible about it. It was all just beautiful texture and tapestry and colors. This was before LSD, but that's probably similar to what I was feeling.

What's bitten you most recently?

A western diamondback. I must have blinked at the wrong second. He got me on the back of the left hand.

Do you even flinch at such bites anymore?

Oh, I guess so. I was on the floor with spasms and convulsions this time. I spent the night in intensive care. And my hand was swollen for maybe two or three weeks, which always happens with a viper bite.

About those hands — they're something of a roadmap to your career, aren't they?

They have taken a beating. A bite from an eastern diamondback rattlesnake left one hand curled like a claw. The venom of a Malayan pit viper made my index finger kind of hooked. And two years ago, a cottonmouth bit the tip of my right pinkie. Cottonmouth venom dissolves tissue. So most of the finger turned black and lost feeling. All that was left was a blackened bit of bone sticking out. My wife, Nancy, took a pair of garden clippers and cut that off.

Would those be the same kind of clippers people use on, say, roses?

Similar to that. Yep.

And then you went right back to work. Admit it: You must love handling those snakes.

It can be exciting. There was one time when I was struck by the most dangerous snake in the world, the saw-scaled viper. This was 1989. The bite didn't seem serious at first. But the wound wouldn't stop bleeding; my blood just wouldn't clot. I was starting to worry, especially since, at the time, there was no antivenin for this snake in the United States. But there was in Iran. So Nancy called a person we know there who smuggled some vials past customs by telling them it was for a dying German. By the time they got it to me, I was stabilizing. But it was exciting for a while there.

Life and death and international intrigue just seem to be part of the workaday serpent-handling world, at least for you. True?

When I was younger, maybe. I used to travel overseas a lot then to give bite victims blood. The most dramatic was this time a little boy was bitten by a coral snake down in Venezuela. Congressman Claude Pepper's office sent a jet that flew me deep into the jungle, to this little village hospital. They gave the boy about a pint of my blood, and pretty soon he regained consciousness and asked for his mother. The next day they made me an honorary citizen of Venezuela.

You couldn't have anticipated such perks when you started. How did you ever get involved in the snake business in the first place?

When I was 20, I started working as a snake handler for a roadside carnival. During the Depression, I got into the moonshine business in the Everglades, and I caught all kinds of snakes there. And during the war, I was a flight engineer in Africa, Asia, and South America and got to collect puff adders and cobras and such. That was when I got the idea for the Serpentarium.

I'm sure the neighbors were thrilled. Have you found that snakes make good pets?

Snakes do not make good pets. You could have a snake for 30 years and the second you leave his cage door cracked, he's gone. And they'll never come to you unless you're holding a mouse in your teeth.

But if they don't feel affection, what about aggression? In the new movie Anaconda, the snake's out for blood. Do snakes stalk people in real life?

That's ignorance. Snakes aren't monsters. They're defensive — you know, 'Don't tread on me.' Except king cobras. They'll come after you, striking repeatedly, to protect their eggs. In Burma, they have to close foot trails during nesting season.

Is there anywhere else, besides Burma, you'd advise the snake-phobic to avoid?

India, for one. About half of the deaths from snakes happen there. That's because Indian farmers walk around barefoot near some of the world's deadliest snakes, including the saw-scaled viper. Australia has more toxic snakes, but people wear shoes there.

Ever eaten a snake?

Sure. Back when I was in Boy Scouts, they had something called the Snake Club. To get your Snake Club patch you had to catch a rattlesnake and roast him over the fire.

And did it taste like chicken?

Oh, I thought it was a lot moister and better than chicken, but hardly worth the effort. Rattlesnakes are pretty slim critters.



Bite Me Link

You have to have some serious fortitude to be bitten over 160 times, AND still be alive! Plus the man is still 100% into the hobby, that's a hardcore herper right there. Now constrictor bites, not so bad (large tics and burms maybe) but on the usual, not so bad. But JESUS, over 160 venomous???????

More power to him!! Rock On! He sounds like the type we REALLY need to speak for our hobby when it comes to the bans on certain herps.

just curious, anybody know the publication date of that interview?? it mentions Anaconda as a new movie, so I am guessing mid-late 90s

Yes, in the link it says the article was published in July 1997.

“Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match”

I certainly hope THAT wasn't launched in my direction, lol

the pic on the link make him look like something out of Vincent Price theater

LOL, no it was for the guy that got bit 163 times.

While I wouldn't call Bill Haast "stupid" by any stretch, his handling methods make me cringe at times. He isn't as "high profile" as Steve Irwin, but people that don't know any better look at both them and form ideas about how to deal with venomous snakes...without having any concept of the years of experience that got them there.
When you think about how many snakes Bill free handles on a daily basis, it is amazing that he hasn't received more bites...it should also serve as a reminder to people: if somebody with that kind of experience gets bitten, what is going to happen to you if you try it?

I am sorry, but how intelligent is a man that gets bit 163 times and doesn't change the way he handles snakes? Most people would have changed long before or would have been dead. He may have done good or even great things in the herp field, but free handling venomous snakes and bragging about being bitten is not one of them. Hmmmm, who does he remind me of? :hehe:

Ahhhh, so you are a disciple of that philosophy: stupid is as stupid does
Venom procurement still requires hands on...but that doesn't mean one can't take a safer way of getting there, albeit at the expense of time. (I can't get into this discussion again) :bolt01:

You can't look at the fact he's been bitten 163 times by itself. Sure that's the only side the media bothers to mention, but this man has performed well over one million milkings in his career. That puts 163 bites in a different light. Sure some of the bites probably could have been avoided, but anyone who grabs venomous snakes that many times is going to have a good number of bites over the course of a career that long.
You have to touch a snake to milk it, an in relation to the sheer number of times he's done it, that's not a bad track record actually.
After doing it for 50 years I'm sure he's become somewhat complacent in his methods. It's hard for someone like us to imagine grabbing a cobra to be a routine everyday thing, but for him it is.
I sure do not question his intelligence, perhaps a degree of his personal responsibility, but not his intelligence.

That was exactly my point above, Clay. Performing venom procurement on 50-100 snakes per day is a world apart from keeping a collection of 50-100 venomous snakes. For the most part, the risk can be minimized for routine husbandry, and actual contact rarely has to happen except for medical care (though "tailing" cobras, in conjunction with a hook, adds an element of control that is lacking with either one or two hook techniques). When "milking", you are putting yourself on the firing line with each and every animal...and any lapse of concentration holds potentially lethal consequence

Well said Harald.
It's real easy for someone who doesn't keep hots, or even does have a private collection of them for that matter, to pass judgment on his methods and compare him to Steve Irwin.
The fact is there is only a handful of people in this country, if not the world, who can even fathom what it takes to perform 50-100 milkings every day, for 50 plus years. As far as I'm concerned those handful of people are the only ones who are qualified to critique his methods.

And I wonder how many of them average 2 snake bites a year?

I am sure at a young age, many of these bites were from him being extremely careless, even to the point of stupidity. I admire that he has done so much in the way of milking the snakes for the purposes of medical studies and treatment for those who get bit themselves.

There is point when one would look at it and think, after so many year and so many snakes, he must have found an (almost) fool proof way to never be bit again. Then again, he did inject himself with venom, so taking a bite may be something that does not bother him, thus the lack of need to improve his handling skills. Also have a acid trip from a blue krait bite probably lessened the fears even further. To him, being bit must be just another day at the office, his blood cures others from coral bites, imagine what that did to his ego, superman doesn't have a chance.

Another thing to bear in mind, is that Bill Haast is a strong advocate of the medical benefits of venom. He attributes venom to his overall good health, so do you really think he is as careful as he could be, lol. Also, at the age of 86, the man was still active in venom procurement - despite disfigured hands (anyone want to guess at how many bites might be attributed to that?) Don't get me wrong - I'm not in favor of public spectacles which feature cavalier handling of venomous reptiles, or grandiose attention to the number of bites received - but the man has made significant contributions, regardless. And he has become something of medical oddity, surviving many of those bites with little more than supportive treatment (perhaps a bit of an oddity in general...lopping off the end of his necrosed finger with garden shears?? It might be time to stop interviewing him, lol)

On that last note - is Bill Haast still alive? That question came up some time ago, but nobody could say one way or the other. (

i ran bill haast on google and found alot of stuff on him . he was still alive (and up to 170 bites) as of early 2003 .

here's a link that gives a breif history of mr haast .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Haast

yeah - I posted that same link for someone on a different section here, lol.
Thanks for looking - sounds like you saw all the same stuff I did

yeah i'm sure i did . i can only aplaud mr haast for the contributions over the years that he has made to the medical world and the world in general . i dont think i could do what he has done for as long as he has done it .

Bill Haast is one of the true pioneers of snake venom research, uses, and behavior of envenomating snakes worldwide. I have always admired Mr. Haast and his work.
By the way, does anyone know if he is still alive? I haven't heard anything about him or his work some time now?

Great article - 95 years old, if my math is correct, and doing exactly what he loves best. It's funny though I saw him many times in Miami in the late 60s and he looked like he was on his last leg then. His voice was so weak that Clarissa had to do the shows. Does anyone know if the serpentarium in the article is open to the public?

Kevin