Venom milker

“How do you collect venom from a snake? Carefully! I’m the only person in Britain that routinely extracts venom from snakes. My job is the day-to-day feeding, cleaning, care and venom extraction of the 50 species in our collection, including mambas, cobras, rattlesnakes and saw-scaled vipers. To collect the venom, we secure the snake’s body then gently grasp the head. The snake bites a petri dish that’s placed in front of it, then we squeeze the venom glands and out it comes. These are snakes with bites that can cause long-term disability and death, so the venom is used to produce specific anti-venoms.

One of the venoms I collected was used to make an anti-venom that saved 20,000 lives in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s a really good feeling knowing you’re having that kind of impact on people’s lives.”