Snake Island

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I can do snakes, I can do heights, I can do pretty much anything. . .but I can't, I CAN'T do no damn creepy ass nasty spiders. I'll contemplate burning my house down to kill one.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Pouble Dost. . .

And yet the number of Golden Lanceheads on the island have reduced drastically over the past decade or so.

One reason oddly enough appears to be bio-piracy, perhaps sometimes for collectors, but also for pharmaceutical interests.

The snake venom (or factors within it) seems to hold promising uses for heart diseases, as well as anti-clotting medication and to improve the circulation.
I'd think some cultures might want to eat parts of the snake for ritualistic purposes, or even use the venom in assassinations.

Although difficult, the bio-pirate in this Vice clip claims that with enough money, they will get black-market collectors to the island to do their harvesting, for whatever reason. They seem to have done so already.

So it seems not even one of the most the venomous of snakes is a deterrent for the greed of man.



PS. For such clear connections between piracy, a black-market and mainstream industries, I think the island and its endangered snakes could well be a topic for the ATS conspiracy forum in future (perhaps the "Fragile Earth" forum).