Most people following Snakebusters, Australia’s best reptiles, probably already know that in Australia, Snakebusters are the only hands on reptiles displays who let people hold the animals. That is opposed to other companies who compete against us and do show and tell instead, or perhaps let people just touch the reptiles at a Melbourne kids party, reptile show or whatever.
In recent times, there have been quite vicious and well organized campaigns against myself Raymond Hoser, and Snakebusters by other companies and their followers claim,ing letting people hold reptiles in schools and the like is a high risk activity.
While there’s no credible evidence to back up this common claim, this hasn’t stopped our opponents for making it.
It’s like the totally false claims that surgically devenomized snakes can regenerate venom…
Anyway, even more recently they have enlisted support from a number of disgruntled Murdoch journalists to run a campaign of hate against our company, through a combination of false claims and a pre-existing axe-to-grind by these people.
Recall it was myself who in February 2010, published the expose of the “Sam the Koala” scam run by the Murdoch papers in Melbourne, Victoria.
This was the story of a Koala allegedly found in a bushfire ravaged forest and then offered a drink of bottled water, which it drank.
The reality was the stunt was staged, with the full knowledge of relevant players.
The allegedly wild Koala was a bottle raised pet and then it was swapped with another (this time female) Koala to be made into a “star”.
The expose was published in Australasian Journal of Herpetology, issue 8 and is well worth a read. Hard copies are now hard to come by, but it is available for free on the web by doing a simple search.
So in terms of hands on reptile education at schools or childrens parties Melbourne, it is interesting to see what has been the recent result of the most intense campaign of hate and defamation against myself and our company Snakebusters.
This campaign included an armed raid by police and DSE officers on us on 17 August 2011 and the passing of our customer base to our rivals, who in turn contacted all or most of them to make more false statements against us and entice them to swap their business to the hands-off opponents.
Yes, we had a number of cancellations. Yes, we have been unable to resurrect all the bookings, although when we have been able to do so, we have tried to.
But of bigger note is that in spite of these unprecedented attacks, including phone calls, newspaper articles and the most false and defamatory coverage on TV current affairs shows “A current affair” and “Today Tonight” the vast majority of our clients have stuck with us.
The reasons would be many and varied, but would include the salient fact that they recognise that contrary to false claims, Snakebusters are guaranteed safe. They would also agree with us, that hands-on wildlife shows are vastly superior to the hands-off alternatives.
Recently the Science Teachers Association of Victoria known as STAV published their 2011 conference summary and it was quite refreshing to see how many other professional teachers endorse hands-on education.
So while Snakebusters remains the only hands on teachers for reptile shows, wildlife education, kids parties Victoria and the like, in other areas, the best teachers agree, that hands-on beats hands-off every time.
Recently I got an e-mail from a lady who had a kids reptile party booked with us and cancelled it following the adverse media publicity. She went with one the less experienced hands off companies. Later she contacted me and said that cancelling the booking with Snakebusters was the biggest mistake she ever made.
As I’ve written before and will say again, it makes sense not to believe false claims by less experienced imitators.
And remember, if it’s not Snakebusters doing your next reptile shows, or wildlife display, then it’s definitely a risk!
Cheers from the Snakeman
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