Visitors to the Sanctuary come for two

reasons:

Because they love snakes and want to have a wonderful experience meeting them and interacting with them.

or

Because they wish to overcome an unnecessary fear of snakes.

When people come to visit, education comes first and foremost, once the visitors know how the snake senses its world, what to expect from a snake and how to be with them, they get to meet the smallest of our snakes, Kenyan Sand Boas, the males are particularly small and cute and obviously cannot be a threat to the top predator (humans). Once visitors are comfortable with handling the Sand Boas, they can meet a Corn snake or two, very different as they are so much longer and it can best to wrap them across your shoulders unless they curl up in your hands and around your wrists, Corn snakes are actually often more difficult to hold than the next size snake that can be handled, Royal Pythons, as these snakes often don’t move as much and are quite happy to rest over the shoulders or be held like a baby in your arms but they are quite a bit larger in the body.

Rainbow Boas, large Boas and Pythons are the climax of the visit with lots of photo opportunities.

Visitors can stay two hours – our fee is £50

Wyanita and her cousin came to visit recently, her cousin was rather afraid to begin with but soon overcame her fear.

Special needs fun activities includes Snake encounters:

It’s so rewarding to run snake encounters for special needs folk; the young people are so enamoured by the snakes and as with most young people once they see other people handling the snakes without fear and nothing bad is happening – they soon want to have a go themselves.

The snakes always appear to totally understand, that perhaps, they may get handled a little less refined than usual.

We have entertained and educated special needs for years but as with most bookings they come by word of mouth.

Sadly people are so afraid of snakes without having any knowledge of them, save watching deadly 60 on TV or hearing of other bad press and media rubbish (why do people always believe what they read in the paper or even see on the news!!) please give Snakey Sue some credit for knowing something about snakes after caring for so many since 1992.

There is a need to trust someone who only wants to educate people about how snakes really are, they are necessary part of the wild world and it’s good to know something about the other earthlings that live with us on the planet and these earthlings have been around on this planet many millions of years, long before us.

Below I have attached some photos of the helpers at the special needs club at The Froud Centre, Manor Park, East London, which we attend most years, invited by Dawn Ballinger the lady with the blue cardi.

Everyone who came along had a good time as you  can see by the photos below, but sadly I think we chose a wrong date as there were other events going on in this small town and snakes aren’t everyone’s favourite so we only raised £50 but on a bright note at least 30 snakes were released from their prisons and cuddled for a couple of hours 🙂

Phobia busting – Ophidiophobia – the fear of snakes is not a totally irrational fear as there are some snakes in the wild that are venomous. Most snakes in the wild wish to defend themselves when frightened by a huge predatory animal which includes humans, constrictors can only hiss and  strike out but venomous snakes can inject their venom into the predator and sometimes it can be fatal.

Quite a few venomous snakes advertise the fact: they have bright colouring, rattle their tails or have hoods like the cobra, sadly many modern day humans don’t look carefully for these signs or ignore them at their peril.

I find it strange though that adults are afraid even when tiny tots are handling the snakes from the sanctuary in front of their very eyes, that they still don’t bring their brain into conscious reasoning.

Recently a tiny tot was holding the different snakes and loving them so much until one of the snakes faces went towards  to the nursery assistants face as she was holding the tot and she screamed frightening the little boy and making him cry, he may have a fear of snakes forever more after that incident, instead of a fear of nursery assistants!!

At the beginning of February a woman called Sarah decided she would attempt to lose her fear of snakes and came to the sanctuary to meet me and the snakes. She said that coming up on the train she felt very apprehensive. When she arrived I asked her how frightened she was as some people cannot look at snakes on the TV or even photos of snakes, but she didn’t mind whilst the snakes were in their vivariums so I took her into the coach house where the snakes live.

At first I taught her a about snakes and their senses, it’s important to know how snakes sense their world to understand them: it goes a bit like this, no arms, no legs, no feet, no hands, no ears, bad eyesight (some snakes do have better eyesight than others, in particular snakes that hunt in the daytime), can’t wear glasses because they have no ears 🙂 – they hear to an extent through their hearing bones which connect to hearing canals and they pick up sound through their skin, they sense vibration in particular they seem to me to pick up on a persons energy.

They can sense the heat around your body with their heat sensors which are situated around the top lip between the nostrils so can work out the size of prey which makes them smart enough not to attempt to eat something the wrong size.

Here is a brilliant resource   http://www.szgdocent.org/resource/rr/c-eat.htm   if you would like to learn more about snakes and their physiology.

Sarah brought a friend Matt who was not afraid of snake so I began by allowing Matt to hold one or two of my baby Kenyan Sand Boas, I have their Sisters who are 11 yrs old and their Mum and Dad. I bred some more of these snakes because they are small chubby and don’t move too quickly which makes them ideal to start any presentation as they do not appear scary in any way, people even immediately think they look cute.

Below are some photos of Sarah and how she moved on from being afraid to totally overcoming her fear and even enjoying holding a Boa Constrictor.

The session was very successful and Sarah even realised how therapeutic snakes can be.

News International booked our snake encounters for a team-building event at their offices in Wapping, East London – it was based on the word “courage”,  3 of our team took 13 snakes of  different sizes and breeds to help people over their fears, many people had no fear and had a great fun time, the people with fears all overcame them so all had a great time as seen in the photos below.

The snakes from the sanctuary are all so lovable that it’s almost impossible not to give in and the lady that was the most fearful ended up having her photo taken with our 16month old albino Burmese Python “Rosie,”  she’s the lady with Rosie around her waist.

Team – building events are just one of the ways we can make an income to keep the sanctuary running; it’s a win win situation for all concerned. People gain confidence and learn many things about snakes they never knew, the snakes can be free from their vivarium prisons for a while climbing about on human trees, lots of positive interaction is had by people and snakes plus, financially, it helps to keep the sanctuary running  we get very few donations and the snakes enjoy working for their living its just a matter of people losing their fear of snakes so that the snakes can get more work.

Many of the people in the following photos were surprised at how therapeutic it is to have a snake snuggle.