SIOUXSIE: For some strange reason the neighbours don’t pop around for cuppas, do they?
COMM: Siouxsie and Simon are obsessed with
snakes, lizards and spiders. They run and live in a sanctuary in Dunstable, Bedfordshire
that houses hundreds of species that would make most people’s skin crawl.
SIMON: I think we are around 80 plus minus
snakes. So, it’s quite a lot. We have several venomous snakes here at the moment, including Western
Diamondback rattlesnakes, we’ve got three of those. We’ve got two reticulated pythons
in here - one’s about 12-14 feet and the other one’s probably about 10 feet in length.
So they are both quite big. If it manages to get round you and starts constricting you,
the chances of you getting it off yourself are quite slim.
COMM: Among their daily chores is the daunting
process of cleaning out the many reptile tanks.
SIMON: All right. Watch out. I don’t want
to grab the head of it if I don’t have to. Okay, now I do, okay here we go. All right. You got it?
SIMON: There we go. That’s what can happen.
Missed me. Ready? In you go. Defence mechanism, if she feels threatened ‘cause we have to
grab her, if we don’t grab her head, she can turn around, bite you in the face, then
you’re in real trouble. Because of that she just emptied a whole bodily system all
over the place.
SIMON: One of the chores I’ve got to do
now is actually giving injection to a Nile Monitor. He is quite a powerful animal. It
takes two of us to deal with it. He can whip you his tail, he can bite you. I basically
found out he had a bit of an infection somewhere inside him, so every day we have to come in
here and give this thing an injection, which sounds easier than it is, they’re quite a handful.
SIMON: He’s off! Yeah. Watch out, right? Got it?
Don’t let it bite you. Okay, got him? Wait a sec. Okay, hold on, goes in very slow, very
thick stuff this. Three quarters down. Okay, done. No, no, no, that way! That way!
SIOUXSIE: Biting, biting, biting, look at that! Done.
SIMON: If you get bitten by a venomous snake,
your life is in danger. Most of the time people don’t die from venomous snakes’ bites,
but you could end up in really big trouble, like say you might lose a hand, a finger,
an arm. They can be quite dangerous. You have aggressive 20 foot snake, it’s no handling
on your own, not safely anyway.
COMM: Feeding that many reptiles is a big
job. Defrosting the frozen rats is the first step.
SIOUXSIE: So we’re gonna feed our resident
rattlesnake here. Obviously you’ve gotta be very careful. They do have venom, so you
do not want to get venom in you. It’s a hospital job.
SIOUXSIE: So she has a bit of venom into it.
She doesn’t need to constrict it. She’s still feeling a bit cross with us, so I think
she’s concentrating on us, not food item right now.
COMM: Though a rare occurrence, snake bites
are a painful reminder of the pitfalls of looking after venomous reptiles.
SIMON: I’ve been bitten before. I was bitten
by a copperhead, actually twice. My arm swelled up to the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s.
It started to get black. The pain is like putting your hand or arm into boiling water
or fire.
COMM: Safety is a top priority for the pair.
SIMON: We’ve got protective gloves which
can withstand a snake bite. Every door is double locked and the cage is obviously locked
as well. We do have neighbours here. There are six houses or so on the left side of the
building and on the other side is a golf course. They know there’s snakes here.
COMM: But the couple has a serious message
for visitors to the sanctuary. Especially inexperienced would-be owners of exotic animals.
SIMON: We try to educate people about the
snakes and why the snakes are here. You know, people see a nice cute little snake in a pet
shop, something that might only be a few inches long, and potentially can get 18+ feet.
SIOUXSIE: Having visitors here at the Secret
Sanctuary as well, we try to sort of change people’s attitude, how they feel about snakes.
People think they are horrible, slimy, disgusting. So hopefully by coming here they see how amazing
they are, how beautiful they are.
COMM: And the couple’s animal ambitions
don’t end with reptiles and spiders.
SIOUXSIE: I think if we were, there were no
limits, no licensing, no worries about space, we’d end up having elephants and probably
a giraffe’s head coming through the window. SIMON: I’d love to get a gorilla. It’s
not just snakes we are into, or reptiles rather, it’s anything, you know. We’ll always
have animals around us, that’s for sure.