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RE: Mark O'Shea Answers Questions
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by Mark_OShea on March 9, 2006
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Hi Eugenio, Chris has already answered your question but I would like to add some comments from my perspective also.
Chris is quite correct when he says there are a lot of "allergic reactions" to antivenom. Most (not all) antivenom is produced from the serum of horses immunised agains the venom of one species or species group (monovalent) or all the dangerous snakes of the region (polyvalent) and both contain horse antigens, to which the patient may react violently either immediately or up to 10 days later as "serum sickness", the polyvalent causing the worst reactions. I have experienced these effects and they are unpleasant, involving numerous odd sensations including global external and internal hives, topped off by going blind! The treatment is stop the antivenom (only possible if it is being administered in a polyfuse (drip) - too late if it was by push-injection) and administer adrenaline or similar. This is the realm of the paramedic or doctor and it all depends whether the field team can afford to take one along with all his equipment and requirements for a fridge or coolbox for his drugs etc. And of course you need a sat phone (possibly not available in Burma when Joe was bitten) because if the doctor needs to call in a medi-vac he needs communications and the medi-vac insurance needs to be set up beforehand too. it is becoming a big operation for something you prey will never happen.
I have had several bites in the field, the first being a rattlesnake bite in northern Amazonian Brazil on the Royal Geographical Society Maraca Rainforest Project in 1987. We made two radio checks with base in Boa Vista (5hrs away by road) every day by short-wave radio 6am and 6pm.
At 6.30pm I was bitten. I had to make it through the night before we could even raise the alarm. The expedition nurse had never treated snakebite but we had Butantan antivenom in the sometimes functioning fridge. I lasted until the early hours before I required antivenom, and then I went blind from the effects, infusion was stopped, adrenaline administered, sight restored later, aircraft called in, journey to aircraft by jeep, canoe, bandaranchi and flown to Boa Vista. That was the way large expeditions would function in the 1980s.
In 1997 I was bitten by the famous stiletto snake in S.Africa while filming Black Mamba. We drove to a remote hospital where the doctor wanted to use cryotherapy on my two hands (which could have cost me fingers) so I decline and left, there is no antivenom but I needed pain relief. The third was the little pitviper bite off Komodo filming dragons in OBA in 2001. Our sat phone has just started to work again that morning and I was bitten shortly afterwards. We monitored the bite all day and in the afternoon the medi-vac people in Bali wanted to know whether to send the helicopter because it would have to stand down once it was dark. I decided the bite was not serious enough to go and we stood them down, and I was proved right.
As for taking doctors on film shoots, we have taken them along on some of our more remote shoots in Western Australia, PNG, remote parts of India, Thailand, onto Queimada Grande (home of golden lanceheads) off Brazil, Chappell Island off Tasmania etc. but the average fieldworker does not have the benefit of a television budget.
Moving on to your correspondance with Chris.
Electric shock creates a burn, a deep burn which may permit infection to enter the wound. It destroys protein, both venom and the victims, and although it has been said to work on scorpion stings in Kenya I doubt its value for snakebite. Imagine your heart beat when someone comes towards you with a set of jump leads attached to a car battery !
They say you should give at least one shock, probably more depending on the amount of venom injected. How do you determine that at this early stage ? Often symptoms take time to develope and by then you are beyond the electric shock stage (thankfully). I can tell you this, one shock and I would be off, snakebite or no !
I agree with Chris, serious snakebites require antivenom and support drugs administered by someone qualified to recognise a problem before it becomes too serious. With people keeping snakes illegally they get bitten, dare not call anyone for fear of loosing their collection or being busted, so they sit tight and hope for the best. Trouble is the best may not happen and there have been at least 2 US herpers found dead by their telephones, they left it too late. Don't be an idiot, you get bitten by something dangerous, seek medical help immediately, you need to live to deal with the knock-on effects. You go and die and you will certainly loose your collection.
Mark
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RE: Mark O'Shea Answers Questions
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by Mark_OShea on March 9, 2006
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Dear VAsnakeman,
Thanks for your vote of confidence.
Why did they take my show off. I really don't know, maybe I failed too many times in Series 4, but then that is life isn't it and my OBA No.1 Golden Rule is "No Set-ups".
Let me tell you a story about the film Water Cobra which we made in Lake Tanganyika in 2003.
We spent weeks besides the lake searching for water cobras at night with lanterns, snorkelling, diving day and night, searching in the rocks, and all we got was a brief sighting by one of the guys working for us, and the dead one killed by a fish eagle (which Pete McIntye and I published in Herp.Review). That was a coincidence because I saw the fish eagles taking fish and did a 'piece to camera' saying they might even take surfacing water cobras, then next day we found the killed cobra ! But another, more spooky coincidence is coming later.
We continued searching and even had local fishermen offering to catch us a cobra in a gill net and bring it for us to release and me to catch. I turned this generous offer down, firstly, cobras drown in these gill nets and I don't want them setting them to catch cobras and bringing one live and 3 dead snakes, and secondly, NO SET-UPS, we are prepared to fail and fail honestly as we have before. After 3 weeks on the lake and no live water cobra (I did get puff adders and a nice forest cobra) we left to go home. As we motored down the lake towards Mpulunga (land-locked Zambia's only port) we passed a boat full of tourists heading up the lake to a lodge. They waved, we waved back.
From Mupulunga we flew to Lusaka and then to J'burg in S.Africa. The crew and I flew back to the UK while the Director (Mark) met up with his partner for a brief holiday in S.A. In his second week, he was in a bar in Cape Town, thousands of miles from Lake Tanganyika, and he fell into conversation with two S.Africans:
S.A.: Your first trip to S.Africa ?
Mark: My first to S.Africa but I have been to Africa before.
S.A: Oh, where ?
Mark: I've just come down from Zambia.
S.A.: How strange, we've just come back from our first trip to Zambia, where were you ?
Mark: On Lake Tanganyika.
short silence
S.A.: Are you part of a film crew ?
Mark: Yes, I'm a Director, how did you know ?
S.A.: Were you filming water cobras with that red-haired guy O'Shea ?
But you didn't find any.
Mark: Yes, how could you know that ?
S.A.: Do you remember coming down Lake Tanganyika and a tourist boat went past you, the occupants waving ?
Mark: Yes I do.
S.A.: That was us, and guess what, when we arrived at the lodge we were met up a great crowd of excited villagers. They thought we were you and they took us to see a water cobra swimming in shallow water not far up the coast.
If that is not coincidence enough, Toby Veall who owned the lodge were we stayed, had another cobra come ashore right below my chalet one week after we left.
No I have finished my reminiscences I will try to answer the rest of your question. I do not really know why my shows are not being shown in the US, esp. as I am in the UK, bit there are a few years old now and there seem to be a lot of folks making these sort of films now anyway. I am not aware it shows on any other channel apart from Animal Planet so unless they decide on a nostalgia night you might be out of luck. Sorry.
Mark
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RE: Mark O'Shea Answers Questions
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by Mark_OShea on March 9, 2006
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Herpwannabe again.
Bill Haast had been bitten over 150 times when I met him in the early 1980s and if you read his difficult to find biography Cobra's in his Garden, you will learn he was bitten by a blue krait for which there was no antivenom and also be a king cobra. Although he had a rough time and ended up on an iron lung he puts his survival of the king bite down to immunising himself over 11 years with cobra venom. I do not recommend this as a good idea. Remember when Bill was bitten antivenom was in its infantcy and even today there are species for which no antivenom exists such as the Malayan krait, African twigsnake, and New Guinea small-eyed snake although tigersnake antivenom does work.
The person who was bitten and had his arm severly damaged with van Horn I think, his being a feeding bite from a hungry king but I think a great deal of his suffering was put down to mismanagement of the bite by the persons treating him. Hospitals should follow procedures put in place by real experts, professional physicians with proven experience of successfully treating snakebites, not johnny-com-lately self-professed 'experts' - I think someone knows to which recent incident I am referring.
Joe Slowinski's tragic death was highly publicised because he was a well loved and respected American herpetologist with many friends and colleagues (we had planned to film with him in Series 3 in Burma, one of my Directors had been talking to him about a film on Asian spitting cobras and/or kraits) but his was not the only snakeman's death in recent years. An Indian snake handler was killed a year or so ago and the first news I received (back in 1997 when I got off the plane in Durban to meet the Black Mamba Director and Producer, was that a young snake expert at a S.African snake park, who had been advising our production team, had been giving a demonstration at the snake park with a snouted cobra (Naja annulifera) that morning when he was bitten and although paramedics were on hand very swiftly and a doctor attended with antivenom, he was pronounced dead 30 minutes later.
Great news to kick off our film and a bad omen indeed because bad luck comes in threes, I had the stiletto snake bite and Nils was nailed by a black mamba before we were finished filming.
Someone once asked the Australian founder of the venom research unit at Melbourne, Straun Sutherland "How serious is a snakebite in a remote location" to which his reply was "As serious as a myocardial infarction (heart attack) or severe shotgun injury".
Mark
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RE: Mark O'Shea Answers Questions
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by Mark_OShea on March 9, 2006
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Dear Chan in Malaysia.
You lukcy chap, such a wonderful part of the world.
I made my first tropical expedition to Borneo (Sarawak) when I organised a 7-man expedition up the Baram River in 1983-84. Great fun, we spent Christmas with the hospitable Kayan at Long Naah, and we found a few neat herps including one of those rare Niah Dave geckos Cyrtodactylus cavernicolus - I wondered what it was at first.
Although I would like to go back to Borneo and have several interesting storylines to follow I am not making films at present. OBA came to an end with Series 4 in 2003 and I have not done anything in that vein since, dropping back into writing, lecturing and doing fieldwork again (my first love).
I agree Boiga is a fascinating genus and I am sure there are many more species to be discovered, especially in Indonesia and possibly the Philippines.
I cannot comment on how hard it is to get to work for National Geographic but it might be easier for you than for me. After all my films used be shown on their opposing channel Animal Planet. I think you might try contacting the Expedition Advisory Center at the Royal Geographical Society in London and find out what UK undergraduate expeditions are heading your way for 2006/7. It may be they would like the help of a local person with similar interests, Bahasa Malay and a lot of enthusiasm. EAC at RGS holds a w/e workshop and seminar every November (I used to be involved) where returning expeditions present their results and outgoing expeditions for the next year back their plans and contacts. These days many of these expeditions have herp. elements. Good luck
Mark
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RE: Mark O'Shea Answers Questions
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by Mark_OShea on March 9, 2006
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Hi Kieron
I decided to seek out the Patagonian lancehead because it is the southern-most snake in the world, found further south than Cape cobras and ringhals in S.Africa or tigersnakes, copperheads and white-lipped snakes of Tasmania. Remember this was the first shoot of the first series and we were just finding our feet in what was a fairly new genre. We became, hopefully, more descerning and scientific as OBA progressed but this was an interesting film in a remote location and great fun to make. We took Marcio Martins along from Univ. Sao Paulo, Brazil. I have known Marcio since around the time of the Maraca Rainforest Project (see an answer further up the page) in the late 1980s, he wrote up the frogs while I wrote up the reptiles. Marcio was a very important contributor to our film on the golden lancehead on Queimada Grande and when he heard we were next going to Argentina for the Patagonian lancehead he told me how interested in the species he was he was studying a related species in Brazil. We took him along for the few days he had spare before flying overseas and I really wanted to find lancehead, as much for him as myself. I found a female (gravid) and called the crew and Marcio. I remember how please he was and within minutes he found a male. He flew out later that day and the next day we found a juvenile, then no more. It is an elusive snake and I think to find it you must look for high levels of prey species, small lizards, because in the miles and miles of suitable habitat is occurs in small localised areas. how far south it occurs is hard to tell but further south of where we were on the Peninsular Valdes for sure. the further south you go the hard it becomes to find because the population is smaller and eventually it will no occur, but it is very hard to draw that line. The setting out of many refugia might help answer the question.
And yes, the films we made were hard to make, long periods of time in remote locations with limited resources. Since we did not set up any captures we know we might fail. In fact we got to film 9 of Series 1 (Americas) before we did fail, the splendid leaf frog in Costa Rica, we did not find it and although we had a pair brought in at the end I told the camera the truth, they had been brought in, we had not found them. Success and Failure, two sides of the same coin, to appreciate one you have to taste the other.
So you are interested in secretive blindsnakes and other burrowers, so am I, and I am just completing the first draft of Pythons and Boas of the World (sister volume to Venomous Snakes of the World New Holland/Princeton Univ. Press 2005) which should be published in 2007. In this book I have not just dealt with the popular pythons and boas but all those strange burrowing species so often overlooked or ignored or misunderstood by herpers.
best wishes
Mark
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Mark O'Shea Answers Questions
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by keyz on March 9, 2006
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Mark I see you are busy,
Can you recommend a good book on Burrowers and Blind snakes until it is possible to purchase your new book.
Please let us know when you have completed your book as I would love to read it if its as informative as it sounds.
Who do I write to to ask if they plan to show your Big Adventure series, I could watch it again, As I didn't have the chance to tape it.
many thanks and may you continue to be happy in what you do.
Kieron.
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RE: Mark O'Shea Answers Questions
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by Mark_OShea on March 9, 2006
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Dear Medico
Thanks for your list of questions, lets see how I do:
Q1. If you watched my film on spitting cobras in S.Africa you will see that spitting cobras can spit repeatedly and since a venom gland is a bit like a sponge you will never remove all the venom. If snakes are milked they are generally not milked again for about 3 weeks to enable them to build up sufficient venom again to make it worth while but it is not true that a milked snake cannot deliver a fatal bite immediately afterwards. Our S.African results were published in African Zoology (Young & O'Shea 2005 40(1):71-76).
Q2 Snake venom works in a variety of ways depending on its composition. Some venoms cause respiratory paralysis, others prevent the blood from clotting, others punch holes in the blood vessels and promote internal bleeding esp. into the brain, others digest tissues, some attack the kidneys or the heart, some break down muscle, they are very clever. I have tried to explain the main types of venom in my book Venomous Snakes of the World (2005).
Q3 See the last part of my answer to Q1 above.
Q4 Death depends on how much venom was injected and where, the concentration of the venom (more concentrated in a snake that had not fed for a while ie. hibernation, carrying young, skin sloughing), the condition, behaviour, body weight etc of the victim, what first aid and medical treatment is given, how long is a piece of string ?
Many cobras will dry bite (no venom) and as many as 50% of cobra bites might be non-lethal, even without treatment, but how do you know ? Again some of this is covered in my Venomous snake book.
Q5 The death rate from spitting cobra bite is low compared to that of non-spitters. The little Mozambique spitter in S.Africa causes the majority of snakebites (along with puff adder) and the tissue-destroying venom causes some terrible injuries, even loss of digits, but these cytotoxins do not generally kill and the amount of neurotoxin present is not as dangerous as in the non-spitters. The neurotoxin is a post-synaptic neurotoxin, it works beyond the synaptic gap and it can be reversed with antivenom. The pre-synaptic neurotoxins of some Australo-Papuan snakes cannot be reversed with a/v once paralysis has set in.
Q6 & 7 We believe the venom spat is the same as that injected, but this is a good question which possible requires further analysis (are you listening Prof. Bruce Young?) When one considers the spat venom is intended to drive away a threat, not kill it, and injected venom is intended to kill prey, then some subtle difference is logical, but can the snake control its production or concentration ?
Best wishes
Mark
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RE: Mark O'Shea Answers Questions
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by Mark_OShea on March 9, 2006
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Hi Toddg
How can you forget the title of my book ?!
Surely "Venomous Snakes of the World" is one of the most used titles in herp literature and the only alternative is "The World of Venomous Snakes".
I was suspicuous of this claim that the MangShan was a spitting pitviper and you will note (if you had a copy of my book to hand) that I said "only non-cobra reported to spit venom" I did not say it DID spit venom.
I had to mention this claim even though I was dubious of its truth and am very interested to hear that keepers do not beleive it either. The aiming of musk glands in interesting though, rather like the copperheads which really smell strongly of musk. Has anyone noticed that some snake 'guilds' have specific smells. For instance the cat-snake guild of nocturnal colubrids with vertically elliptical eyes has a distinct smell regardless of whether they are American, Asian or African genera and it is African cobras, not Indian cobras, that smell of curry!
Nobody seems to work on the distinctive musks of snakes.
Best
Mark
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RE: Mark O'Shea Answers Questions
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by Mark_OShea on March 9, 2006
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Hi LongDucDong
Interesting species Bothriopsis bilineatus, smallish and arboreal like Bothriechis schlegeli, which is a fairly innocuous species from Cen.America. However, do not be fooled, Bothriopsis bilineatus is a very dangerous species. I met the species only briefly in Amazonas, Brazil in the late 1980s but some people who have met them have been less fortunate. I examined a preserved specimen in southeast Brazil, little thicker than mu little finger and only fractionally over 30cm long it had killed an adult man. A friend of mine was bitten by this species and almost died in Ecuador. The biggest killer in the Amazonian countries is the common lancehead Bothrops atrox, but Bothropsis bilineatus is probably in a close second place.
So take care with this attractive but lethal snake.
Regards
Mark
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RE: Mark O'Shea Answers Questions
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by Mark_OShea on March 9, 2006
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Hello Stuart from England,
Herpetoculturist and Herpetologist are different professions, just like Aquarist is different from Ichthyologist. One is the keeper and breeder of species, the other a scientist who studies them. I am primarily an herpetologist (silent 'H') with a fieldwork background but my curatorship at West Midland Safari Park (www.wmsp.co.uk) enables me to be both.
To become an herpetoculturist you strictly do not need qualifications although some in biology or ecology give you a greater understanding of your animals and a degree is often required if you want a job in a zoo.
To be an herpetologist you do need qualifications since fieldwork is not simply a matter of finding interesting animals, it also involved statistical analysis of your results and structured methodology.
There are many universities in the UK where you can study zoology, biology, ecology, environmental science etc. You need to take a look in the UCAS handbook and make a choice, then work hard at school and obtain the necessary qualifications to gain entry. Good luck,
Mark
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