@WhistlingKite24
Thanks so much for sharing all that really cool info WhistlingKite', wow their setup with their snake and funnel-web spider venom for antivenom works are impressively advanced and definitely sounds like their investments in those expanded setups are undoubtedly going to yield the increased results of their contributions to the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories lab(s)' in Melbourne with developing more antivenoms to shelve at all the medical facilities in Australia (and Papua New Guinea, and other countries overseas too believe they contribute to also). The Worrells and the other foundational staff at the original park who worked tirelessly in getting the park's antivenom programs established at high contribution levels, would be so impressed by the work the park's staff have put into building up the program to this level of development for (really impressive how many venomous snakes they hold in their venom extraction facility, & the 5000 funnel-web spiders too + plans to breed them during the colder seasons of availability of finding them for capture & donation to the park, logical worthwhile decision by them to do that).
In the Snake Bitten biography on the park it was explained just how much work with funnel-web venom extraction (a much smaller yield per spider than venom miligrams from each snake) the venom milker staff at the park had to do to get enough down to the CSL laboratories for them to workout how an antivenom could be developed to save bite victims from dying (interestingly and mercifully for them, apparently their venom doesnt affect dogs, cats or rodents in terms of fatal level of toxicity, but us and our fellow primates are fatally vulnerable to the effects of its venom, especially the males - six times more toxic apparently than female funnel-webs venom).
It took the CSL so many years to identify the different toxins within the venom and work out the antivenom development (1980) - even had to establish its own colony of funnel-webs from public donations at times when the park couldnt supply the at the time 4000 funnel-webs needed for the research and development work - though the CSL has been able to rely again consistantly with the park for over 30 years again believe, and when the successful antivenom components were discovered and created, the CSL said they never would of been able to have done it without the Australian Reptile Park (the book mentioned that they park did not charge for its funnel-web venom supply to them like they did a small-fee for their snake venom until after the antivenom for was discovered and produced). One former long term staff member Lynn Abra who was a tireless funnel-web milker had one of them manage to crawl up her scarf during one winter but luckily she managed to brush it off without being bitten (and imagine she probably didnt wear the scarf again during) and Eric Worrell got bitten on the thumb once by one, but luckily it didnt sink its fangs in deep enough to envenomnate him properly so he only got a throbbing sore thumb and a bad headache but not the full on death-inducing result of the bite).
Really exciting too to hear about the cantil arriving from Melbourne no doubt as you said one of the ones hatched there recently, and so exciting about the vipers coming, two really cool species not in Australia (for decades) like you pointed out. Will be cool if they do manage to secure black mambas too. Really interesting too about the species and subspecies of some of the native elapid snakes they have, planning to get, and the info about which subspecies or regional subpopulations of they have. The venom diaries videos sound really interesting to watch, can't wait to check them out. Thanks for sharing about them. In the late '80s early '90s too the Weigals and some of the parks staff also worked out husbandry approaches that actually extended the lifespans of the snakes used for the milking process (not keeping them in snake pits and milking them in there was one, keeping them in their own terrariums and having more snakes to milk so each individual was milked at a reduced amount and cared for much better). As up until that time the snakes used for the venom milking pretty much all died after only a short time compared to their species expected longevity, was understood to be a neccesary sacrifice to save human lives, but thankfully the new husbandry approach over the last 30+ years has meant that the snakes don't have to have greatly reduced lifespans to achieve that.
