"I just have a curious nature," he said. As a young Canadian boy back in the 1960`s. Reptile World Serpentarium in St. Cloud | VISIT FLORIDA My friend Jim Danaaldson who procured and trained animals for the film industry had set up a Reptile Exposition at Devonshire downs and I was an exhibiter . One day I noticed his handshis fingersthey were deformend, mangled, sort of like a something from an old horror moviea result--one of many, of having been bitten by so many venomous snakesI think his own blood was an anti-venom, as a result of being bitten so much, I think he used to distribute this "antivenom (his blood)worldwide to snakebite vicims. Lee Martines - Growing up in Miami in the 40s and 50s I would visit the Serpentarium every couple of years and always marveled at the variety of snakes and the process of extracting the venom from the poisonous ones. The last time I saw him he told me never to get bit again and offered me a job. In fact, his poison-proof plasma saved over 21 people. Haast is still trying to prove a point: He'll go to his grave believing venom can heal. I worked at the Serpentarium for roughly a year, about two years before it closed. While on my honeymmon in Orlando we rode down to Miami to the Serpentarium and watched Bill milk some snakes. I saw the "catch and milk" demos and was fascinated. It was all in a days work for probably the best-known snake handler in the country, a scientist-cum-showman who made enough money from milking toxic goo from slithery serpents to buy a cherry-red Rolls-Royce convertible. I sure do remember Mr. Haast as I bought the 1969 GT500 Shelby that he once owned. In 1980 we took my late husband who had ALS (Lou Gerhig's Disease) to the Miama Clinic where. Every year we took a field trip there, and every year I looked forward to it. I found it intriguing.. My first visit to the Serpentarium was in the summer of '56 when I visited family friends who lived on Key Biscayne. Besides his wife, he left two daughters, Naia Hanna and Shantih, living in California. Another interesting attraction there were the large Galopagas turtles he had. THRIVING BUSINESS Despite the medical debacles, the Serpentarium continued to flourish. Living In Ms. we had plenty of cotton mouths copperheads and assorted others. And a bit crazy. The injections are a routine he began in 1948 -- the year he opened the Serpentarium -- and continued after he closed it in 1984. Great stories were told on our nightly walks, stories of Africa in the "War" , Safaries, snakes hey we like snakes , Dick gets in troule all the time with his snakes. But at the Serpentarium, there was a monster 14 foot rattlesnake from upper Florida, probably from around the Gainesville area. / CBS Miami. Haast still grows somber when retelling the story: It was a Sunday. We ran it over, and with a little coaxing, I convinced the driver to return. ''Failing at this is one of my biggest regrets,'' Haast said. I don't know. Bill Haast died of natural causes Wednesday in Punta Gorda, on Florida's west coast, where he had made his home. We would eat the snakes, along with all the fish and snapping turtles we could catch from the Lakeland area lakes. Myles, Justin (Dec 2000/Jan 2001 Issue). ''It was the best snake show there ever will be,'' said George Van Horn, a frequent visitor who now runs a similar attraction in Central Florida. Sad to say, a passerby noticed that the snake was poisonous and killed it before we could take it to the Serpentarium to get paid for all our efforts. My Dad would take me there often, we lived in South Miami (as I do againlong story). "And in the end the research could take care of itself.". Teen arrested in connection with fatal shooting in northwest Miami-Dade I was about 9 yrs old, and always remembered the story vividly. I. Woww! Amanda Batchelor, Digital Executive Producer. Haast was also bitten by a green mamba. Children shrieked in horrified glee. Jim F. Thank you for bringing back many many wonderful memories. boy killed by crocodile at miami serpentarium. I remember a Coral snake bit and killed a man digging in his yard in Whispering Pines in 1965. did matthew boynton shoot his wife . The original cobra was a metal structure that was twisted into oblivion by a rare tornado in the late 50's or early 60's. Look at how big the transplanted Pythons get and that they thrive and fight the alligators in the Everglades. Needless to say I was quite nervous also, thinking of what might happen if that snake went through the crowd. They considered him a glorified snake-handler, a showman, a medicine man. Tragically, a 6-year-old boy fell in and died in 1977. I grew up near the Serpentarium , and played baseball @ Suniland Park..Many times during games , an iguana that had escaped from the serpentarium , would run across the field..As kids , we too ,sold snakes to the facility , and we managed to see the show several times a yearwe would ride our bikes to Parrot Jungle and the Serpentarium and see all kinds of rare wild animals and snakes , and birds , then fish salt or fresh water within a few miles of homegreat place to grow up in the 60's. I always told people I'd live past 100, and I still feel I will. Miami is a hotbed for venomous snake bites because it is the entry point for almost any exotic snake, whether it is bound for a collector or a zoo in another state. ''I would hide them in my tool box,'' he said. He could not have been nicer to us and spent some time talking to us. Haast caught his first snake at 7; his first serious bite was at 12. The medical examiner . I am wondering if that was the same pit the young boy had fallen into. Inside, Mr. Haast, the self-proclaimed Snakeman, entertained paying customers by using his hands to grab snakes below their heads and force their teeth into soft plastic. That gave him a chance to use his toolbox to smuggle snakes, including his first cobra. Small world. Not to mention, people do not operate properly during tragic events. I'll never forget April Fools day there! 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Of course he would buy the rare Indigo snakes, because they could rear up and spread their neck like a Cobra, but were not poisonous. I never forgot Mr. Haast and his snakes, and, to this day, I am not scared of snakes or any other animals. After many years of being a Bill Haast fan, I was thrilled to be there. In an enclosure) his parents should have supervised him much better. [9] In an August 2008 Florida Trend interview, he stated, "Aging is hard. I think its horrible that he killed that animal. From 1947 until 1984, he operated the Miami Serpentarium, a tourist attraction south of Miami, Florida, where he extracted venom . I wish I could have taken my girls there! I remember him as a very genuine, nice man. It stood almost eye level with Bill and lunged repeatedly as it advanced across the floor toward him. Thinking back, that have been Cookie. All he did was yell ouch and that concludes the show for today. Lots of people like me. The Serpentarium's landmark 35-foot-high, hooded, concrete-and-stucco cobra stuck out its forked tongue at motorists and arriving patrons on South Dixie Highway and Southwest 126th Street. The great legendary Bill Haast, pioneer of venom production for venom research since 1946, was founder and director of the world renowned Miami Serpentarium Laboratories Miami-Dade police said they arrived to the scene to find a 16-year-old boy who had a gunshot wound to the back of his head. We visited the Serp many times as a family visiting from Illinois and I have an autographed copy of Cobras In His Garden along with several movies that I gotta get moved over to DVD's.. Doc always took time to shake hands or pose for a picturetime that in retrospect I know he didn't really have to give, but he always did. Keep it up Mr. Haast. It is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays, closed on Mondays. Born William E. Haast on Dec. 30, 1910, in Paterson, N.J., he was a South Florida celebrity for surviving successive venomous snakebites. No matter where we went, Miami was Bill's real home. Still recognized as a top authority on venomous snakes, Haast, who moved his snakes to a lab on his sprawling Charlotte County complex in 1990 (he no longer has snakes there), said he answers questions from callers every day. It was in 1960, I was in my junior year at San fernando Valley State college at Northridge ,California. Miami-Dade police said around 4:30 p.m. Barry Ellis was shot inside a home he . Well he is alive and well at the age of 97or 98 and still apparently working with snakes; he said he felt there would come a time when he would not be able work with them but I guest he still is. He placed a live, non-venomous snake into one of the supposedly empty boxes to be cleaned. The self-described "poster boy for the benefits of venom" briefly operated a bona fide cancer research laboratory on the property and before invention of . The Reptile Centre in Northampton, England, declared him "an inspirational man within the world of reptiles." I lived on Homestead AFB 1960-66 and as a kid visited the Serpentarium many times. "Any time I saw an unusual snake I brought it back," Haast said, sitting on cushioned patio furniture. Haast really wanted to find the cure or treatment for polio and feels he came close. I believe he gave them some of his blood with the anti-bodies and that saved their lives. local news and culture. Is bitten by dozens of water moccasins and dies. The snake attraction soon failed during the Depression, so Mr. Haast went to work for a bootlegger in the Everglades, where he was pleased to find plenty of snakes. He was a local celebrity known for something really worthwhile (unlike so many celebrities nowadays). Finding this site reminds me what saints my parents were! I always had one or more in my bedroom and it drove my mom nuts.. He made special trips, bringing back such perilous species as cobras and saw-scaled vipers. I also remember hearing a story about him saving the lives of GI`s in Vietnam who had jumped from a helicopter into some poisonous snakes. As the snakes slithered and slide across the table he was working on the crowd jumped back gasping except me I think I eased even closer. The event left Haast shaken and the next day, he shot the 1800-pound crocodile nine times. I will admired and respect this wonderful human being for the rest of my life. C.C. On September 3, 1977, a 6-year-old boy sitting atop the wall surrounding the Serpentarium's alligator and crocodile pit fell into the pit, and a 12-foot crocodile lunged ten feet and grabbed the boy. ''I always meant for the attraction to support the venom research, but it just kept growing and growing. We watched Mr. Haast with fascination as he milked the snakes. When the show headed to Florida, Haast convinced his parents to let him go. MIAMI (CBS4)- The man who mesmerized generations of paying customers from 1947 to 1984 by extracting venom at his Miami Serpentarium as a spine-tingling South Florida attraction is dead. Horses had developed resistance to the poisons through the same process, and the blood of those horses was used to create life-saving antivenin. It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. MIAMI - The name of the 15-year-old who was shot and killed in northwest Miami-Dade on Wednesday has been released. As I was sitting there I heard a big CHOMP and turned around to see one huge animal falling back into the pitmissed me by about a foothorseshoes and hand-grenadeseh? In 1982 when I was twelve I moved from England to Hollywood, Fl with my family. My girlfiends and I would catch 7 - 8 foot Indio snakes and we would beg my mother to drive us over to the Serpentarium so we could sell the snakes to Dr. Haas. As a result of handling these snakes, Haast had been bitten 172 times by mid-2008,[4] all of which but the last few were validated by the Guinness Book of World Records "for surviving the most deadly snake bites", a distinction Haast disliked as he did not think being bitten was a goal to be attained or admired.[5]. Mr. Haast was bitten at least 173 times by poisonous snakes, about 20 times almost fatally. The police department is making a plea to the public for any information that could help them solve the case. For Haast, the weekly shots paid off, helping him to survive 172 venomous snake bites. His cane was an exotic mixture of ebony and ivory. In the early 1970s, I was carrying out a survey to document the status of certain native reptiles and amphibians of a seven-county area iof siytgh Florida. Pinterest. She had given me some information on the Serpentarium and I got interested in Indigo Snakes. Thank you for the bio of this incredible man. We visited the Serpentarium and it was an amazing experience that I remember vividly to this day. Snake Venom Pioneer Bill Haast Dead At 100 - Reptiles Magazine Miami Serpentarium-Founded by Bill Haast - Waymarking Join the New Times community and help support "My So-Called Life", pg. Six years later, he returned to Florida and opened the facility . The emergency services unit celebrated its 10th year recently at the Metro Zoo in Miami. I first heard of Bill Haast around 1955, when reading a "man's magazine" (as they were called back then, probably Argosy. In his heyday, he was flown around the world to hospitals where people bitten by rare snakes would have died without his blood. The wholesale price is currently $2,500 per vial, and patients can require sometimes dozens of bottles to recover. Bill Haast's daughter was in my 4th grade class and we went to the Serpentarium for a field trip. Haast eventually returned home, where his mother had leased a concession stand at a lakeside resort. boy killed by crocodile at miami serpentarium. Turns out that I was talking to Bill Hast. Very cool regular people with a very irregular life and lifestyle.loved them..they enriched my lifewould love to see how big the oaktree is now that grew up through their pool screen enclosure. No. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. By the mid-1960s he was putting on five shows a day, dressed in a white lab coat, extracting venom to sell for scientific experimentation. The price of a gram of freeze-dried venom from exotic snakes, requiring 100 or more extractions to accumulate, could exceed $5,000. Mr. Haast, who was director of the Miami Serpentarium Laboratories, a snake-venom producer near Punta Gorda, Fla., died of natural causes on Wednesday at his home in southwest Florida, his. But thanks to Bill, there were not many poisonous snakes left in South Dade in the 60s-70s when I had an youngsters craving for catching reptiles. In North Carolina, a chemist offered this salute: "Resssssssst in Peace Bill Haast.". Bill Haast and a cobra at the Miami Serpentarium by Don Boyd The Miami Serpentarium, an early Florida roadside tourist attraction, was once located on this site. Haast was born in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1910. According to the arrest report, detectives discovered that the victim and suspect had been involved in a verbal dispute that night that resulted in them getting into a physical altercation. They gave me nightmares. One time, he bought a black snake from Mr. Haast, named it "Rodney" and promptly wrapped it around my neck when my mom wasn't looking. Teen killed in northwest Miami-Dade, police search for shooter
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