Hasn't been bitten yet

21/05/2008

Hartbeespoort - Living in a glass enclosure with 40 venomous snakes, Martin Smit is scared only that one of them will slither up the leg of his trousers while he is sleeping.

Smit, the snake handler at Chameleon Village Reptile Park in Hartbeespoort, treats snakes like pets.

And, in June, he'll get into an enclosure for 110 days with 40 snakes, including mambas, boomslangs, cobras and puff adders.

The snake park is aiming to break the Guinness world record.

Smit said: "One just has to be careful not to lie on one when one sleeps.

"The worst scenario is having a snake slithering into the leg of your trousers," he said while coolly encouraging a horned cobra to raise its hood.

In a case like that, he said: "Then I'd rather just leave him until he felt like climbing out."

Educating people

The cobra finally raised its head, began hissing and suddenly struck at Smit.

He laughed and tapped the snake on the head disapprovingly.

"Don't bite me. I'll feed you then," he scolded the deadly snake.

Smit is due to move into the glass enclosure with his slippery friends on June 14.

Why would he do something like this?

He said: "It's good for business and I'm doing it to educate people and to get rid off unnecessary fears and superstitions.

"If I'm not bitten and walk out of the enclosure alive after 110 days, it might change people's attitude towards snakes."

A percentage of the money that it is hoped to raise during his 'snake sitting' will be donated to the Save a Child campaign.

Smit began playing with snakes at the age of six.

Hasn't been bitten yet

"I told my dad one day that I wanted to keep snakes. His answer was, 'Go ahead. Let me just show you how to work with them first.' "

He has 62 snakes, including some of the most poisonous in the world, and has never been bitten.

He said: "There's probably always a first time, but I love the snakes. They don't bite people naturally. They bite only if they're angered or trapped ."