On the first day of this year's Snakes Alive event, retired geologist Dennis Dyer introduced his four-and-a-half-year-old pet Centralian python to the masses of children and adults present at the first feeding time.
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He gave Ben a (dead) rat and the snake coiled around the rodent before taking its head into his mouth. Dyer explained the reptile was a slow eater and could take about an hour to swallow the rodent.
Ben's was one of 14 python species in Australia - the most of any country in the world, Dyer said. The snake was one of about 30 snakes, lizards, frogs and other reptiles and amphibians presented by the ACT Herpetological Association, of which Dyer was secretary and had been a member for 20 years, in partnership with the Australian National Botanic Gardens. Some of the creatures were from the members' own collections and others were borrowed from the Canberra Reptile Zoo.
The exhibition has species local to the ACT and Southern Tablelands region, such as the highly endangered Northern Corroboree Frog and threatened species such as the Grassland Earless Dragon and Striped Legless Lizard.
Dyer said Australia was notorious for its venomous snakes and people did need to be cautious when outside but they played play a vital role in the environment and needed to be respected.
Association treasurer Margaret Ning said she and her husband Geoff Robertson had owned a property for 22 years and became interested in snakes from a conservation point of view. Although they no longer had the property they remained involved: "We believe in the whole education and museum side of it."
She said the theme of this year's Snakes Alive was the best practice and care for pythons.
"In the past two years six pythons not local to the area have been found in the bush - they've either been released or escaped."
People who take on the commitment of having a snake for a pet need to know what they are in for: snakes can live for a very long time (sometimes decades) and would-be snake owners must be licensed, must buy from a licensed dealer and have to have owned a lizard for three years.
Snakes Alive is an opportunity to obtain some initial information about the creatures as well as to find out where to learn more. It's also a chance for children to experience snakes and lizards in an up close and personal way. One of those kids was Digby Currie, 10, from Matong, visiting cousins in Canberra, who held a carpet snake. It wasn't the first time he'd had a snake experience but it seemed to be exciting still.
"They're just cool - small and scaly," he said.
Funds raised through Snakes Alive enable the association to make donations to support regional conservation issues such as the Northern and Southern Corroboree Frog breeding programs and projects aimed at furthering reptile and amphibian protection and recovery, education, training, and research projects.
Snakes Alive! is on at the Crosbie Morrison Building, Australian National Botanic Gardens, until January 21. 10am to 4pm. Feeding times 10.30am and 1pm daily. Adults $6, concession $5, children $4. parksaustralia.gov.au/botanic-gardens/do/whats-on/snakes-alive/.
