Living With Venomous Reptiles

[LDMGOLD]

Same company I purchased my from years ago. I still have them in my truck. Seldom ever use them anymore. I leave snake handling to younger people these days.

Tom K.

[reptilist]

Now Tom, you know that Bill Haast just had his 100th birthday on December 30th!

[LDMGOLD]

Terry:

I had no idea he was still alive. He goes back a long ways in Herp history. My father knew him when he was in Grove Land, Florida. He certainly a herp-man of considerable experience.

He thanks for the news.

[Jerry Feldner]

I must agree with Terry on the subject of Whitco Tongs. The present owners of Whitco are the daughter and son-in-law of the designer of the tongs. I have one pair that I have had for nearly 40 years. My son has the other pair which he took when he went west for a job opportunity which caused me to have to buy another pair of the same size. Mr. Whitney, the designer of the tongs, was an engineer who wanted to make a set of tongs that would not hurt snakes when squeezed. He succeeded.
I dealt with the Whitney family when I was a member of the Southwestern Herp Soc in LA. I never received any but the very best treatment from the Whitneys and the present owners carry out that custom. I highly recommend Whitco Tongs of all sizes.

DO NOT order tongs manufactured in India which use the pictures of Midwest Tongs in their ads!

[LDMGOLD]

There are a lot of junkie tongs on the market. Whitco is the best one available. I have had my tongs since 1975. They are still as good as they were when they were new.

Tom K.

[LDMGOLD]

Terry,

Wasn't Bill Hasst bitten by a Cobra or Blue Krait and had really bad time? My father was bitten by Eastern Diamond Back in the early 1930's and almost died from the bite. His treatment was worse than the bite in those days.

Tom K.

[reptilist]

Tom,
True to the trade, Bill Haast has been bitten many times!
I believe his worst bite was prior to the self immunization program that he invented, and it was an old world Elapid of some sort. If I remember correctly, his first bite was from a timber rattler when he was a teenager.

[LDMGOLD]

Terry,

As I recall he was bitten by a Elapid sometime in late the 1970s or the early 1980's. My father was bitten by a Golden cobra in 1964. The bite lead to his death in 1967 eventually. He never really recovered from the bite. During the 1950's he worked with snakes in one of the alligator shows in Florida, but I don't know where. That is where he met Bill Haast. He was always messing around with dangerous reptiles. This was my birth father and not my foster father.

Take care,

Tom K.

[reptilist]

He was always messing around with dangerous reptiles.

Too bad how that turned out! Sad to think you grew up without him because of that experience.

[Apache Devil]

Tom,
True to the trade, Bill Haast has been bitten many times!
I believe his worst bite was prior to the self immunization program that he invented, and it was an old world Elapid of some sort. If I remember correctly, his first bite was from a timber rattler when he was a teenager.

I remember reading a couple of Haast's books when I was a preteen. My memory may be fading, but as I recall, he claimed to be the first person to survive the bite of a king cobra. He described the symptoms as he left his research lab and drove to the hospital. About the only thing I can now remember about it is when he said his eyeballs suddenly locked and he could not move them. He had to turn his head from side to side to see. Was that the King Cobra bite or the Krait? I am going to have to find some of his books again one day. He sure was a hotdog of a ham. Love those pics of him out there doing the karate dances with the huge cobras.