Kentucky Reptile Zoo - Slade, KY - One of the Largest Collections of Venomous Snakes in the World

Unless you count a night spent at the Li'l Abner Motel, there are only two things worth doing in Slade, KY. One of them is to visit Kentucky's fabulous Natural Bridge State Park. The other is to make your way to the Kentucky Reptile Zoo, which houses one of the largest collections of poisonous snakes in the world, and where it is possible to watch the zoo's director extract venom from black mambas and Monocled cobras.

The Reptile Zoo's collection of snakes includes such notables as an 18-foot-long reticulated python, a gaboon viper (the fangs of one, the longest fangs ever measured, ran to 2.5 inches), to some of the oldest cobras in captivity. These snakes come from all over the world, as well as from the occasional police raid on illegal snake dealers who sell them as pets, or for use in certain Appalachian Mountain religious rites.

The zoo has other reptiles of course: lizards and aquatic turtles and a desert tortoise that might walk over and let you pet it. And alligators, including a favorite named Fluffy, and babies which, for $7.00, will let you hold them for a picture. The zoo gives gator talks and other lectures on reptiles, and has a myriad of educational programs for schools.

But venomous snakes are the main attraction here - the snakes, and standing close-up while the zoo's director, Jim Harrison, holds them by their necks and squeezes venom from their fangs. Most Sundays you can see him wringing out the venom from the zoo's 12-foot king cobra.

If this job sounds dangerous, it is. Harrison was once pronounced clinically dead from a snakebite, although, unlike Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, he managed to recover from the animal's attack.

Harrison loves his job. He's among the world's leading experts on venom, and the so-called "milking'' of the reptiles to obtain it for medical researchers. The mamba? Crucial to our knowledge of Alzheimer's disease. The Malayan pit viper? Has helped with the recovery of stroke victims. Advances in the study of viruses, lupus, and skin and breast cancer have all been made in part with the venom of Asian cobras, Russell's vipers, and copperheads.

The venom that Harrison extracts usually comes with a price, of course, including $1,000 a gram for the venom of a snouted cobra. But the zoo does make grants to graduate students.

Beside the Sunday cobra milkings, a venom show occurs almost every day at 1:00 P.M., but it's a good idea to call ahead to make sure the director isn't off in harm's way on some exotic jaunt.

The Kentucky Reptile Zoo is located at:

200 L&E Railroad, Slade, KY

Its hours are 11 am to 6 pm daily from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

Admission is:

$6.00 for an adult

$4.00 for a child (3-15)

Free for children under the age of three