Serpentarium’s Hasst, 100, Has Died
Posted by: Loren Coleman on June 18th, 2011
Cobra sculpture at the Miami Serpentarium entrance. Shown here in 1954, the Serpentarium operated beginning in 1947.
Does injecting snake venom make you live longer? Don’t ask those who knew Bill Haast that question.
Florida snake expert Bill Haast has died. He was 100. His wife Nancy says Haast died Wednesday evening, June 15, 2011.
Haast remained director of Miami Serpentarium Laboratories near Punta Gorda until his death. The original Miami Serpentarium, located south of Miami, was in operation from 1947 to 1984. The attraction had a gift shop, 400-pound turtles, a 20-foot-long python. It also had a pit with a 12-foot-long crocodile called “Cookie” that weighed, literally, a ton. Tragically, a 6-year-old boy fell in and died in 1977. Haast went to the pit with a pistol the very next day and shot the croc.
Guests would pay admission to watch Haast extract venom from snakes. Haast, a pioneer in extracting large quantities of venom for research, began the practice when he was a boy.
Haast moved to Utah in 1984 but returned to Florida six years later. That’s when he opened the new Punta Gorda facility, which continues to produce snake venom for medical and research use.
Soon after opening the Serpentarium, Haast began injecting himself with different types of cobra venom in order to develop immunity. It was 2006 and he was still extolling the virtues of venom, saying he injected himself weekly with a cocktail from five snakes – cobras, cottonmouths, kraits, mambas and rattlers – homeopathy the Food and Drug Administration would never endorse.
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Loren Coleman no longer writes for Cryptomundo. His archived posts remain here at Cryptomundo.
He might have been onto something. Hemotoxins thin the blood, its the same principle behind the use of a daily aspirin. Never catch me taking his route though.
I like snakes but I’m not too keen on poison, however I understand his reasonings seeing as how he risked being bitten on a daily basis.
Tip of the hat to a pioneer in anti-venom research, may he rest in peace.
Bill Haast was an amazing man. His work with snakes was invaluable to venom research. I am sorry to hear he’s gone. But he lived to a ripe old age of 100! What an achievement!
Good story!! This article reminds me of that early 70′s movie Sssssss! Starring Strother Martin and a very young Dirk Benedict. It was about a guy (Strother) much like the one in this article who ejected himself with venom, ran a snake park and did venom experiments. He injects his assistant (Dirk) with a secret serum that transforms him into a super intelligent cobra. As lame as this plot sounds it was a very creepy movie. I just bought a copy of it as part of a 4pack for only $5. It still surprisingly holds up!
At one time I had an extensive collection of snakes (80 species-12 -14 of them very “hot” snakes.) Bill was a friend of mine and his Serpentarium is in a hard to find area of Punta Gorda, only 9 or so miles from me. He was a very nice man. I hadn’t talked to him in several years, I didn’t even know of his illness, (if he had one). For his age he was undoubtedly the healthiest person I’ve ever known. Several years ago he related the effects of a Sri Lankan krait:(Bungarus fasciatus) envenomation to me as a “not altogether unpleasant” almost psychedelic experience. (to me it sounded like a mescaline trip) As many know; (and so stated above) he regularly self-administered injected doses of a specific venom mixture cocktail which over the years caused his immune system to develop polyvalent immunity to a wide variety of elipids. Of the genera Crotalus he was extremely careful.
Bill: you were a terrific guy, many will miss ya.