The deadliest place on earth: Snake Island | 60 Minutes Australia

What do you think of

snake

s? It's not a problem for me. I quite like them, as long as they're behind thick glass. Then they told me I was going to a small piece of land off Brazil, inhabited by thousands of the most venomous vipers in the world. The world scared me a little, no wonder it is known as

snake

island

and is probably the most dangerous

place

on the planet, but as deadly as they are, the tsar of the golden spear-tipped vipers that in It actually saves lives because its venom is being used to produce new blockbuster medications. so, with science leading the way, I agreed to follow him even though I was always ready to run a stunning splash of green into a sea of ​​bright blue.

Kumada Grande off the coast of Brazil is a tempting paradise for this

place

better known as Snake Island. -Restricts an entire gang from landing here unless they have special authorization. If signs don't warn you, residents will be hiding in trees and camouflaged on the ground. These are the Golden Spear Tip Vipers, one of the best. 10

deadliest

snakes in the world you don't want to be bitten by these snakes with these snakes it will be a particularly painful death you are going to die screaming you are going to die screaming great so why do you want to come anywhere?

Nearby Tomorrow Big is the mecca of poisonous snakes, but talk to the local fisherman on the mainland and Snake Island is a legendary place, a place that only fools would venture to know one of the main legends of the

island

, it's a terrible story, there was a family. The lighthouse keepers lived there and one night they were all bitten by the snakes and died, which makes people afraid to go there. I think the pirates had the snakes there to protect their treasure. Would you ever challenge the snakes to hunt for treasure? gold no, I would not choose to do that because it is fatal.

I will not risk my life for any gold or any treasure. I don't think this is a good idea, so ignoring good local advice early the next morning we prepare to head to snake island with a research team who will capture, tag and milk the snakes, so it's a case of beer, early catches in this case, yeah, well, we want to get out before it gets too hot. My guide is Australian molecular biologist Brian Fry, a snake-mad scientist who calls himself the Venom Doc, but as a sign of how seriously we and the authorities take this, we travel with a full medical team armed with antivenom. , artificial respirator and defibrillator.

They also have an ambulance on standby, we hope for the best and plan for this. It will be Brian's third trip to Snake Island as a scientist. He is one of the few people allowed to go there. One of my favorite places to go. It is such a beautiful island. Snakes are so unique. Don't betray. That's the fun part. I don't work with butterflies, we are the first Australian media to be granted special access to the island, so we are now heading 30 nautical miles off the coast of Brazil as we approach our destination. Brian is right visually, the island is amazing, but from here.

Things become dangerous with the help of Brian's Brazilian colleague, Philippe, the first test is to reach the slippery snakes of the island, here we come before entering the nature, we need to protect ourselves. Snakes are just okay, basically, they don't start fights. them so as long as they do not feel threatened they will not only bite you our goal is to reach the top once we enter the forest area we will be directly in our ideal habitat but while our search for the Vipers begins it is quite easy, there are certain white predators that They think of them as a poisonous land line, the climb becomes steeper and steeper.

The sun is coming this way, add 70% humidity and 40 degree days and this is no walk in the park. It will try to bite you, what makes it harder is knowing that every time you grab a rock or tree branch to pull yourself up, you could be grabbing a killer snake. I have been told that if you want to see a snake here to look for yellow or brown leaves, so I have been looking everywhere I look up and to the side, all I see are dead leaves, so to my untrained eye, these snakes They could be anywhere and then we see the first one, we're on the ground. in front of us moving towards the rock Filipe and Bryne quickly make a baguette for the research team before seeing another one less than a meter away.

This one appears to be feeding on a dead bird, the main food source for the small but powerful golden spearhead snakes. A good wine. whether juvenile female or medium sized male, but the other one we got as a female because the females are much larger than the males as we get deeper into the jungle, it is clear to the visitors here that Brian and Filipe still want to find more snakes to collect. Omg milk their Poison they are hard to see out there so you can see by their camouflage how they look like a bunch of dead leaves yeah among all the other dead leaves oh sorry this is the best one for milk poison, yes it is a nice big female, it will be in this bag only temporarily after the poison is collected, it will be released back into the wild, we could have stepped on it so easily, yes yes, they have an incredibly cryptic color that makes you wonder about all of them.

We definitely haven't seen five for every one we've seen, it doesn't make me feel good at all, but a healthy population of snakes is just what these scientists led by Philippe Gracio's team want them to be collecting. the snake's venom to investigate, as well as to check the well-being of the spearheads, so what they are doing is collecting all the information they can, the size, the weight, is it a male?, is it a female? ? They are there? many ticks are healthy body condition so all these long term records will give us an impression of what the ecological health of the island is while the work is serious the fun part for these two snake scientists is escaping the lab , my first true love, you know those poisonous snakes, my father was a snake breeder, so I think I was born with this DNA, you are genetically predisposed, but to work with these killers, they must first be immobilized, they cannot move, the most The important thing is that I can't bite with her asleep like this.

It's hard to believe that I'm actually holding one of the

deadliest

snakes in the world, but if she woke up and bit, wouldn't it be good, would it be the golden spear? -the heads do not exist anywhere else except in camarda grande their isolation has given them some evolutionary peculiarities they are five times more venomous than their continental cousins ​​and they hunt and eat birds they may be some of the most poisonous creatures on the planet, but the real threat For them, it is not as idyllic to us as Snake Island might seem to the snakes.

Its isolation is no guarantee of protection for its unique inhabitants. Land clearing on the continent is reducing the number of birds that used to stop here on their migratory route. Fewer birds means less. food and less food ultimately means less snakes just in the five year cycle that I have been studying I can see changes on this island and it is really very depressing for someone like me who is in love with these types of animals but this is a disaster unnatural this is a man-made catastrophe that is symptomatic of what is going to happen to the rest of the world, even if you are not that fond of snakes, there is good reason to worry about their future because, ultimately, their health could affect ours, so what do we protect snakes from?

Because these necks are very special to us and then contamination can occur in the center for the study of poisonous and venomous animals. Rui Seabra is taking me to his poison laboratory where the vipers are found, including the golden spearheads. they are studied they are also milked to create an antidote for a country that suffers thirty thousand snake bites with 150 deaths a year this is a brush of liquid often the golden spearheads the golden liquid of the golden land yes like a gold how How much damage could this cause? Yes, enough to kill three or five people, that's enough to kill us, there may be more, but this deadly liquid is also the key to saving human lives.

We are developing a new drug to prevent clotting in humans, so one of the most dangerous snakes in the world could help save people's lives. Yes, to save their lives, these kinds of spear-headed snakes. Vipers have already been responsible for life-saving medicines. For example, if you know someone who is taking medication for high blood pressure, chances are they are taking captopril or one of its derivatives. This is a type of medicine created from a toxin from

earth

-headed vipers. It was invented 40 years ago, but today it is still a $10 billion a year market and this reinforces why we need to conserve all biology. because we can't predict where the next wonder drug will come from, so even if we don't know now, it could be responsible for medical miracles in the future and that's exactly the key: we can only harvest what's still left.

So if we lose the golden spearhead, we might lose the next wonder drug as a scientist, but first a snake lover. Brian Frey enjoys what many would love. I think they are dating, they have a very gentle disposition and approach this highly personally. toxic creature in its rare and remote habitat, it is a truly special place and it is a place I feel a real emotional connection to because I am completely in my element in a place like this, there are no disturbing sounds of human habitation, it is just us in the jungle. doing our thing with the snakes hi, I'm Tara Brown, thanks for watching to stay up to date with the latest news from 60 Minutes Australia.

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