Chook wash? Snake man? Pigs might fly - sow much to see at the Show
* Peter Munro
* September 21, 2008
ONE by one, Federico Rossignoli releases a writhing panic of snakes onto the stage, under a neat handwritten sign that reads: "This is not a pit of death." He is billed as a snake educator, but "Fred the Snake Man", 63, is closer to a raconteur of reptiles.
With venomous brown, tiger, copperhead and red-belly blacks at his bare feet, he tells the small crowd that snakes will bite only if they feel fear or mistake fingers for food. He is spreading his message of tolerance four times a day at the Royal Melbourne Show, which runs until next Sunday.
"I've tried to do something for them because they get the raw end of the deal all the time and nobody understands them, so I try to speak for them a little bit," he said.
He keeps about 30 venomous snakes in a lined shed out the back of his home in Hurstbridge, north-east of Melbourne. He lives alone, but says that has nothing to do with his company.
"Women like snakes because they like the texture," he said. "They love the velvet finish, they feel that sort of stuff."
Mr Rossignoli caught his first snake, a young copperhead, in his hand when he was seven, growing up in Doncaster. The bite swelled up and made his skin itchy, but when he didn't die he was hooked.
He has been bitten about 60 times in his snake-handling career. "I used to try the different types of snakes and venoms to see what it felt like," he said. "A Collett's snake once gave me a bad bite. A very pretty snake, it's dark brown-black with orange all over it and I used to think, 'Oh, that would be a lovely bite' because it's so pretty, but, oh cripes, I never want another one. Only snake bite ever made me vomit."
A tiger snake bite once made him beg for morphine. A nip from a two-metre, one-eyed mulga snake, which mistook his hand for a tasty rat, put him in hospital for three nights.
Mr Rossignoli gives four short lectures a day using live snakes in the showground's public stand, a safe distance from the pens of racing piglets and show chooks being washed and blowdried. He goes barefoot rather than risk stepping on snakes in his shoes.
"You can't do what I do, unless you want to go to hospital," Mr Rossignoli said.
He prefers his other passion, linguistics, and already speaks a smattering of Spanish, Italian and high Portuguese. Even his school talks on snakes are "Trojan Horses" for larger concerns, such as genetically modified crops, the history of terrorism and the state of the world.
"I've forgotten more about this planet than most politicians will ever know. And I know nuthin' - but I bloody know something," he said.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/c...ow-much-to-see-at-the-show-20080920-4kn9.html
* Peter Munro
* September 21, 2008
ONE by one, Federico Rossignoli releases a writhing panic of snakes onto the stage, under a neat handwritten sign that reads: "This is not a pit of death." He is billed as a snake educator, but "Fred the Snake Man", 63, is closer to a raconteur of reptiles.
With venomous brown, tiger, copperhead and red-belly blacks at his bare feet, he tells the small crowd that snakes will bite only if they feel fear or mistake fingers for food. He is spreading his message of tolerance four times a day at the Royal Melbourne Show, which runs until next Sunday.
"I've tried to do something for them because they get the raw end of the deal all the time and nobody understands them, so I try to speak for them a little bit," he said.
He keeps about 30 venomous snakes in a lined shed out the back of his home in Hurstbridge, north-east of Melbourne. He lives alone, but says that has nothing to do with his company.
"Women like snakes because they like the texture," he said. "They love the velvet finish, they feel that sort of stuff."
Mr Rossignoli caught his first snake, a young copperhead, in his hand when he was seven, growing up in Doncaster. The bite swelled up and made his skin itchy, but when he didn't die he was hooked.
He has been bitten about 60 times in his snake-handling career. "I used to try the different types of snakes and venoms to see what it felt like," he said. "A Collett's snake once gave me a bad bite. A very pretty snake, it's dark brown-black with orange all over it and I used to think, 'Oh, that would be a lovely bite' because it's so pretty, but, oh cripes, I never want another one. Only snake bite ever made me vomit."
A tiger snake bite once made him beg for morphine. A nip from a two-metre, one-eyed mulga snake, which mistook his hand for a tasty rat, put him in hospital for three nights.
Mr Rossignoli gives four short lectures a day using live snakes in the showground's public stand, a safe distance from the pens of racing piglets and show chooks being washed and blowdried. He goes barefoot rather than risk stepping on snakes in his shoes.
"You can't do what I do, unless you want to go to hospital," Mr Rossignoli said.
He prefers his other passion, linguistics, and already speaks a smattering of Spanish, Italian and high Portuguese. Even his school talks on snakes are "Trojan Horses" for larger concerns, such as genetically modified crops, the history of terrorism and the state of the world.
"I've forgotten more about this planet than most politicians will ever know. And I know nuthin' - but I bloody know something," he said.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/c...ow-much-to-see-at-the-show-20080920-4kn9.html
