COURIER-JOURNAL (Louisville, Kentucky) 04 March 07 Take a snake break in Slade - View vipers, other species at Kentucky Reptile Zoo (Susan Reigler)
If you are lucky during your visit to the Kentucky Reptile Zoo, you'll be treated to one of nature's most distinctive sounds: the insistent, loud brrrrr of a rattlesnake shaking its tail.
And there are plenty of rattlers, of several species, to be found at this research facility located just off the Mountain Parkway near Natural Bridge State Resort Park in Slade, Ky., all of which are safely ensconced behind thick glass.
Including the rattlesnakes, the KRZ is home to representatives of about a third of the world's venomous snakes -- cobras, mambas, adders and various vipers. And why exactly would anyone have this many poisonous reptiles around? Because the venom is a highly prized commodity to scientists.
Among the diseases and conditions for which snake venom is providing medically important chemical compounds are various types of cancer, AIDS, stroke, blood disorders, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's and heart disease.
It falls to KRZ founder and director Jim Harrison to extract the venom from the zoo's residents. It's a one-man job, even with a strong, 5-foot long reptile, since, as Harrison explains, "I don't want to worry about what someone else is doing."
Visitors can watch Harrison in action through a glass window. One day a couple of week's ago he was preparing to "milk" a South American rattlesnake, which, he pointed out by holding up the snake and exposing her lumpy belly, was pregnant.
He first pins the snake by the neck with a special pole, then grasps it behind the head to open its jaws and expose the fangs. He then places the fangs on a plastic funnel and the snake secretes venom into a bottle. All the while he's firmly holding on to the twisting reptile with the hand not engaged in the extraction.
He does this between 600 and 1,000 times a week.
The KRZ is one of a half-dozen facilities in the country that has standing orders for venom, which is shipped to laboratories as far away as Europe and Japan.
Visitors can view scores of colorful snake species, including bright green African bush vipers and black, red and yellow banded coral snakes. KRZ also houses turtles, lizards and alligators. You can even have a picnic lunch at a table atop the gator pit if you are so inclined. But please, don't feed the animals!
If You Go - Kentucky Reptile Zoo
Where: 200 L&E Railroad Road, Slade, Ky.
Distance and drive time from Louisville: About 130 miles and two hours.
Admission: Adults, $7; children ages 4 to 15, $5; ages 3 and younger, free.
Hours: March-May, Friday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; June-August, daily, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; September and October, Friday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Venom extractions (or other activity with animals) at 1, 3 and 5 p.m.
Phone: (606) 663-9160.

Web: www.geocities.com/kentuckyreptilezoo.
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