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MARK O'SHEA'S REPTILE WORLD: SNAKEBITE, BRITISH REPTILES & GLOBAL AMPHIBIAN DECLINE The exit corridor contains a number of educational information boards: Snakebite More are planned, such as the Asian Turtle Crisis and CITES. Snakebite has been listed by the World Health Organisation (WHO/OMS) as one of the "Forgotten Tropical Diseases". On this board we attempt to highlight and rationalise a problem that kills up to 94,000 people a year and changes 100,000s of people from healthy breadwinners into invalids and cripples.
The United Kingdom mainland is home to three lizard, three native snake species and one introduced snake species. Snakebite is not a problem in the United Kingdom with only 12 deaths from adder bites during the entire 20th Century, the last tragedy occurring in 1975.
West Midland Safari Park has a large wild population of grass snakes (Natrix natrix helvetica) and this population was added to some years ago when several gravid (pregnant) females were recued from gardens around Bewdley, kept until they laid their eggs and the eggs incubated. The success rate with the eggs was 100%, we never lost a single one. The hatchling grass snakes were released in an isolated damp area of the Park where there were plenty of small frogs and a known grass snake population.
We plan to continue our involvement with 'our own' reptiles through collaboration with conversationist and ecologists from Worcestershire who are concerned about the decline of the wild adder (Vipera berus berus) population in the Wyre Forest area.
Amphibians have existed for 360,000,o00 years but the world's amphibians are disappearing at a phenomenal rate due to a fungal disease called Chytrid. If the decline continues at the current rate 5000 or the world's 6000 species could be extinct 50 years form now.
PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS Many photographs contributed to the excellent photographic educational display boards around the walls of Mark O'Shea's Reptile World, only a few of which are illustrated on the website. We are grateful for the assistance of the following photographers.
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