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January 2025 - The African Snakebite Institute

The African Snakebite Institute was started fifteen years ago by Johan Marais. Johan has over 45 years of experience with snakes, from working at snake parks around the world, research expeditions across Africa to presenting at international medical conferences on snakes and snakebite. His wealth of knowledge is presented in over 20 book publications, hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles and a variety of research papers on snakes and other reptiles. This, and a massive library of photographs of snakes over the last thirty years has formed the foundation for the African Snakebite Institute. Since the start of ASI in 2012, the team has expanded to twelve full time employees, and a large community of volunteers.  
 

Johan with the late Rod Patterson at the Transvaal Snake Park in the 1980s. 

The main focus of ASI is to spread awareness and knowledge on snakes. There is a mass of myths, stories and superstitions surrounding snakes, as well as a lot of sensationalism. We aim to present accurate information on these animals to allow people to have a better understanding. Knowledge and awareness reduce much of the fear around snakes and allows people to appreciate these interesting animals.

We spread this awareness via a series of courses presented around South Africa and other parts of Africa. ASI presents public courses over most weekends across South Africa, training well over 4,000 people a year. Many of these people go on to become snake removers in their community and help relocate problem snakes that may otherwise have been killed. We also cover first aid for snakebite in our courses and give people the knowledge to deal with a potentially serious snakebite. This is especially essential for people who live in remote areas, or people who travel and explore wilderness areas. Medical professionals will earn CPD points for attending the course.

Some of the 4000 plus delegates ASI trained in 2024. 

For corporate sites, such as mines, factories, security companies, solar and wind farms as well as wilderness lodges, snake encounters may be a risk to staff or guests, and ideally some of the staff should be trained in snake handling to mitigate these risks. Most sites have an environmental policy and may not kill animals on site, so trained staff are required to remove problem animals. For the health and safety aspect of corporate sites, only personnel that have a valid certificate may perform dangerous jobs, such as removing snakes. We travel across Africa to remote sites to offer this training for snake awareness, snake handling and first aid for snakebite information.

On-site Corporate Training. 

We have a series of online courses dealing with snake identification. With over 170 species of snakes in southern Africa and over a thousand across Africa, the identification courses give people the ability to tell these animals apart. This may be beneficial in a snakebite emergency as well as in snake removal scenarios. The new online Kids’ Snake Awareness course is soon to be released and will teach the kids all the basics about snakes from anatomy and behaviour to basic identification and venoms – perfect for any young snake or wildlife enthusiast.

We have a selection of online courses, allowing you to advance your knowledge.

Part of our training programs includes snake handling. We have three levels of public snake handling courses. The beginner course is a simple and safe, hands-off practical session, which allows people to safely remove problematic snakes in the house or garden using snake handling equipment. This is a very safe and practical course showing the protocols for snake handling and demonstrating some snake behaviour. We work with four different types of venomous snakes and different techniques to capture them safely.

Hands-off snake handling session, teaching safe techniques for snake removals in our beginners course. 

The Venomous Snake Handling Bootcamp course is more advanced and is a full day of practical handling. The idea is to build muscle memory and confidence when handling the snakes. We use a variety of venomous snakes and some more advanced techniques including double-hooking large adders, and the basics around tailing venomous snakes are taught. We also include removal scenarios, where we hide snakes in an old building and allow delegates to practice in a controlled removal situation, under expert guidance.

The Bootcamp course has some more advanced techniques including tailing large snakes. 

The Advanced Venomous Snake Handling course is designed for scientists, snake park staff, vets, snake removers or snake keepers. It includes advanced techniques like tubing and probing/sexing snakes, bagging snakes, necking snakes and dealing with Black Mambas.

The Advanced course covers all aspects of snake handling and ends with Black Mamba handling. 

The African Snakebite Institute is also the largest supplier of quality snake handling equipment in Africa. We have a huge variety of snake tongs of different lengths and sizes. Snake hooks, tubes, buckets, bags, first aid kits, books, T-shirts and much more. Safety gear like snake gaiters, eye protection and gloves. Everything you need to do safe snake removals and snake handling. View our range on our online shop here.

The African Snakebite Institute is the largest supplier of quality snake handling equipment in Africa.

We have also created the ASI Snake Rescue Association, through which we can assist snake removers with catch-and-release permit applications for each province, as well as motivation letters and information on catch and release protocols.

Additionally, we produce a massive variety of free content. The free ASI SNAKES app has over 300 000 downloads. It includes a variety of snake, scorpion and spider profiles, first aid information, a list of snake removers around the country, games to practice identifying snakes and a helpline to request identification on snakes, spiders and scorpions you may have come across, plus much more.

The website has over 400 snake posters, available as free downloads, covering common snakes of countries, provinces, nature reserves, cities and major towns. If there is no poster on the website for your area, drop us an email and we will make a customized poster for your area. The website also has a gallery of snakes, spiders and scorpions, plus the Snake profiles, Easy ID charts and medical charts. You can also find all of the past newsletters, articles and a selection of scientific papers on snakebite on our website.

Our social media pages share information daily and we reach over a million people across all platforms. We also own and run the Snakes of Southern Africa Facebook group, with over 440,000 members. It is a great community where you can learn more about snakes. There are hundreds of photos of snakes posted weekly with experts confirming identification. This gives you an ideal opportunity to practice identifying snakes from all over southern Africa.

The ASI Foundation aims at making snake awareness more accessible. We do this via posters distributed to communities as well as presentations and demonstrations. In the future we hope that more donations will allow us to send enthusiastic people from rural communities onto courses, to give them the skills to assist their community in removing problematic snakes and assisting with first aid for snakebites. We hope to build the ASI Foundation a great deal this year and reach more communities. If you’d like to get involved personally or know of a company that would like to assist (the foundation is a registered NPO with 18A certification), get in touch – the foundation could use all the help and generosity available.

With endless demand for training, talks to various organisations including the likes of wildlife societies, hunting associations, hospitals and other professional bodies, ASI has reached out to a number of corporates for sponsorship. Our main sponsor is Opposite Lock, suppliers of quality 4x4 gear including Tough Dog suspensions, Light Force spotlights, and Inter-Volt double battery systems. Our vehicles are all kitted with their products and we have never been disappointed. Absolutely top quality. Other sponsors include Bushtech Canopies, Takla Seat Covers and Front Runner Roof Racks. Saftrade has done mapping on all of our vehicles, again with excellent results. This allows us to reach remote areas for community engagement and for reptile research expeditions.

The fleet of kitted-out ASI vehicles.   

With so much information available, our snake community really is making an impact on snake conservation in Africa. Surprisingly, in many aspects, the community of snake catchers and conservationists around Africa are more advanced than many first-world countries where snakes are still killed by the majority of people. As snake custodians, we thank you for the great work you have all done in helping spread awareness around snakes and the endless support you have given the African Snakebite Institute.

In February 2024, local snake catcher, Hermien Grobler, was bitten by a Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis) while attempting to relocate it from someone's car engine. She drove herself to hospital and made it just in time before going unconscious. She spent five days in the hospital on life support. This is her story.

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Johan Marais
African Snakebite Institute | +27 82 494 2039
E-mail johan@asiorg.co.za 
Find out more at www.africansnakebiteinstitute.com

Johan Marais is the author of various books on reptiles including the best-seller - A Complete Guide to Snakes of Southern Africa. He is a popular public speaker and CEO of the African Snakebite Institute. The African Snakebite Institute (ASI) offers a variety of courses including Snake Awareness, Scorpion Awareness and Venomous Snake Handling. ASI is accredited by the International Society of Zoological Sciences (ISZS) and is a Travel Doctor-approved service provider. The courses are also accredited by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). ASI is the largest provider of quality snake handling and safety equipment in Africa!

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