Bill Haast facts for kids

Bill Haast (born December 30, 1910 – died June 15, 2011) was a very interesting person who worked with snakes for most of his life. From 1947 to 1984, he owned and ran the Miami Serpentarium, a popular place in Florida. There, he would show visitors how he carefully took venom from snakes. After closing the Serpentarium, he started Miami Serpentarium Laboratories. This was a special place that made snake venom for doctors and scientists to use in medicine and research. Bill Haast started taking venom from snakes when he was just a boy.

He would take venom from dangerous snakes by holding their heads. Then, he would make them bite a rubber cover over a small bottle. Because he handled so many snakes, Bill Haast was bitten 172 times by the middle of 2008! He didn't like being famous for getting bitten so often. He felt it wasn't something to aim for or admire.

Early Life with Snakes

Bill Haast was born in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1910. He became very interested in snakes when he was 11 years old. This happened while he was at a Boy Scout summer camp. A year later, he was bitten for the first time. He was trying to catch a small timber rattlesnake at camp. He used the usual treatment for snake bites back then. He made small cuts over the fang marks and put a special powder on them. Then, he walked four miles to the camp's first aid tent. By then, his arm was swollen. He quickly went to a doctor and got better without much trouble.

His next bite happened later that same year. It was from a four-foot copperhead snake. He had a snake-bite kit with him. A friend helped him by giving him some antivenom. This bite sent him to the hospital for a week.

Bill Haast started collecting snakes. At first, his mother didn't like it. But soon, she let him keep them at home. He quickly learned how to handle the snakes. He even found one rattlesnake so calm that he took a picture with it lying on his lap. He began taking venom from his snakes when he was 15 years old. He left school when he was 16.

Building a Career

When Bill was 19, he joined a man who had a snake show by the road. He went with him to Florida. While there, he lived with a person who made illegal alcohol. This was on the edge of the Everglades. Bill became very good at catching all kinds of snakes.

Eventually, Bill went back home. His mother had rented a food stand at a lake resort. Bill added a snake exhibit to the business. There, he met and married his first wife, Ann. They moved to Florida because Bill wanted to open a "snake farm." Bill lost his job when the place he worked at was raided by tax agents. The couple moved back to New Jersey. Bill then studied how to fix airplanes. He became a certified aviation mechanic after four years.

With his new skills, he moved to Miami to work for Pan American World Airways. When the United States joined World War II, Bill worked as a flight engineer. He flew planes for the United States Army Air Corps. These flights took him to places like South America, Africa, and India. He bought snakes there to bring back to America. This included his first cobra. He said,

In those days there were no laws prohibiting it, but the crew members didn't appreciate it.

—Bill Haast

The Miami Serpentarium

In 1946, Bill Haast decided he had saved enough money to start his snake farm. He bought land facing a main road south of Miami. He sold his house and began building the Serpentarium. His wife Ann didn't like the idea, and they later divorced. Bill kept custody of their son, Bill Jr. He kept working as a mechanic while building the Serpentarium. During this time, Bill met and married his second wife, Clarita Matthews. The Serpentarium opened at the end of 1947, even though it wasn't fully finished. For the first five years, Bill, Clarita, and his son were the only staff. Bill Jr. eventually left, as he lost interest in snakes. But not before he had been bitten four times by venomous snakes.

By 1965, the Serpentarium had over 500 snakes. They were kept in 400 cages and three outdoor pits. Bill Haast took venom from snakes 70 to 100 times a day. He worked with about 60 different kinds of venomous snakes. He usually did this in front of an audience. He would let the snakes out onto a table. Then, he would catch them with his bare hands. He would make them release their venom into glass bottles with a rubber top.

Soon after opening the Serpentarium, Bill Haast started a unique experiment. He began injecting himself with tiny amounts of venom. He wanted to build up protection against the venom of King, Indian, and Cape cobras. This practice is called mithridatism. In 1954, a common krait bit Bill. At first, he thought his cobra protection would work against the krait venom. He continued his normal activities for several hours. However, the krait venom eventually affected him. He was taken to a hospital and took several days to recover. A krait anti-venom was sent from India, but he refused it when it arrived. He got his first cobra bite less than a year after starting his protection program. During the 1950s, cobras bit him about twenty times. His first king cobra bite was in 1962. A green mamba also bit Bill Haast. Many times, Bill donated his blood to help snake-bite victims. This was done when no other anti-venom was available. More than twenty people recovered because of his help.

In 1949, he started giving venom to a researcher at the University of Miami. They were studying how to treat polio. The experiments looked promising. But then, the Salk polio vaccine came out in 1955.

On September 3, 1977, a sad event happened at the Serpentarium. A 6-year-old boy fell into the alligator and crocodile pit. A large crocodile grabbed the boy. The boy's father and another man jumped in to help. Sadly, the boy died. This incident deeply affected Bill Haast. He shot the crocodile, which weighed about 1,800 pounds (820 kg). It took an hour for the crocodile to die. Before this, the crocodile had lived in the pit for 20 years without problems. The sadness Bill felt over the boy's death led him to close the Serpentarium. The boy's father did not blame Bill. But Bill told reporters he wanted nothing more to do with the Serpentarium. He said he would never keep crocodiles there again. However, this event did not stop Bill's interest in venom research.

Later Life and Legacy

Bill Haast closed the Serpentarium in 1984. He moved to Utah for a few years. In 1990, he moved to Punta Gorda, Florida, with his snakes. There, he started the Miami Serpentarium Laboratories. Bill's hands were damaged by venom over the years. He lost a finger after a bite from a Malayan pit viper in 2003. Because of this damage, Bill stopped handling venomous snakes. He no longer kept any at his facility. As of 2008, his wife still gave him small amounts of snake venom. In an interview, he said, "Aging is hard. Sometimes, you feel useless. But I always felt I would live this long. It was intuitive. I always told people I'd live past 100, and I still feel I will. Is it the venom? I don't know."

Bill Haast turned 100 years old in December 2010. He passed away on June 15, 2011.

See also

In Spanish: Bill Haast para niños