WEST Midland Safari Park near Bewdley is renowned for its collection of creatures great and small and their latest addition certainly falls into the category of ‘great’.
An impressive 17ft g, female reticulated python has arrived from Wroclaw Zoo in Poland, to join the park’s Record Breakers exhibit which forms part of Mark O’Shea’s Reptile World.
Reticulated pythons are immensely powerful snakes that require expert handling. Although nonvenomous a large specimen is easily capable of killing a man by constriction, so the keepers at West Midland Safari Park are especially careful working around any of the large pythons or anacondas. There are several credible records of these pythons even eating people in Southeast Asia.
Mark O’Shea’s Reptile World Record Breakers exhibit contains a King cobra (the longest venomous snake in the world), the Green anaconda (heaviest snake in the world) and the Reticulated python (longest snake in the world), all species Mark has worked with or filmed in their native countries.
Mark has just returned from several months of fieldwork in Papua New Guinea and East Timor to spend the summer weekends and August bank holiday at West Midland Safari Park where he will be presenting the popular Reptile Encounters, on the encounter stage directly in front of the Reptile World at various times throughout the day.
West Midland Safari Park is open from 10am every day until November 5. Late night opening for 'Summer Nights' runs throughout August. Standard park admission costs £12.95 for adults and £11.50 for children. A family saver ticket costs £44 admitting two adults and two children.
Paid admission also includes a free return ticket. Amusement rides charged extra in all cases. Further information is available from the park’s official website www.wmsp.co.uk or by telephone 01299 402114.
