# Animal Planet!!



## BROWNS (Jun 20, 2005)

On now with Austin Stevens and giant viper,seems he's doing much better docos lately..check it out the viper will be on soon and is f'n massive...


----------



## bigguy (Jun 20, 2005)

Yes nice snakes on that docco. That was the biggest colubirid I have ever seen that he dived on in the river. It was bigger than most aussie Pythons. Makes our Green and Brown Trees look like worms.

Isn't funny how in every docco Austin always finds the elusive reptile on the very last day. It was a good size Bushmaster however, with some very big fangs.

I noticed at the end in the credits how 5 herps were mentions for helping. These would have been the guys who supplied the snakes for his show, as normal. I know Dave Williams and Brian Starky from this site supplied his animals for a recent show he did in North Queensland

Mark Oshea seems to be the only one who does use wild animals, and will film a failure if he can not find the target species.


----------



## westhamsc (Jun 20, 2005)

> Mark Oshea seems to be the only one who does use wild animals, and will film a failure if he can not find the target species


that why he rocks


----------



## Ricko (Jun 20, 2005)

yeah just watched it, that first colubrid was massive as bob said and i liked that next colubrid he found the black one.


----------



## BROWNS (Jun 20, 2005)

That viper or lancehead was it? That had old Austin shyting his pants and he nearly got nailed a few times,lucky he can move pretty quick,the amount of venom,the fangs and power of that thing scared crap out of me just watching ,no wonder he was sweating and dropped the grabber and this guy definitely looks like he knows what he's doing handling vens and good to see him cut the hero Tarzan factor for a change.

There's been nonstop herp docos on for the last few days and some really good ones.One with Irwin and a green mamba that looked so bright green like a chondro it wasn't funny.Mark Osheas are the best by far although Austin did one here on perenties and a heap of other herps,a nice sized bhp and it did appear that they actually were filing a flop as it took ages for him to find and catch one with quite a few tricks up his sleeve and still didn't get one till the last day but i picked out that was staged too as the one he caught he pointed out part of the tail missing then the one he was taking pics of had a perfectly normal tail and it was actually looking for real for a while there :roll:


----------



## bigguy (Jun 20, 2005)

Browns, Perentie on loan from Wildlife Park as were the BHP and Frilly. All put on as normal.

What about tonight losing his canoe down the waterfall. Now that wasnt staged , was it. Cameras in the canoe, at ever part of the rapids and even way off in the distance to catch the empty canoe going over the falls. Every part of the show is staged.

The Viper was one of the species of Bushmaster, the longest vipers in the world. Lanceheads is a name often used with many of South Americas Vipers, and can be quite confussing.


----------



## basketcase (Jun 20, 2005)

was the colubrid a moussarana (clelia clelia) ?

on a project in south america we (my friends and I) caught one that was close to 3 metres, i think it was... i'll post a pic of it later


----------



## SLACkra (Jun 20, 2005)

now that i think about it i am not surprised that austin stephen gets captive animals on his show. there is that epesode where he gets bitten by a cobra, goes to hospital for a couple hours and gets released from the hospital cause the fang sliced his finger/hand instead of puncturing like a needle. he went back to the same spot and found the same snake and got the photos he wanted. what are the chances????

also the croc hunter has outtakes, not all of the stuff he shows is actually what happend. such as in this one episode where thier in a dingy and he gets out and catches this baby freshie. there was a take 1 to this scene: he trys to get out to catch this baby freshy and slips into the water and says "Did i scare it away?". course he dosen't really need to rent animals to be used hes got a zoo full of em that he can stick into the bush for a couple mins to claim its wild and make tv.


----------



## basketcase (Jun 20, 2005)

the bushmaster (lachesis muta muta) we caught. only one was caught in a year of research.







a mate with the moussarana (clelia clelia)


----------



## Ricko (Jun 20, 2005)

it was a moussarana and that is one awesome specimen you guys found and i love the bushmaster.


----------



## Springherp (Jun 20, 2005)

Browns wrote:


> good to see him cut the hero Tarzan factor for a change.



Are you serious? :shock: He swung from a vine into the water to catch that colubrid... how much more tarzan-like could he be??? :lol:


----------



## bigguy (Jun 20, 2005)

Yeh, and the camera was right there to catch him swing and drop onto the snake. What are the chances.

More like with the camera now in position, Austin on the count of 3 swing from the vine and the snake wrangler holding the snake at the waters edge, release at the same time.Tarzan would be ashamed.

Basketcase, yes I am sure that is what he called the colubirid, however his was much thicker than the one in your picture. Probably the same length, but easily twice to 3 times thicker. A well feed captive specimen.


----------



## Linus (Jun 21, 2005)

Yeah the venom produced in that beaker was astonishing...it looked like a urine sample! Awesome animal.

But as big guy said...that canoe shinanigans over the waterfall was just ridiculous. "I have no food blah blah blah..." 

And has anyone noticed the music on his show.  It s like they try and make it into a movie with this melo dramatic orchestral music. It's almost unbearable to watch.

Knowing now that all those reptiles are "plants" makes it even less watchable. I'd take steve irwin over him any day.


----------



## Guest (Jun 21, 2005)

But the arguable fact is that none of these shows are made for herpers alike, and the general Joe Public seems to love all the drama and suspense. And thats where the moneys at folks!


----------



## herptrader (Jun 21, 2005)

I have watched a couple of Austin Steven's shows now and to me he comes across as a just too much of a [email protected] He lost me when he was pretending to be stalked by a small fresh water crocodile in the perentie episode.

He is not the worst presenter out there but there are some that are much much better!


----------



## fishead (Jun 21, 2005)

That was one awesome viper hey! Fer de lance?
I though the doc on after that was a ripper. No BS in that one. One of the Land of the Tiger series, they showed a couple of cobras and mentioned that 20 000 people a year die of snake bite in India!!!!!! :shock: 
From other docos it seems that russels vipers claim the major part of that figure.


----------

