What better time to face your fears than at the Iowa State Fair?
The Snakes Alive exhibit has been bringing in reptiles from all over the globe to the Iowa State Fair for 50 years. The group of hobbyists who set up the event want the public to look past the negative connotation attached to reptiles.
“It’s about letting visitors have the opportunity to get up-close to things that maybe you’ve only read about in a book before,” said co-owner Nick Blay. “It’s kind of an educational piece.”
What kind of reptiles are in the exhibit?
Fairgoers can walk through the venue and look at snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodiles and frogs up-close without harm. Snakes occupy most of the exhibit with a mix of different rattlesnakes, pythons, vipers, anacondas and boa constrictors.
There also is a horned frog, an alligator snapping turtle, a side-necked turtle, a Gila monster lizard, a spiny-tailed monitor lizard and a caiman crocodile.
The cases are fitted for each animal’s natural environment. That includes heat mats, lights that give a day-night cycle, and temperature and humidity control tailored to the animals’ needs.
The exhibit draws a good audience with a consistent collection of reptiles, but visitors can expect to see something new each year. This year’s new animals are the alligator snapping turtle, a massasauga rattlesnake and a pygmy rattlesnake.
“We try to get one or two new animals a year. Depends on what’s available to us,” said co-owner Zach Wright. “Some of it is we just happen to stumble upon something. So it just kind of depends on what we see when we’re out.”
About Snakes Alive
Snakes Alive first debuted at the 1975 Iowa State Fair under the Grandstand, then moved behind the Giant Slide in the early 1990s where it remains. The exhibit has three co-owners, two who work at universities: Blay is a biology professor at the University of Missouri and Wright does exotic animal demonstrations for Iowa State University.
All are reptile lovers and the exhibit animals are collected in a variety of ways.
“Some are produced by one of the owners, some of them are generational animals down here, some of them we buy from breeders or importers who import the animal from where they come from in the world,” Wright said.
The animals are shipped to the fair two days before the start, and the workers get them adapted to their environment inside the cases. After the 11-day event, the animals are sent back to where they lived before.
Even before, during, and after the 11 days at the Iowa State Fair, the owners are continuing to learn new things about their animals that they hope to pass on to their visitors.
“My big thing here is to educate people,” Wright said. “That’s one thing with this, it’s constantly changing. You learn new things every day, and we have a lot of fun doing it.”
Snakes Alive costs $3.50 to enter.
Chris Meglio is a reporter for the Register. Reach him at cmeglio@gannett.com or on X @chris_meglio.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa’s largest reptile exhibit celebrates 50 years educating the State Fair crowd
Reporting by Chris Meglio, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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