A trademark is something that accurately separates a company from all others in the same industry.

Snakebusters are the only company in Australia that does hands-on with reptiles and other wildlife in their shows, parties, events and courses.

For many years, Raymond Hoser and Snakebusters have been demonized by competitors who sought to undermine the reputation of Australia’s leading wildlife demonstrator.

Included here was general industry-wide condemnation of the hands-on reptile shows by Raymond Hoser and Snakebusters.

In fact in legal proceedings in 2006, virtually every other wildlife demonstrator, zoo and the like ganged up Snakebusters to tell a government tribunal that hands-on with wildlife is a “circus” and should be outlawed.  This claim was widely reported in the tabloid media at the time.

While Snakebusters routinely let people hold reptiles at their shows, all others in the wildlife display industry shunned the practice, claining it “sends the wrong message” to kids.

The Snakebusters message is that “reptiles are cool” and that they are “nice”.

Other companies instead claimed that reptiles are horrible, all are extremely dangerous (including the non-venomous ones) and something to be feared and for which fear should be taught.

Kids were told by others to never handle reptiles at any time or place or else they may be killed!

When Snakebusters handed out harmless snakes and the like, competitors claimed that kids were too stupid to know the difference between harmless and dangerous and Snakebusters was blamed for the impending armageddon of kids running into their gardens and getting bitten by venomous snakes and dying from snakebite.

As it happened, the reverse happened.

In our home state of Victoria, Snakebusters and their education was the direct cause of the state going from the highest death from snakebite state to the lowest!

Educators, herpetologists and even parents hailed the obvious benefits of the hands-on teaching methods of Snakebusters as being the best around.

It was when all others in the wildlife industry condemned "hands-on" with wildlife, that Snakebusters used their statements as a basis to register the tradenmark as a unique identifier of Snakebusters hands-on reptile shows.

Notwithstanding the ongoing demonization of Hands-on by Snakebusters, we did not retreat from our position and we in fact even more heavily promoted the advantages of our hands-on approach to wildlife education. As Snakebusters popularity rose, less experienced rivals started to claim “we do hands-on as well” in order to get bookings that Snakebusters would have otherwise got.

However, invariably this so called “hands-on” ended up being little more than a fleeting touch of a reptile or similar.

Rarely if ever did it actually involve a person being allowed to hold a snake, crocodile or lizard.

As a result people who booked alternative companies, expecting “hands-on” as expected from Snakebusters found themselves feeling “ripped off”.

It’s because consumers have come to expect hands-on being the right to hold the animals, that Snakebusters are now protective of our “hands on reptiles” trademarks and variants that are all registered and protected.

So that potential customers are not duped by inferior imitators that they may be getting hands-on, when in fact all they get is “hands-off” with pat, Snakebusters will continue to enforce our trademark rights against all bootleggers.

If you see another company that’s not Snakebusters being promoted as a “hands-on” reptile show, whether in a print advert, website or whatever, please let us know.

We shall stop them so that no one else get’s ripped off with an inferior reptile show.

Australia’s best reptilesâ and hands on reptilesâ are registered trademarks of Snakebustersâ and covers all areas we deal in, including: