REPTILE AND SNAKE EXPERT FOR CONSULTING, MEDIATION, MEDIA, ETC.

Australia's one and only "Snakeman" Raymond Hoser is the owner of Australia's leading reptile company, the globally-known Snakebusters.
He's been in the reptile game for over 40 years and has seen most of it including securing naming rights on the world's longest snake the Reticulated Python, which he formally placed in the genus Broghammerus Hoser 2004! His definitive books and over 150 leading-edge original scientific papers are used as definitive reference sources by the best herpetologists (reptile people) in the world. Scientific names for species he discovered and named appear in other standard texts published worldwide, reflecting the international reach of Hoser's work and fact that he's discovered and named taxa not just in Victoria, Australia and New Guinea, but also the Americas, Asia and Africa.
As a hired witness for wildlife matters or mediator he has no equal. Raymond Hoser is known as a straight shooter who says it as it is. He will lay the facts on the line and allow all parties the best way to settle disputes and so on, often before litigation is needed or as a circuit-breaker to costly legal proceedings. He's been called to give evidence as the expert witness in court cases in NSW and Victoria and he is the expert witness of choice for reptile-related court cases both for government and non-government people. His value often comes as being an expert who can accurately identify given taxa at times of dispute, their real status in the wild in terms of being common, endangered or whatever and also in terms of identifying features in captive reptiles that show either good or bad husbandry, cruelty and so on. One of the feather's in Raymond Hoser's cap was the first and accurate identification of a deadly reovirus wiping out large numbers of young venomous snakes in collections in the period 2002-4. Before this identification, over a dozen collections including a major zoo were losing reptiles from "unknown and unidentified cause".

Way back in 1996 in his best-selling book "Smuggled-2" he detailed extreme cruelty in a Queensland facility that led to the owner being charged, convicted and fined $7500 in the Cairns Magistrate's court the following year (2007), in the first case involving prosecution of a keeper for deliberately allowing captive reptiles to be infested with parasitic mites without treating them for it (The case was Qld Gov't Versus David John Williams.
Raymond Hoser's corruption books "Smuggled" and "Smuggled-2" caused a stir when published in the 1990's, but eventually led to a sensible re-write of wildlife laws in all Australian states and elsewhere. In NSW in particular, several heads rolled in the NSW Wildlife authority as a result of those books and an inquest vindicated the central corruption claims in those books. Hoser (and/or reptiles) is regularly called upon for media appearances, radio, TV, print and other and has appeared in several documentaries. In terms of finding reptiles in the wild and keeping them in captivity, methods pioneered by Hoser are now standard world-wide.
Costs of services are on a "job by job" basis.
Phone (Australia) 0412 777 211 for details or to make further inquiries.

Raymond Hoser's CV with regards to reptile science
(or questions worth asking if seeking a reptile expert...
... beware novices who make false claims).

Return to the Snakebusters main website entry.