Snake island

Like many people, Tara Brown has mixed feelings about snakes. She says she quite likes the reptiles as long as there’s thick glass between her and them. Out in the wild though it’s a different story. So when told she’d be going on an epic adventure to a tiny speck of land off the coast of Brazil, inhabited by thousands of the most venomous vipers in the world, in her own words she was “freaked out”.

Reporter: Tara Brown

Producer: Stefanie Sgroi

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Special thanks to the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) and The Butantan Institute for their assistance in visiting Ilha da Queimada Grande.

ICMBio is in charge of protecting Brazil's natural heritage, promoting biodiversity conservation through research, education, and promoting ecologically sound management practices.

Butantan Institute is the largest immunobiological and biopharmaceutical producer in Latin America and is world-renowned for its collection of venomous snakes. By extracting the venom, the Institute develops antivenoms and medical breakthroughs.