Pythons and Vipers and Kraits…Oh, My!

One day when Bob Caine came home from sixth grade, his mother was lying in wait. It seemed young Caine had left a baby rattlesnake he had found in the brush behind the family’s backyard in a covered box under his bed. As his mother had gone about her weekly house cleaning, she picked the box up to move it and met eye-to-eye with the sinewy intruder.

“I had to duck in the doorway to miss being smacked in the head by a flying broom,” Caine laughs. “But I didn’t have to ask why she was so angry. I knew. So I ran. Hard. Mom had run track in her younger days, so she was able to keep pace for about four blocks before giving up the chase. When I think back, I’m relieved she wasn’t bitten, because I’m not sure how I would have explained that!”

Now president/owner of Pest Control Specialists in Sunrise, Fla., and the recipient of the inaugural A.C.E. (Associate Certified Entomologist) Professional Award last year, Caine says he took an interest in snakes as a young child living on the outskirts of Miami in the 1950s, in an area that was much like the Everglades today. He had his own personal jungle behind the house — hundreds of acres that served as home to a variety of wildlife, including his beloved snakes.

Caine was fascinated by animals of all kinds. He recounts watching his mother’s cats present her with a lineup of dead rats at the back door after a night of hunting. “I thought it was the greatest thing since apple pie,” he says. “After their second safari, they were no longer her cats; she gave them, and the responsibility of caring for them, to me because she was disgusted with their behavior.”

A Snake Mentor.

Caine was so passionate about snakes and other animals that during his teen years, he considered the idea of becoming a veterinarian or herpetologist. Through both chance and intentional encounters with snakes, he became somewhat of an expert snake handler and had no fear when approaching them, poisonous or not.

His interest was fueled by the relationship he built with Bill Haast, the infamous herpetologist who, to prove his theory that venom could benefit victims of arthritis, multiple sclerosis (MS) and other diseases, injected himself weekly with venom. Haast’s blood often was used as an antidote for snakebite victims, and he developed a venom-based medication that was administered successfully to thousands of MS patients before the FDA banned the product due to improper testing and licensing.

In the early ’60s, Caine would collect snakes and take them to Haast at the Miami Serpentarium, a tourist attraction he had established just south of Miami, which evolved into Miami Serpentarium Laboratories, a venom production and research facility that continues to be a leader in advancing the use of venoms in science and medicine.

Protecting Our Troops.

When Caine joined the Air Force in 1966 and became an Air/Security policeman, the military had no idea how pivotal he would become to keeping his peers safe. His first duty station was in Arizona. On the way back to the base one evening, he found a kingsnake traveling across the highway and brought it back to the base. “When my superiors found out what I had done, they thought I was nuts, but I loved it,” shares Caine, who often spent his weekends and evenings scouting for rattlesnakes on the hot Arizona runways.

“My commander knew that if there was ever an issue with a snake or other wildlife, they could dispatch me to the scene even if I was off-duty,” he continues. “I was charged with everything from removing a 10-foot python from under a bed in the Bachelor Officer Quarters to going head-to-head with just about any animal that caused a threat to base personnel or their family members in the housing area.”

When he was transferred overseas, Caine was stationed in Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan — countries home to a variety of snakes. He encountered and observed many snakes ranging from nonpoisonous rat snakes to pythons and the very poisonous varieties of banded kraits, cobras and vipers. “After a few snake calls, I rigged something up resembling a cane for a snake hook but needed something a little more elaborate. I had befriended some people who worked in maintenance and welding, and they were nice enough to fabricate something after I showed them a sketch of what I needed. After that, snake catching became something of a side job. I also enlisted the help of other personnel, which was terrific.”

Caine shares one situation he says he will never forget: “There were rumors of a very large snake; someone said it was longer than a car. It would frequent an area that held ammunition and bombs. I worked with a guy from Missouri, the ‘Show Me State,’ who didn’t believe the stories. He would say, ‘Show me and I’ll believe it.’

“One night while we were working the midnight shift, our unit and several others were dispatched when a K9 dog detected movement. In the minute it took us to arrive on the scene, the K9 handler had already shot the 12-foot cobra that had stood in front of them, hood expanded in a very intimidating manner. When the sun came up, we went back to the scene, where rats were feasting on the carcass. We bagged the snake and took it back to Central Security Control, hanging what was left of it over the fence for everyone to see. After that incident, the ‘Missouri Wiz’ never doubted snake talk again!”

An Offer Refused.

Fast forward to 1976, when snake handling — and other forms of wildlife and pest management — became Caine’s primary job: He built a pest management business with a large wildlife component in Fort Lauderdale. “I gave my card to all the police stations in Broward County and let them know they could call me for snake and other wildlife situations,” he says. It didn’t take long for Pest Control Specialists to become the go-to resource for wildlife management.

Word spread of Caine’s success in this market niche, and in the mid-’80s, he was approached about buying into a national franchise office for a fast-growing wildlife management company. It seemed a perfect fit, but one thing held Caine back: The terms of the franchise excluded him from doing insect, termite or lawn work.

“I had worked too hard building my business and establishing a loyal customer base,” he says. “I couldn’t leave. Now when I look back at the opportunity, I sometimes wonder if I did the right thing, declining the offer. That wildlife management company has become extremely successful as part of one of our industry’s leading corporations.”

But his customers and employees are glad he did decline. Caine is a guy people just genuinely enjoy working with. “The best part of my job is the personal interaction. I enjoy solving problems for people and finding new solutions to their challenges. The relationships we build are what this business is all about,” he says.

Caine doesn’t answer many snake calls anymore due to some physical limitations he sustained in a plane crash a couple of decades ago, when he was president of the Florida Pest Control Association. “I’m certainly not as fast with my hands and feet as I once was,” Caine says. “I don’t think I could keep up with some of the exotic reptiles I had fun capturing when I was a young man.”