US naturalist battles with snake for TV
Print Edition
WHEN naturalist Paul Rosolie wanted to focus attention on the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, he decided he needed a stunt guaranteed to get people looking. So the staunch environmentalist offered himself as dinner to an anaconda — and was prepared to be swallowed alive, filming every moment.
But in the end, Rosolie wasn’t ingested by the snake, disappointing viewers who expected a journey into the belly of the deadly beast. Instead he let the anaconda coil around him before calling the mission off.
Anacondas, the largest snakes in the world, typically suffocate their prey before ingesting it, making Rosolie’s attempt all the more dangerous.
Rosolie survived, and now people all around the world have a chance to watch his harrowing struggle with the beast, after its debut broadcast on Sunday night in the United States on the Discovery Channel. The inaccurately named “Eaten Alive” will be broadcast in other countries later this month, including China and India.
The American activist said he was proud to take on the adventure, even though the prospect of dying was hard to swallow. To avoid suffocating, experts crafted Rosolie a specially designed carbon fiber suit, equipped with a breathing system — as well as with cameras and a system to communicate.
The next challenge was trying to find a snake in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. “We spent 60 days out in the jungle, camping, hiking, looking through swamps every night,” he said.
Eventually, they found a female snake, which at 6 meters long, fit the bill. “When I went up to the snake, it didn’t try to eat me right away,” Rosolie recounted. “It tried to escape. And when I provoked it a little bit, and acted a little more like a predator, that’s when it turned around and defended itself.”
In the end, Rosolie wasn’t swallowed whole by the giant serpent, but instead wrestled with the beast as she coiled around him before he aborted the mission. As the snake wrapped around a suited-up Rosolie, the daredevil said she was squeezing his arm tight, which he feared might break.
His team looked on worried as his breathing strained and his heart rate slowed. He told them he was feeling light-headed and as the anaconda squeezed tight around him, he called for help.
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