Beauty and the snake

Beauty and the snake

Wallace uses a pair of scissors to skin the snake which will no doubt end up as a wallet.To win the Miss Snake Charmer beauty pageant requires beauty, grace, talent and a strong stomach.It's probably the only pageant in the country that requires the winner to decapitate and skin a snake.

"I get to skin snakes and chop their heads off, and I am super-excited about it," said Laney Wallace, Miss Snake Charmer 2011.

The pageant kicks off the annual Rattlesnake Roundup festival in this West Texas town.

The rattlesnakes are dumped into a large pen with hundreds of other snakes.They are weighed and measured and their venom is milked into glass beakers where it will be used for research and to make anti-venom.Next comes the chopping block where their heads are cut off.They are then skinned and gutted.The meat is fried up and the skins are used for boots and wallets.


Source: CNN
Image: CNN
Published March 14 2011