Wildlife expert eaten alive by anaconda says he wasn't scared but was worried about the giant snake

Photo: Courtesy

A wildlife expert who let himself be eaten by an anaconda so he could film inside it has told how he was more scared for the reptile's safety than his own.

Daredevil naturalist Paul Rosolie donned a special suit for the stunt, which was filmed in the Amazon in summer and will be aired as part of Eaten Alive.

A cross between Steve Irwin and Johnny Knoxville, he took part in the experiment to raise awareness of the snake's habitat, which is blighted by gold-mining.

Rosolie, 30, was so confident of the carbon fibre suit's design, he insists he was more worried about the giant snake being harmed than getting into difficulty himself.

"I didn’t want to stress [the snake] out too much. I wanted to make sure that the suit was smooth and wasn’t going to hurt the snake," he told the New York Post.

"I wasn’t scared. We tested this suit and worked on this with experts so we knew I was going to be safe."

Viewers will see American Rosolie being swallowed by the 25 foot, 400 pound snake, which took 12 people to catch.

His suit, which was designed to protect him against both the snake's deadly grip and digestive acids, was fitted with a three-hour supply of oxygen, communication devices and several cameras.

Before going through with the stunt, Rosolie also swallowed a pill that transmitted his vitals to his team.

In order to attract the snakes's attention, he doused himself in pigs blood and imitated movements of the anaconda's typical prey which includes wild pigs, deer, capybaras and caiman.

Rosolie, who first visited the Amazon at age 18, says "it didn't take long" for the anaconda to eye him up, but wouldn't elaborate on what actually happened once the snake tried to swallow him whole.

He spent 60 days hiking through rain forest in Peru with a team of about a dozen people searching for the right anaconda to take part in the stunt.

The team also carried out the first scientific study of anacondas in the wild, taking down the weight, length and sex of each snake they came across.

They also took samples of their skin to test for mercury, a by-product of the gold-mining industry which is encroaching on the creature's habitat.

Rosolie told the New York Post that he'd wanted to do something that would "absolutely shock people".

"Environmentalists, we love to preach to the choir. What I’m trying to do with this is bring in a bunch of people that wouldn’t necessarily know what’s going on in the Amazon," he said.

"For the type of attention that this is getting and for the type of emergency that’s going on down there — desperate times, desperate measures.

'Once they see the show, these are people who are going to be supporters."

The show will reportedly advertise a fundraiser to save the snake's habitat, but Rosolie has faced backlash from animal rights activists.

They say the anaconda was tortured while being forced to eat the filmmaker because he's much bigger than its usual prey

Anacondas are very large snakes found in South America. The term usually refers to green anacondas, which can grow to as long as 6.6 metres. They live in or near water and tend to suffocate prey by constricting their bodies around their victims.

The snakes eat a wide variety of animals including fish, birds, deer, crocodiles and tapirs. Once the prey is subdued they will try and swallow it whole.

There are a few cases where anacondas have attacked people involved in researching the snakes - even a medium-sized anaconda of around 3.5 metres would be strong enough to overpower a human.