Ready to deliver ... the Australian Reptile Park is down to just 30 male funnel webs. Ideally, it would have ten times that number. Credit:Ben Rushton

While the park, on the central coast, will accept donations of any live funnel web spiders, only the males are milked because they are six times more venomous than the female spider. ''We'd like to have a few hundred in stock,'' says the park's spider keeper, Julie Mendezona. ''Even though everyone sees them as ferocious creatures, we could milk the same one every single day. But that's not fair to the animal. So to lower the stress level, we milk each spider once a week.'' That's humane treatment for the world's deadliest spider.

After a quiet summer, funnel webs were everywhere in the moist conditions in late March and April. It may be winter, but the mild, wet conditions mean they're still around, Mendezona says. Trouble is, if people are spotting them, they are not catching them.

Stocks of funnel web anti-venom have fallen to three years' worth, compared with the preferred level of six years. ''You can never really estimate accurately how much anti-venom you'll need in future,'' says Tate, who adds that storing anti-venom is difficult.

If you see a funnel web spider, and want to donate it to the park's milking program, Tate says you should avoid asking men or boys to catch it. They are statistically more likely to get bitten or to jump on it and kill it. He recommends calling a mature woman, who is the least likely to get bitten, and ask her to bring an empty jar and follow the instructions in the video.