These are a few articles I wrote for a column on Snakes. Never got published, but enjoy!

 

 

SNAKES AND WHISTLES

 

 

Invariably, after I have rescued a snake from someone’s house, I am faced with questions from the onlookers. Some questions are asked so frequently that I find myself anticipating them as a matter of routine. Very similar queries come from both educated and unschooled persons and so I thought that it would be good idea, in this weekly column, to try and clear (hopefully, for good!) some of the common misconceptions that people have about snakes. Should you have any queries (even if they appear bizarre to you) do write in (email or telephone is also acceptable) and I will certainly respond in future columns.

 

First of all, let us begin with the common fear that many people have about referring to a snake as a snake. Though some of you might think I am joking, I know that it is a serious matter with many, since over half the people who telephone me when they sight a snake in their home or compound will never use the word snake in the conversation. A very vague sense of vocabulary comes into play when most people have to discuss about snakes. Words and phrases are twisted so much that it took me quite some practicing and experience before I was able to recognize when a person was trying to call me to catch a snake and not rescue some rare migrant mammal from South America!

Often people will refer to a snake as Te zanavar (that animal). Sometimes they will refer to it as or tumcho soiro (your relative), or another ‘riddle like’ way of explaining it is - that thing which usually moves at night and does not have legs! If they think the snake is a cobra they will describe it as Vodlo. Any other snake will fall into the category of Beshto. People are generally terrified to utter the word snake - the courageous ones may do so in whispers.

 

Why is this so? The fear stems from the widely held myth - that sad to say even educated people believe - that snakes are vengeful and one is inviting trouble if one dares to refer to the creature aloud. I will deal with the revenge aspect (which is also a myth) in my next column but for today let’s just deal with whether reptiles can hear you say the word sorop (snake).

 

The fact of the matter is that snakes are deaf. They cannot hear you at all. They can neither hear spoken words, nor music or any other sound. Further, snakes understand neither Konkani nor English nor any other language! So, there is absolutely nothing dangerous in you saying the word ‘snake’ aloud. Usage of the word ‘snake’ in loud conversation, at home, on the telephone, on the street, in the forest, or any where in the world will not bring hordes of snakes to your home at night.

 

Nor does whistling attract snakes in any way. Being deaf, snakes are definitely not musically inclined and the music that the snake charmers play on their bheens is actually only for your entertainment. What causes the snakes to sway and move when the snake charmer puts up his show is the movement of the bheen, not the sound that emanates from it.

 

So, the next time you need to speak about a snake, do so with confidence, knowing that a snake can neither hear you nor does it care about what you think about it. It is simply minding its own business.

 

 

 

THE REVENGEFUL SNAKE

 

PART I

 

There is no myth as widely prevalent as the belief that snakes seek revenge. For ages, people have been conditioned to believe that when a snake enters a house, it is only to punish the inmates for a misdeed committed by them either recently or long ago or even by someone of their family. Which means that we credit snakes with memory and with the ability to figure out who the numerous family members are and their various residences. If you think about it, it does seem pretty ridiculous.

When I rescue snakes from peoples’ homes, invariably, as I am packing my bag to leave, they will inquire what I intend to do with the snake. I always answer, truthfully, that I will release it. The next question is - where?

That’s the tricky part. The question essentially stems from their fear that the snake will return for retribution. Therefore people want to be assured that the snake is released as far away from their homes as possible.

Knowing the reason for their query and also genuinely wanting that they get a good night’s sleep after all the trauma they have already, needlessly, put themselves through, I usually play safe by telling them that I release all snakes in the forest. But actually, I release all of them (with the exception of a few venomous ones) behind my house!

Sometimes people ask whether I will remove the snake’s teeth before releasing it The belief being that if the teeth of a snake are removed before releasing it, it will not return to harm its captor. In other words, teeth help the snake remember. Jesus! Some people have all the imagination.

As a matter of fact, let me tell you that not one of the countless snakes I have released has ever entered my house to seek revenge either on me or my family – none of them for that matter are even seen anywhere around the neighborhood, nor have they returned to the houses that I caught them from. They just slink away as fast as they can.

Let me give you some reasons why snakes avoid all humans like the plague.

One, ask yourself ‘Do snakes eat humans?’ No. Not even the big pythons and anacondas include humans in their diet. That’s just filmy stuff. So, essentially, they really cannot take revenge on humans

Two, do they want revenge? No. Because all snakes, (including King Cobras), are plain SCARED of human beings. Think about it – a supine, three to five pounds cobra, crawling on the ground versus a huge, one hundred and fifty pounds human, standing upright, with limbs and intelligence, able to pick up a big stick and smash the cobra to pulp. A snake can’t jump. It can’t use a weapon. At best it can bite. But it really wants to run away, for instinctively it knows that it is no match for you.

Three, a snake has a very small brain. With just enough space to store the instincts it needs to survive – to search out food, find a mate, avoid enemies and so on. There is no space in the brain for it to remember places or persons, let alone put together complex mental programmes like thinking, plotting revenge etc..

 

PART II

 

As for teeth serving as memory, let us dissect this myth using plain logic - something that humans pride themselves on having. What physiological relation would teeth have with memory? None. Teeth serve only one purpose – to bite. If you are toothless, the only thing you can’t do is bite, but you sure can remember everything, can’t you? Similar is the case with the snake. Moreover, if the snake’s teeth helped the snake to remember then its teeth would be part of its brain and it wouldn’t be called teeth anymore. But not a single scientific book says so and such fantasy simply isn’t true at all.

I release all snakes with their teeth intact. It would be a needless act of cruelty to do otherwise, for teeth are absolutely necessary for any creature to survive, particularly when it has to fend for itself. In any case I don’t relish the thought of any snake knocking on my door asking for the return of its teeth.

But why do snakes hang around human habitations, if they have no use for humans? The answer is that here that they find food and water. Rats and frogs, especially. It is for this reason that I do not release snakes on top of the hills or on barren stretches of rocky plateaux. I know that in such terrain there is hardly any food or water for most species to survive. Snakes released on the hills are bound to travel sooner or later back to the plains, around human habitations.

The good part, of course, is that though most of our village habitations are teeming with snakes, we almost never see them. Why? Because snakes are good at concealing themselves. They also do not desire any encounter with humans. So they stay on the outskirts. It is only occasionally, when they are so preoccupied chasing their prey, that they inadvertently enter our homes. This is when we notice them and ignorantly attribute the worst motives – killing, revenge etc – to them.

As a matter of fact a snake is not even comfortable in our homes. Its body scales are unable to function on smooth surfaces, such as floors. It has only one desire - to get out. Unfortunately, often, it cannot do so quickly enough.

So, get one thing straight and you will be the happier for it: Snakes do not seek revenge. No matter whether you have spoken the word ‘snake’ aloud or sighted one somewhere in the bushes or your vehicle has run over one on the road, snakes will never follow you anywhere, ever.

 

 

 

SNAKE HOUSE

 

There is no myth as notorious as the belief that snakes seek revenge. People have been conditioned to believe that when a snake enters a house it is only because it is seeking revenge on the owners in someway.

When I catch snakes in people’s houses I don’t use mantras. So it is but natural that most people will inquire as to what I will do with the snake I have caught from their house and where I will release it

The questions stem from the fear of the snake returning to complete its job and therefore people would want the snake to be released as far away from their homes as possible.

I will usually play it safe by saying that I release all rescued snakes in the forest. Actually I release all of them (with the exception of a few venomous ones) behind my house! Anticipating your next question I will add that not one of these released snakes have ever been seen anywhere around my village or the houses that I caught them from again.

Why don’t I release them in Molem? Because Molem is too far for one thing and it is already more than full with snakes for another thing. Sainath a snake catcher from the forest department has been releasing at least twenty snakes there every week for the last four years. Many of the other snake catchers also release rescued snakes there. Snakes are high up in the food chain. Each one of them requires a certain area to itself. If the snakes over populate an area and their territories overlap, fights would break out, food would be scarce and the whole natural balance would come crashing down.

Same reason I do not release them on the hills. In my opinion there is hardly any food or water for most species to survive up there. Most of the snakes released up there would invariably end up back in the plains around human habitations. Because here is where they will find water, and with it rats, and frogs in plenty.

The good part about this is that though most of our village habitations are teeming with snakes, we almost never see them. Why? Because snakes are so good at concealing themselves and minding their own business that they rarely come into contact with people. Only occasionally are they so pre occupied chasing their prey that they enter human homes. This is when we notice them and assume the worst intensions.

Once in a house a snake feels threatened. Its body scales are unable to function on smooth surfaces such as floors. A snake in the house has only one desire - to get out.

Get one thing straight. Snakes don’t seek revenge. No matter whether you said the word ‘snake’, cut mushrooms growing on an anthill, or ran over one with your motor vehicle on the road, snakes will never follow you.

 

 

 

THE TOOTH BRAIN

 

One regularly asked question usually after I have caught a cobra is ‘Will you remove the snakes teeth before you release it?’

Now this question is related to the belief that if the teeth of a snake are removed before releasing it, it will not return to harm its captor. The belief is that the teeth help the snake remember, and that if they are removed the snake remembers nothing by the time the new ones have grown back. Jesus! Some people have all the imagination.

Now I ask you to think logically for a second. What physiological relation would the snakes teeth have with its memory? Teeth have always been meant to serve one purpose- biting. That’s why teeth are called teeth and the brains form the mind. If snake teeth served to remember then they would be called brains wouldn’t they?

I release all my snakes with their teeth intact. In addition to being humane this is a perfectly safe and risk free act. In any case I would feel constantly troubled if I had to expect snakes constantly knocking on my door asking for the teeth that I had taken from them!

As far as their brains are concerned I have no fears either. Snakes were given a brain to store instinct, to live their lives simple as they are chasing frogs and finding mates and laying eggs, and perhaps for allowing for forgiveness against the countless cruelties that we bestow upon them ever time one of them crosses our path.

They have no faculty for storing revenge or payback.

 

 

NEVER BITTEN NEVER SHY

 

People ask some strange questions sometimes. For instance sometimes after I have caught a snake and it is safely inside a bag someone might ask

‘Will you kill the snake after taking home?’

At this point I will breathe in deeply before I answer. What I am actually burning to say is something like – ‘You stupid idiot I wouldn’t have spent five minutes in mortal danger trying to catch a venomous cobra if I was only going to kill it later. Why, I’d have killed it straight away.’

That’s never what I say of course. In the end what comes out of my mouth is just an ordinary diplomatic and non-provocative answer

‘No. We snake catchers never kill snakes. We set them free.’

Most people actually don’t bother what I do with the snakes I catch, just so long as I take them far away from them. Few are adamant that I kill the snakes. Very few believe that I shouldn’t kill snakes. These people will take the trouble to call me and pay me for catching a snake even when they could have it killed otherwise.

Why shouldn’t you kill snakes? Well I could list a great number of reasons.

First of all it is illegal. Yes! Most people don’t know that under the wildlife law all snakes are protected. Some snakes like pythons are Schedule I animals. That means you could get the same sentence for killing a python that you would get for killing a tiger! If you have devoted your life to being the village snake killing hero then its time you started keeping a low profile.

Secondly the ecological role snakes play is tremendous. They keep the rat population under control.

Consider that when I tell you rats destroy about 40% of our grain every year.

A single pair of rats could multiply to a few hundreds in a year. A large rat-snake will eat three big rats a week.

Smaller snakes will feed on insects. Many of these insects are not pests only because their numbers remain under control. Take away the snakes and we’ll have some new worries to occupy our minds.

I could list a good number more and you might still not be convinced. Well consider this. Killing an animal just because it exists is wrong.

Do snakes seek revenge? No. Have you ever been a victim of an unprovoked attack by a snake? No. Then why the unyielding hate and fear that drives us to kill every time a snake chances upon crossing our path?

 

SNAKE BAG

The bag that I use to keep my snakes in is the normal gym bag as you would call it. It is not of a thick material so people are always curious to know whether the snake can bite me through the bag from the inside.

Actually the answer is yes and no. Theoretically the snakes fangs (vipers especially) can pass through the bag. So if say you press the snake while it is inside the bag, and if the snake decides to return the favour with a bite on the exact spot where your hand or foot is squeezing it, then you could in all probability be bitten.

But practically for a bite to take place in such a way is an impossibility. First of all even if you do hurt a snake from the outside of a bag, in most cases the snake just hisses. When inside the bag the snake can’t see its enemy for one thing and therefore it doesn’t even know what or where it should exactly attack.

Secondly for a snake to bite a body part under normal circumstances (not within the confines of a bag) it may only have to open its mouth a few degrees. But if it has to bite a hand from inside the bag, then it would have to open its mouth at least 180 degrees wide before it can get its fangs in a position for passing them out of the bag. Imagine yourself inside a sack and think how difficult it would be for yourself to bite someone provoking you from the outside.

When I am transporting snakes I sling the bags right across my shoulder. I have never had any reason to fear even when there were poisonous cobras and vipers in them

 

 

 

SNAKES, RICE AND MANTRAS

 

 

When a traditional snake catcher is unable to find a snake that he has been called to catch, he will usually chant out a mantra and spray rice grains that have been magic charmed to ward away the snake if it is still there.

This practice of dispelling snakes with mantras has been carried out for decades altogether. It has therefore become a belief so firmly ingrained in peoples minds that very often when I am unable to find a snake I was called to catch, the people around will ask me if I will give them some of this special rice to throw around or say a mantra to help chase the snake away.

I do believe that there are many details that are not really understood about snakes and many other animals for that matter. Animals may have their own auras and may respond to certain vibrations that we are wholly unaware of. Many insects rely on infra red waves and ultraviolet light that we are fully blind to - that is a totally different subject of course.

But there is one thing I am certain of, and that is that the mantras are a load of thrash. They don’t work for sure where snakes are concerned, but with humans it is a different story altogether. The reassure people most effectively. The snake charmers mantras are never aimed at the snake. They are aimed at the people who have been frightened by it instead. It works in a faith healing kind of way.

The chances of a snake reappearing in the same area once a search has been conducted are slim. In 95% of the cases the snake will not reappear once it knows that people have been looking for it. And that’s when the people who had seen will say Aha, all thanks to the mantra the snake has not returned.

What about the remaining 5% of the times when the snake does reappear again? That doesn’t change things either. People treat snake catchers like soldiers of God; they would never question the snake catcher as to why the snake still did return after the mantra had been used. In fact that thought will never even cross their mind. They will instead quickly call the snake catcher back again (he will of course be ready with a convincing excuse that the snake returned because it was harmed, or because it is a deity guarding that particular place this explanation works very well!)

The snake will be caught and the snake catcher will make a tidy sum over and excluding the amount he has already charged for the mantra before.

When people ask me for mantras I tell them it is a waste of their time and money. If they don’t seem convinced I give them directions to the nearest snake catcher distributing mantras. I know they are cheated. But if that wasted money gives them peace of mind at least, then that’s not so bad either. It is definitely better to have health in exchange of wealth, and stress from a snake can be a powerful health affecter.

Once a person called me from Margoa asking me for a mantra. Apparently he had run over a snake accidentally with his motor bike and he was worried that the snake would come to take its revenge in the night. The poor guy was scared to death. I had to spend a good amount of time convincing him that it was totally unnecessary for him to spend the night at his relative’s house which was twenty kilometers away from his own.

Snake catchers thrive on the fears that they themselves dispel whenever they get a chance to in peoples minds. I remember once chatting with a person who told me a fabulous story.

He said that he had run over a snake with his bike, and fearful that the snake would return to seek revenge while he was sleeping he called a local snake catcher to catch it.

The snake catcher apparently searched for a while in some bushes near his house and promptly pulled out a snake which he claimed was the one that had been run over by the very same vehicle that this person owned.

And you believed that it was the same one you had run over I asked the person I was talking with.

Yes. he replied confidently. Because the snake charmer even showed me the tire marks of my scooter that were still visible on the snakes back.

 

 

 

MONGOOSE

 

Two proverbial enemies; the snake and the mongoose. Though partially correct this is a small misnomer that I though would need better explanation of.

Hindi movies often have scenes showing a mongoose killing a cobra, and because most people regard snakes as dangerous and treacherous, the mongoose invariably gets the status of being the hero and a life saver. I remember reading stories in my English school book wherein a pet mongoose raised by a family one day returns the favour and saves the life of a baby by killing a cobra that would have bitten the child otherwise.

I however am fond of both these animals. Handling snakes for some years now you could say that I am quite comfortable with cobras and other snakes.

The mongoose on the other hand I have never had any interaction with. But from various accounts that I have heard from friends who have kept these delightful little animals, I have grown a liking for them as well. One of my friends used to tell me of how mischievous and playful these animals can be. Apparently one day when he was searching for his pet mongoose under a cupboard, the mongoose ran towards his face and gave him a playful bite on the nose!

It is for a fact that mongooses kill and eat snakes. And if we use the word enemy to describe this prey - predator relationship then it hold true also (like considering a lion to be the enemy of a deer).

But, what is not true is to imagine that the mongoose holds a grudge against the snake, and that it goes around searching for snakes to kill them because it hates them.

The mongoose- a greyish brown mammal with a pole cat like nose and with a body size as big as a domestic cat- is an indiscriminate predator. It will eat anything so long as it can over power it.

While dealing with a snake like a cobra, the mongoose uses its sharp reflexes and natural gymnast like movements to be able to kill this extremely dangerous animal. The cobra though being a highly venomous snake is not such a fast or accurate striker. Most of its hisses and strikes are feigned attacks meant only to frighten its enemy.

On encountering a cobra the mongoose will provoke the snake into attacking itself. Evading the cobra’s strikes like a trained kungfu master, it tires the snake. Every time the cobra strikes forward it wastes a lot of force and energy. In addition the mongoose which is a very furry animal puffs up its hair to make itself twice as big. So actually half of what the snake strikes at thinking to be mongoose is only hair!

As the snake tires, the mongoose moves in closer. And when it finally feels the snake to be exhausted it moves in for the kill, biting straight into the head killing it. After the snake is dead it will proceed to eat it.

But like I mentioned earlier the mongoose will only attacks the snake because it regards it as one of its foods. In addition to eating snakes, a mongoose will prey on small reptiles, small mammals, birds and their eggs, crabs and basically any other small animal they come across.

It is important to remember that in no way is the mongoose immune to the bite of a cobra, and should it be bitten it would die just as well.

Research conducted though on the Yellow Mongoose which preys on the African Cape Cobra shows the former to possess partial immunity to the bite of the latter.

But this again should not be hastily misinterpreted. Cats for instance may show a greater immunity to snake venom over dogs. But over dogs and cats, pigs seem to show the highest immunity, and it would be difficult to imagine that pigs imbibed this higher immunity as an evolutionary adaptation to help them feed on snakes!

 

 

 

 

CLASSIFICATION OF SNAKES

 

 

There are two or three criteria upon which snakes maybe classified. The basic one of course would be the venomous and non venomous.

Then one could also divide snakes into egg layers and live bearers. Yes! Some snakes do give birth to live young just like mammals. The difference though is that there is no placenta or umbilical connection between the mother and her babies. The mother merely provides a safe place inside her body for her embryos till they develop fully. Their nourishment comes only from the egg yolk sac which is attached to them same way as in a baby chicken. In other words it is like the hatching of an egg inside the body of its mother. Vine snakes, cat snakes and all boas and vipers are viviparous.

Venomous species draw most attention from us. So it is but natural that a list of venomous snakes in their ascending order of poison potency would be of a big interest for people. If one goes by pure potency alone then the Inland Taipan would probably rank as the deadliest snake in the world. It would be difficult to estimate but roughly some experts would guess it to be forty times more venomous than our Indian Cobra.

I can hear your breath suck in! Don’t let that figure excite or scare you too much though- Ill explain why.

Let’s take the example of the Saw Scaled viper and the Russell’s Viper. The Saw Scaled Viper ranks second in venom toxicity among the four venomous snakes of India. The Russell’s viper has the least toxicity of the four. But that doesn’t necessarily make the Saw Scaled more dangerous. Quantity of venom plays a major role also, and in this respect the Saw Scaled looses to the Russell’s. Because the Saw scaled grows to only around ten inches in length, whereas the Russell’s may reach almost a meter. Being a very thick snake the Russell’s viper will also weigh much more than a Saw scaled viper. The quantity of venom produced by a Russell’s far exceeds that produced that by the Saw Scaled off setting and tipping the balance cleanly in favor of the Russell’s viper as to be the more feared snake.

A bite from a king cobra can kill a person in fifteen minutes, making it one of the most feared snakes in the world. But the venom toxicity of the King cobra is actually less than that of the common cobra! The King cobra however injects twenty times more poison than a common cobra because of its sheer size alone (enough to kill an elephant with a single bite).

So don’t rate snakes by their venom toxicity alone!

Unlike most synthetic poisons venoms are so complex that it is difficult to compare and rank them one against the other. Some venoms are neurotoxic (cobras and kraits) affecting the nerves, others are hemotoxic (vipers) blood destroyers, and yet others like sea snakes have a predominantly myotoxic venom- destroyer of muscle tissue.

Very few of the snakes have a venom composition purely of one kind. Most have a mixture, and some such as sea snakes may have all the three toxic elements in them.

The neurotoxic venoms are more feared than the hemotoxic though.

The Common Indian Krait which is almost purely neurotoxic is ranked as the most venomous snake in Asia. Ten to fifteen times more venomous than the much more famous cobra!

Yet the snake is the easiest to handle and is one of the least offensive of all the poisonous snakes. The Banded Krait found in eastern India though very venomous, is practically harmless as it has never know to bite a human being!

On the other hand most of the vipers though they have a lesser toxic venom are highly temperamental and easily provoked. The little Saw Scaled Viper found quite commonly in dry stony regions is ranked as the most aggressive venomous snake in entire Asia.

There are some characters that remain common to all snakes. For instance all snakes are defensive only when it comes to encountering humans. There are no snakes (including the King Cobra) that would actively hunt down a human, or attack a person unprovoked. We however just don’t seem to be able to live and let live. It is due to this irrational fear that we humans share that I have to make that unwanted classification when I make my entries in my snake rescue diary; alive or freshly killed.

 

VENOM

One frequently asked question to me as a snake handler is what medicine I use when I am bitten. Very often people will even ask me to lend them some for safe keeping hoping it might help them in time of emergencies. India being the land of snake charmers and mantras, people will readily buy anything even from a quack- usually this would be some dried root of a plant, or a darkened stone- which they will treasure all their life, secure all the while that when that fateful day arrives they will be well prepared.

Learning snake handling the scientific way (I dont suppose there to be any other way possible since I have time and again mentioned that snake charming is out of the question) I have a very scientific approach to the treatment of snake bite as well.

In order to understand how to cure a snake bite let us first understand what snake venom does to its victim in the first place. Snake venom is a complex mixture of protein enzymes actually having evolved from typical salivary glands that are found in the head region of most animals.

The poison is produced in two glands located in the head region, which empty their contents into two ducts and which in turn are connected to two corresponding fangs as we call them. The fangs are hollow and syringe like, and when the snake pressurizes the gland the stored venom is forced into the ducts thence into the fangs which inject it deeply into the wound (one of the reason you cant suck out the poison!).

The venom injected as I have already mentioned is of a complex nature. Each protein enzyme in it will produce the result it was designed for. Some will paralyze the nerves, others will destroy the blood cells, some are designed to destroy connective tissue, and yet others cannibalize on muscle tissue. Snakes have no limbs and claws to tear their prey and they evolved venom to help them over power their prey and digest it from the inside even before they actually begin swallowing it! Venom as defense probably just serves as a secondary function.

Each species of snake has its own different composition and proportion of these enzymes and consequently will produce different effects. To go into the details of venom effects would be beyond the scope of this article, but what I would like to mention is that because snake venom is actually a protein made up of amino acids, it can be swallowed and digested by any stomach with no ill effects at all! Yes snake venom would make a very nutritious drink (very expensive though!) provided you have no wounds in your mouth or ulcers in your stomach!

You might have noticed I use the term venom only, and not poison. Poison is something that would make you sick if you swallowed it. Potassium Cyanine is a poison. Mushrooms could be poisonous. Snakes are only venomous. You could eat a whole cobra raw and not die of poisoning.

Snake venom is only dangerous in contact with blood. Once it gets in there the only thing that can neutralize it is anti snake venin (ASV). ASV is actually horse serum which is separated from horse blood.

It is produced by injecting tiny quantities of raw venom (starting with about one tenth the normal fatal dose for the animal) into a horse to produce immunity in it. The horse reacts by producing antibodies to it (similar to how we produce antibodies to coughs and colds). At regular intervals the quantity of venom is increased and finally that day arrives when the horse is able to bear with little or no side effects, an injection of a full dose of snake venom that would have killed an ordinary horse otherwise. Now the horses blood is extracted, and centrifuged. The separated clear serum is then dried, processed and sold as ASV.

In India the horse is injected with a mixture of the venoms of all the four poisonous snakes i.e. the Cobra, the Krait, the Saw Scaled Viper and the Russells Viper. This polyvalent ASV as it is known as is the only cure I believe in, because it was produced and designed to destroy snake venom and which it does most effectively when injected into an envenomated person.

The drawback to it though is that many people are allergic to horse serum, and this is no light matter to be pushed aside. Allergic reactions can vary from small hives and lumps on the skin, to severe shock and at times death.

Injection of ASV into a person who is allergic to horse serum could kill him from an anaphylactic shock before he died of the actual snake bite itself.

Only a hospital stocks cortisol, adrenaline and antihistamine which can prevent the allergic reaction from happening otherwise.

Another reason why you need to treat the bite at a hospital -Blood. Incase of viper bites the venom produces massive hemorrhage and excessive bleeding (one reason why you should never go about cutting a wound!)

When I was at the Queen Savobha institute in Thailand I gathered some more interesting information also. Dr. Montri a scientist there told me of how many snake bite victims had been saved even without antivenin just by ensuring that the victim was kept breathing with an iron lung. In case of neurotoxic venoms like that of the cobra the respiratory nerves are paralyzed choking the person to death. The liver plays a major role as a detoxifier and would even manage to destroy venom as long as the person remained alive and breathing. This is a very useful piece of information especially in the case of bites from snakes whose antivenin is not available. Again the only place you could get an iron lung the hospital.

At the hospital a doctor would perform a clotting test to check if the person has venom in his blood. Remember just because you saw yourself getting bitten by a cobra doesnt mean you have venom in your blood. Snakes very often will bite and inject nothing (a dry bite).

If the venom test proves positive the doctor will administer the antivenin keeping a careful watch all the while for any allergic reactions.

Now coming to the alternatives, there are actually none.

I remember one day when I was in the forest with a group of Irulas (a tribe in Tamil Nadu with whom I learnt snake handling) I asked one of them what he would do if bitten by a snake.

Tribal medicine was the prompt reply.

A few days the very same Irula was bitten by a Krait and the first thing he did was rush to the hospital.

Many chemicals have been proved to neutralize venom in a test tube. That doesnt prove a thing though. Hell I could neutralize venom with a table spoon of toilet acid in a test tube. But that doesnt mean I could inject myself with a syringe full of it when I am bitten.

If you have been suckered into buying a snake stone then I have bad news for you as well. Myth has it that when the stone is applied to a snake bite wound, it sucks the venom out and drops off when all of it has been extracted. The snake stone is nothing but a clotting device, it will suck the blood from the wound until it is saturated and then fall off. It can do nothing to the venom.

Bottom line, if you are bitten by a snake rush straight to a hospital. In Goa all the primary health centres and the three main hospitals are well stocked with ASV and well equipped to deal with snake bites.

I myself have never been bitten and I hope to remain so. Many of my friends though have been bitten, and they all agree that the GMC in Bambolim is the best place to deal with a snake bite.

Incase you do own a dog you could stock yourself with some antivenin which you could get at the Hafkine institute Bombay. Dogs tend to die very fast from snake bites, usually even before a vet can arrive. My mother saved her dog on a farm in Valpoi by injecting it with a dose of ASV in the thigh muscle.

Most people also ask me how long it would take for a snake to kill a person, an answer I cannot provide for the reason that there are too many factors associated with setting that death clock (the weight of the person, the size of the snake, the season of the yearto give you a few examples!)

Ill give you another answer instead. Even if you were to take two hours to reach a hospital, you would be quite safe and alive should you remember not to panic.

 

 

 

 

CAGES

 

One thing that I have always hated is to see animals in cages. In Goa unfortunately it is still quite a common sight to see a small animal or a bird housed in a tiny cage hanging outside a house.

I myself have tried to keep a bird only once when I was a kid. At that time my cousins were over, it was the summer season and one of my neighbors had managed to capture a female parrot along with two or three of her hatchlings.

We had a relatively large cage and I asked this neighbour if he would give us one of the parrots since he had so many. The neighbour agreed to give me the mother.

The bird was a Blossom Headed parakeet. She had a lovely parrot green colour and her head was a soft pinkish plum colour. When the bird was transferred to her new cage, the neighbour gave her a wash with water (I never knew why.) which was sprayed on her with a pipe through the bars of the cage. With the bird thoroughly soaked, he bade us farewell.

Meanwhile all inquisitive the five of us clustered around the cage. The bird was tempting, and within a quarter of an hour our patience had boiled over. We decided to feed it. Of course we fought over who should feed the bird, and so with four or five of us all trying to get our heads in the cage and stick our hands closer to the bird, it was but natural that the bird should escape in the process.

Somehow it climbed out while we frantically tried to shut the cage door, slamming it into each others fingers in the process. All was now in vain, the bird was out. But because it was still soaking wet it couldn’t fly away. So it walked around awkwardly in that characteristic parrot like gait, holding on to the soil with its clawed toes and squawking all the while.

My eldest cousin was a city kid from Bombay, and knowing nothing about birds except having a preconceived notion that they were cute and cuddly decided to recapture it. As a village boy I knew that to try and catch a parrot with ones bare hands meant two things- sheer pain and torture. The parrot beak is legendary for advertising the crushing power that it can exert on the nuts and fruits it cracks to eat.

Shouting No Lucu no… no and with a couple of hysterical screams we tried to warn Lucu of the impending danger. But Lucu was transfixed.

I could see it in his eyes all the while, the drawing mesmerising desire to clasp the bird. Walking slowly and unafraid, Lucu crouched behind the bird and closed his fingers tenderly around its soft small body.

The short silence that followed next was broken by Lucu’s piercing scream HYARRGH, from the parrot crushing straight into his finger.

The bird was free again, and Lucu had had his first parrot handling lesson. Fortunately the injury was hardly anything, and there was no blood at all.

We rushed back to my neighbour to call him back. But by the time he returned the bird had safely climbed a tall tree in the garden. It hung around till its wings dried squawking occasionally and then flew away.

I never kept a bird after that. A lot of my neighbours still do though. Even this particular neighbour who had captured the female parrot and her hatchlings, kept one of the baby birds for years to come. The cage he housed it in was pitifully small. It was smaller than a square foot in diameter, and the poor parrot spent his whole life in it. I remember he grew into a beautiful bird with a grey head and a yellow beak, and every time I’d go there he’d shriek loudly probably asking why he couldn’t be let out to join with all the other parrots flying around. This had to be one of the saddest cases ever, as from birth he had been imprisoned into a cage not big enough to stretch his wings, and that too for no fault of his own.

At one time I was especially involved in conducting raids on people keeping animals in cages, and so I have seen some pretty miserable cases.

I have seen a crocodile confined inside a black fibre glass water tank which used to be kept without a care in the hot afternoon sun. Black being a colour that absorbs heat most efficiently, the tank was practically baking the poor animal inside. On top of this the crocodile had long since out grown the circular tank, and was forced to remain curled inside it all the time.

I know of one person who had cut the wings of an eagle just to fit it inside a cage that it was too small for.

These are the same people who will call these animals their pets. They aren’t your pets, they are your prisoners.

If you are one of these people, then it’s high time you released the poor animal.

People are quick to come up with excuses that the caged animal being accustomed to an artificial life will not survive if released back into the wild.

I think this problem can be dealt effectively with a little effort made on the part of the captor, by retraining the animal how to hunt or a bird how to fly again.

Two wildlife activists I know of, Harvey D’Souza and Neil Alvares, have been especially successful in this area. I myself have been with Harvey once while he was training two Purple Herons that had been caged for years altogether, how to feed again.

We took the birds to a small rivulet next to his house, and placed them in the shallow water with a long string tied to their legs. With the free end of the string in our hands we crouched motionless in the stream about twenty feet away.

Though the birds would remain motionless for several minutes together, I noticed that from time to time they would dip their long beaks into the water to catch the fish swimming under. Within a month they were fully capable of fishing and fending for themselves and Harvey released them. Harvey trained a kite to hunt lizards in the same way, and most of the birds had their wing muscles strengthened by throwing them high into the air with a string tied to their legs.

In case of some animals which don’t get tamed even after years in captivity, the animal could be released without any reconditioning, as is the case with crocs which are released immediately after being confiscated in a raid.

In a situation like this one must look to one’s own conscience for answers. Your conscience may justify a lot of things, it may even justify a meat eating diet, but it definitely won’t allow for keeping an animal in a cage serving for you only as a little entertainment once in a while.

The truth is birds belong to the air, animals to the forest and the fish to the sea, and not to a cage. Its time you set them free.

 

 

 

 

 

NAG PANCHAMI

 

Nag Panchami this year was held on the second of August. This is the day

 corresponding with the lunar month of Shravan  on which the snake god is worshipped. And I should add, killed.

I have very nostalgic memories of Nag Panchami. I began snake handling at fifteen years of age. But before that my head too was bursting with superstitions about snakes, all fed to me by my neighbors along with numerous ghost stories told in those balcao (veranda)sessions at night.

For instance, they alleged that the green whip snake with its arrow shaped head could bore into a persons head through the ears and then eat up the brains once inside and my neighbor swears that she actually pulled out one from her husbands ear just before it had found his brain. Impossible of course! Whip snakes neither peck out eyeballs nor do they have any use for human brains.

On Nag Panchami day, I would rush early morning to my neighbors house when the idol of the snake was brought in. The figure would be that of a crimson, orange - yellow or pinkish cobra, with its hood flared out, marked all along the body and face with black spots and glitter, making the snake look as colourful as a new bride.

We would eat a sumptuous lunch at their place and thereafter my neighbor would take the idol to the cow shed. Here the snake will come alive and talk to the cows, shed say to me. And I, gullible as a gull, would swallow her fairy tale hook, line and sinker without ever bothering to question as to how a mud idol could not only come alive but talk to the cows as well.

In my area there were rarely any live cobras brought for worship. But in some other parts of Goa and Maharashtra particularly, live snakes are invariably used for rituals on this day.

Snake charmers carry snakes  cobras especially  from door to door for worship. At every house the snakes mouth is forced open and some milk poured down its throat. Milk is not snake food. It is more like a poison for them; it has adverse effects on them, choking them, causing lung infections and finally death. Thousands of snakes routinely die during Nag Panchami.

I find it amazing that adults who pride themselves on their capacity for rational thought, blindly accept such practices followed by snake charmers. Where in the wild would a snake get milk to drink? Snakes do not produce milk. They do not feed milk to their young ones. Yet the entire Indian population is firmly mired in the belief that snakes must be fed milk!

The snakes, of course, can be abused in this way because they have been rendered totally harmless by their keepers. Cobras and other poisonous snakes have their fangs pulled out and their mouths bruised and smashed beyond repair. These snakes die soon after Nag Panchami.

I ask people not to take part in these activities that inflict countless cruelties on snakes. Please therefore do not patronize or lend money to snake charmers. Also remember using snakes for entertainment or rituals is against the wildlife law. If you are really concerned, inform the forest department and have the snake charmer dissuaded from his occupation.

 

THE BEST PETS

 

Snakes make the best pets. At least better than cats and dogsI can assure you. Cats and dogs can be very affectionate, dogs especially are very faithful as well.

Butmy favourite pets have always been reptiles. One of my first reptile pets was a female Red Eared turtle (popularly called sliders) which I had received as a parting present from the Madras Crocodile Bank.I still remember vividly the first bite I got from her -- one of the nastiest bites I ever received from animal or human! First was my excruciating pain (the turtle took a small chunk off my thumb)and then my sheer joy; now at last I had a bite from a turtle to complete my reptile bite list. I had already been bitten by a baby crocodile, a lizard and plenty of non-poisonous snakes.The turtlewas the last of the fourgroups that reptiles consist of.

I also remember distinctly the turtle tumbling out of my backpack (my mistake leaving the zipper slightly open as a breathing hole for her), and making for the door on thebus to Goa from Bangalore. It was night and I wouldnt have noticed her getaway if it hadnt been fora sweet old lady who tapped me on the shoulder and remarked, Son, I think its your water bottle. I quickly retrieved the scrambling turtle, relieved that no one had noticed what it was in reality instead.

ThisRed Eared turtle lived with me for several years. She was housed in a small artificial pond of ours, and ate anything as long as it was non-vegetarian. Funniest and most entertainingwas giving her chicken guts. On Sundays my mother would give me the bowel contents of the chickens once she had cleaned them, and I would feed them to my turtle .She would gulp them down hungrily, slicing the smooth intestineswith her boat shaped jaws clamping together swiftly and smoothly underwater. In a minute shed have swallowed the spaghetti like intestines and then she would stiffen for an instant, her Gollum like nasty face contorted with a pained sorry expression. Suddenly with an involuntary spasm and a jerk of her neck inwards, she would release two streams of cloudy undigested grain straight from her upturned nostrils, her eyes closed in bliss like a potsmoker,savouring the slow exit of intoxicating fumes through her horny nose.

My turtle I had to release in the end, because I had to leave Goa for a while. I left her in a local pond with plenty of fishes to feed on. Unfortunately a year later, she swallowed the hook of a fisherman who recognised her as mine and brought her back to me. It was very sad to see her suffering. The hook was deep down in her throat, so she wouldnt eat anything at all. I took her to a vet, who tried to operate on her but during thesurgery shedied.

Snakes I have kept on several occasions .One of them (a buffstriped keelback)even laid eight eggs. Sadly none of these hatched. One small problemhowever with keeping snakes as pets is that they will only eat live food, and finding frogs, toads and miceproved tobe quite a problem in the end. One young cobra I had kept ate eleven small frogs in a single sitting. The next day with a lot of difficulty I managed to find another three more, but when these were devoured even faster by the hungry cobra, I was forced to let him go. 

The advantages of having reptiles as pets are manifold. First of all they never smell. Dogs need a bath ever so often. Snakes have no hair, their body is smooth, (not slimy) hence they always remain clean. Unlike dogs you never need to brush snakes for that shiny attractive look. Every month and a half they shed their old skin to expose the brand new one underneath!

Dogs and cats can be very noisy at times. Two of our dogs used to shit in the house during the monsoons and if you live in a flat you know the trouble cleaning their fur off the cushions, picking their ticks, and talking them for walks.

Reptiles dont need walks. A snake well fed will sit as quiet as a mouse. They dont waste their precious energy chasing around from one room to another. Most reptiles need to be fed once or twice a week at the most. Compare this with the greedy looks and stomach aches that dogs will give you at every meal you sit down to eat.

Reptiles cant spread rabies. And lets not forget allergies! How many people are there that are allergic (I mean physically, not mentally) to snakes? And then very important, a house whichannounces Beware of Snakes is even less likely to invite burglars, than one thatsays Beware of Dogs.

Yes, snakes do bite, but so would any new animal not accustomed to humans. And just like dogs and cats,snakes can also be tamed -- to anextent where even a child could handleone without any fear of being bitten

 Of course the law doesnt allow snakes to be kept as pets. But that doesnt mean one should treat them as enemies instead. As for me, reptiles have alwaysoccupied a very special place in my heart, and Ican say the same would be true for you as well if you ever gave them thechance!

 

 

MONGOOSE

 

Two proverbial enemies  the snake and the mongoose. Though partially correct this is a small misnomer that I though would need better explanation of.

Hindi movies often have scenes showing a mongoose killing a cobra, and because most people regard snakes as dangerous and treacherous, the mongoose invariably gets the status of being the hero and a life saver. I remember reading stories in my English school book wherein a pet mongoose raised by a family one day saves the life of a baby by killing a cobra that would have bitten the child otherwise.

I however am fond of both these animals. Handling snakes for some years now you could say that I am quite comfortable with cobras and other snakes.

The mongoose on the other hand I have never had any interaction. But from various accounts that I have heard from friends who have kept these delightful little animals, I have grown a liking for them as well. One of my friends used to tell me of how mischievous and playful these animals can be. Apparently one day when he was searching for his pet mongoose under a cupboard, the mongoose ran towards his face and gave him a playful bite on the nose!

It is for a fact that mongooses kill and eat snakes. And if we use the word enemy to describe this prey - predator relationship then it hold true also(like considering a lion to be the enemy of a deer).

But, what is not true is to imagine that the mongoose holds a grudge against the snake, and that it goes around searching for snakes to kill them because it hates them.

The mongoose a greyish brown mammal with a pole cat like nose and with a body size as big as a domestic cat, is an indiscriminate predator. It will eat anything as long as it can over power it.

While dealing with a snake like a cobra, the mongoose uses its sharp reflexes and gymnast like movements to kill this extremely dangerous animal. The cobra though being a highly venomous animal is not such a fast or accurate striker. Most of its hisses and strikes are feigned attacks meant only to frighten its enemy.

On encountering a cobra the mongoose will provoke the snake into attacking itself. Evading the cobras strikes like a trained kungfu master, it tires the snake. Every time the cobra strikes forward it uses a lot of force and energy in the process. In addition the mongoose which is a very furry animal puffs up its hair to make itself twice as big. So actually half of what the snake strikes at thinking to be mongoose is only hair!

As the snake tires, the mongoose moves in closer. And when it finally feels the snake to be exhausted it moves in for the kill, biting straight into the head killing it. After the snake is dead it will proceed to eat it

But like I mentioned earlier the mongoose will only attacks the snake because it regards it as one of its foods. In addition to eating snakes, a mongoose will prey on small reptiles, small mammals, birds and their eggs, crabs and any other small animal they come across.

It is important to remember that in no way is the mongoose immune to the bite of a cobra, and should it be bitten it would die just as well.

Research conducted though on the Yellow Mongoose which preys on the African Cape Cobra shows the former to possess partial immunity to the bite of the latter.

But this again should not be hastily misinterpreted. Cats for instance may show a greater immunity to snake venom over dogs. But over dogs and cats, pigs seem to show the highest immunity, and it would be difficult to imagine that pigs have imbibed this higher immunity as an evolutionary adaptation to help them feed on snakes!

 

 

DISCOVERING OUTSIDE DISCOVERY

 

Youmustwatch National Geographic. Its just the thing for you. If someone says this to me one more time, I amgoing to blow up. WatchingDiscovery Channel seems to be the latest in fashion for showingyourconcern for animals today. Everybody wants to prove theirlovefor animals by talking about howtheyjust cant get enough of Animal Planet,

 

I have nothing against any of these channels. The photography, especially of the underwater sea world is beautiful and extraordinary. But I find thatwhile everyone wants to sit and watch whats showing on theirTV,not oneof them can ever spare a moment to find out about the things going on in their own backyards.

 

Attwenty three, I am theoldest of three brothers and I distinctly remember the family discussion at home some 15 years ago on the subject of TV. My parents have always been opposed to buying a TV and they were trying to explain to us the reasons why they were not falling in line with the TV buying public. We couldnt understand all their arguments and finally they put it to us this way: TV is for those who will never get to experience the real thing. Do you want to actually some day visit all those beautiful places they show on TV or will you be happy with just seeing them on the screen. The choicesimply put was: Buy a TV or travel around instead? We chose travel. AndIam proud to say that till today we have never allowed the idiot box a space in our house.We have travelled instead to almost allparts of India. I learnt snake catching in Pune, handled crocodiles in Mamallapuram, studied spiders and earthworms in Chennai and even travelled to Thailand and Malaysia in my quest to learn more about reptiles. All of which I managed to do because I never sat in front of a TV.

 

So whats to see in thebackyard? Well, have you ever noticed the different type of insects around? Grasshoppers, locusts, bugs, beetles, ants, spiders, geckoes, snails and shrews riddle almost every household. But they are little aliens to us when we compare them to the lions and tigers prancing around on the Animal Planet. Do youknow that spiders arent insects,that they have 8 legs instead of six? Same with scorpions. They belong to Aracnida. But whybother, since every once in awhilewe swoosh away all the cobwebs in our homes, sending all thespidersscuttling around for safety, their homes destroyed. Spiders prey on flies and mosquitoes. So much for natures mosquito control programme. Neither are cockroach eating geckoes welcome in our homes. And if we see a centipede (another cockroach terrorizer) we crush it quick.

 

Even in big cities one can find toads, frogs, snakes and birds. How many birds do we know the names of, other than crow or pigeon? How many wild plants do we know the uses of? Earthworms are found almost all over, but I cant think of one NG fan who has bothered to collect a few and setup a vermibed in an effort to tackle the kitchen waste, that we all produce everyday.

 

I dont believe that you are learning anything watching these channels either.

 

Every time I have tried to watch a snake programme on TV at a friends house I have given up after a short while. For one thing, TV programmes are very basic. They cater to viewers with the most average IQ. TV programmes are designed to catch the eye. They cannot be made even slightly complicated or you would soon lose interest. And the few bits of information that appear to enter your mind so easily, exitjust as fast. I can guarantee you that you will be none the smarter even after a watching a two hour show that you paid full attention to from the start.

 

So many people watch snake shows, butzero is the number of peoplewho will be able toidentify a snake on that basis. And close to 90% is the number ofthese TV viewerswho would happilysmasha snake shouldone cross theirpath. I have hadmany avid National Geographic viewers ask me very basic questions, like,is it true that snakesseek revenge, or that they have two heads sometimes?

 

One bad aspect about TV programmes is that they very often stray away from the truth. I remember once watching a video on Monitor lizards.Thunder Dragons waswhat it was called. Scenes of monitors clashingwith each other, claws drawn, lightening flashing and all this combined with the deep rumbling voice of the narrator, gave evenme the creeps. The truth is that monitor lizardslike snakes are cowardly at heart. Butthe simple truth is not alwaysso exciting is it?

 

If you are just a casualchannel surfer or you watch Discovery for the wonderful photography (I have to give them credit for that), and you have no other interest in the world around you, then you have no reason to feel hurt or offended by my article. But if you watch nature channels because you areinterested in learning something, then do this instead. Buy a book (about whatever you want to learn - snakes, insects, or birds).You will learn more, reading for 30 minutes, than you will if you managed to catch everyTV show on the subject for thenext 2 months.

 

Startbird watching, collect insects, its very easy when you have even a little genuine interest.

 

Now when I go to a friends house, I watcha movie instead.Thats better use ofmy free time. You read a few books and youll soon find that, thats true for you as well.

 

 

 

SNAKE BITE

 

On 8th April 2002, Anil Kumar, a young snake handler from the Forest Department working at Bondla was bitten by a cobra. The snake bit him when he was transferring it to a cage. Kumar was rushed first to two private doctors who were supposed to have anti-snake venom (ASV). Both of them, however, refused to treat him. After having thus lost valuable time, his colleagues rushed him to the I.D. hospital in Ponda where he was apparently given a primary dose of ASV and then sent to GMC. On the way, however, he died. No one knows how exactly he died. Some say it was because of the poison. I spoke to a forest officer who says that according to the post mortem report there was no venom found in Kumars brain and he probably died of shock instead.

 

I am a snake handler and have been handling poisonous snakes for about 6 years. When I heard the news of Kumars death I was shocked because I didnt think that anyone ought to die of a snake bite in Goa, especially after going to a hospital where ASV was stocked. So I decided to investigate this incident and also research on how snake bite cases are handled in Goa, so that the public  which is chronically in fear of snakes due to snake bites  would have authentic information about what to do in an emergency and no life was unnecessarily lost.

 

I myself have never been bitten by a poisonous snake though during my snake-handling training I allowed dozens of non-poisonous snakes to take a bite of my fingers, hands and wrists. One even bit me savagely on my nose! Bites from non-poisonous snakes, including the rat snake and the water snake, are quite painful, but they do not kill since there is no poison in them. But allowing oneself to be bitten by non-poisonous snakes takes away a great deal of the fear associated with snake bites.

 

A few friends of mine have been bitten, however, by deadly poisonous snakes. One of my friends, Aaron, once caught a Russels viper and was returning home with it on his motorcycle (holding it with both hands on the pillion while his friend Luke drove). At one place, Luke was forced to brake suddenly and Aaron lost his balance. The snake bit Luke on his back. A bite from a Russels viper will kill if not attended to with ASV.

 

Not knowing what to do, Aaron called me up because he knew that the office where my father works in Mapusa stores ASV for the safety of young people who rescue snakes. So the three of us on Aarons tiny motorcycle, with the Russels viper under our seat, rushed to Mapusa to retrieve the anti-dote. It was now about 12 in the night. With it, we rushed to the Mapusa Asilo. When we spoke to the doctors in charge, however, we found they were too nervous to handle the case, so we rushed to a private doctor in Porvorim, who directed us to the GMC. This is where Luke was finally treated, just as he was getting fuzzy from the poison. The running around looking for the ASV and doctors took us about 1  hour. Luke survived the ordeal because he remained cool.

 

Now I realise it must be as confusing for other people when they are bitten as it was for us that night. The more time you waste finding a doctor, the more dangerous it becomes for the snake-bite victim. On top of this, there are many snake charmers who offer untested and unreliable cures, wasting the victims time further, so that by the time he reaches the hospital it is invariably too late.

 

The only reliable cure for snake bite is anti-snake venom (ASV). ASV is made from the blood of horses that have been immunised to snake poison. This can sometimes create problems in some snake-bite victims who may have an allergy to horse serum. An allergic reaction to the administration of ASV can be very dangerous and can be more life-threatening than the bite itself. Therefore, doctors always carry out an allergy test prior to administration of ASV. For this reason, it is always best if ASV is administered by a doctor. If the person is found to have an allergic reaction to ASV, then anti-allergy drugs are first given to him or her after which ASV can be safely introduced

 

So, much depends on two things: first, are there enough ASV doses stocked in Goas hospitals and Primary Health Centres? Second, are the doctors able and confident enough to administer it? Private doctors generally refuse to administer ASV because they feel that if the person dies in some way, they will be held responsible. On the other hand, if a private doctor has stocks of ASV, it would be against his professional duty if he did not administer it, especially when delay can be fatal for the snake-bite victim. The worst thing a medical doctor can do is to send the patient running around in circles.

 

I checked out the availability of ASV in Goas hospitals with the man at the top: Dr A.V. Salelkar, Director of Health and Services. Dr. Salelkar told me that ASV is always available at GMC, Mapusa Asilo and at the Hospicio, Margao. He said it is also available at all the primary health centres, all of which are located in rural areas. So I checked out this information. All the three major hospitals mentioned above do have ample stocks of ASV. This is the situation at the following PHCs (phone numbers are given alongside):

 

Valpoi PHC      Had adequate ASV supplies.     Ph. 374260

Bicholim PHC    Had 5 vials.         Ph. 362041

Sanquelim PHC     Had 18 vials.         Ph: 364258

Pernem PHC    Had 67 vials.          Ph. 291249

Siolim PHC      No ASV stocked, due to proximity

to Mapusa Asilo. Also, nursing

staff not equipped to handle

snake bites.

Aldona PHC    Had adequate supplies but with

limited expiry date.      Ph: 293251

Candolim PHC    14 vials (expiry date: 2005)     Ph: 276035

Betki PHC      Had 20 vials.         Ph: 287160

Ponda PHC      Had 20 vials.         Ph: 312115

Sanguem PHC    Had 10 vials.          Ph 604235

Curchorem PHC    Had 20 vials.          Ph 650566

Bali PHC      Had 30 vials.         Ph: 670216

Canacona PHC    Had 32 vials.         Ph 643339

Assolna PHC     Details not available

 

All these PHCs are supposed to be able to deal with snake bites. I found, however, that in some cases, after a primary dose is administered, the snake bite victim is sent to the GMC. This happens often with those PHCs located close to the GMC. PHCs like those at Curchorem and Valpoi treat snake bites fully without referral to the GMC.

 

Snake bite cases are often referred to the GMC because it is the only hospital with a ventilator. This is very much essential when it comes to neurotoxic poisoning caused by cobra and krait bites. The venom paralyses the respiratory centres. In order to prevent respiratory failure, a ventilator is needed.

 

I spoke to the GMCs doctors. The GMC has been treating snake bite cases for a very long time Dr. Natekar of the Medicine Dept. told me. All the doctors at the hospital have experience in dealing with snake bite cases, he says.

 

One of my friends from Green Cross, Nirmal Kulkarni, was also bitten by poisonous snakes and he agrees that GMC is the best place to deal with snake bites. Nirmal Kulkarni says that he got bitten in Ponda but the doctors at the hospital there were not confident about handling his case, so he was moved to the GMC. This seems to be happening all the time.

 

 Goas other snake-catcher, Harvey DSouza, was bitten by a krait, a fairly deadly snake. He was treated successfully at GMC.

 

It appears that people still do not know what they should do in the case of a snake bite. Here are crucial dos and donts in case you or someone else is bitten by a poisonous snake:

 

(1) First aid: Keep the patient calm and reassured that he or she is going to get medical aid and that it is available. Snake bite victims can sometimes die of shock and not from the poison.

 

(2) Immediately apply a pressure immobilization bandage (see picture) to limb. Pressure should be as you would apply to a sprained ankle or knee. Elastic bandages work well. This slows lymphatic spread of the venom.

 

(3)  Do not use a tourniquet or ice. Most tourniquets are tied so tight that they prevent circulation of the blood in the bitten limb and cause tissue damage and necrosis, and many a times the consequence is the limb has to be amputated. Do not give alcohol, food or aspirin to the patient. Paracetimol is safe if needed for pain.

 

(4) Do not cut the wound or try to suck out the poison. This may result in infection and blood loss and is of very little use.

 

(5) Rush to the nearest PHC. Here a clotting test will be done together with an anti-allergy test. If the blood doesnt clot, and no other reactions ensue, a primary dose of anti-venom is immediately administered.

 

(6) Do not go to any private doctors. They may refuse to treat the case because they are either frightened or are not confident of administering the antidote and thus will simply waste precious time.

 

Earlier, since there were different antidotes for different poisonous snakes, people would try and kill the snake and bring it along with them for identification to the doctor. Killing the snake is not necessary today. First of all, the anti-dote is polyvalent, that is one antidote is effective against all poisonous snake bites. Secondly, even if one has been bitten by a poisonous snake, it could very well be a dry bite, that is, little or no venom has been injected by the snake through the bite. So the only way you know you require the antidote is by having the clotting test done. The clotting test enables the doctor to establish that there is venom in the blood. Please therefore do not kill any snake for the purpose of identification.

 

There are only 4 serious poisonous snakes in Goa: the cobra, the krait, the Russels viper and the saw scaled viper.

 

Snake venom from these four snakes is of 2 different kinds:

 

(1) Neurotoxic (from cobras and kraits)

 

This venom causes damage to nerves.

 

The symptoms, as the poison takes effect: the eyes become drowsy, saliva drools from the mouth, the lower jaw falls and breathing becomes increasingly difficult. Severe abdominal pains may develop in the case of krait bites. A ventilator may be required in cases of severe bites.

 

(2) Haemotoxic: (from Russelss vipers and saw scaled vipers)

 

The poison affects the blood. The symptoms, as the poison takes effect: bleeding from the gums, wounds and other orifices of the body. Swelling may occur. Severe pain is also felt at the site of the bite.

 

Always remember that snake bites give you plenty of time to get to a hospital. And that anti-snake venom can always save your life. Now you should also be assured that Goas hospitals and PHCs have enough stocks of the anti-dote.

 

 

 

 

 

LIVING WITH SNAKES

 

I have always been rather fond of snakes. I have been chasing them ever since I was a kid. My parents therefore let me take a year off from school in order to help me improve my knowledge about these reptiles. During that free year I traveled around the country learning snake handling with Neelimkumar Khaire at the Pune Snake Park and Rom Whitaker and the Irula tribe at Madras Crocodile Bank.

Most people on the other hand dislike snakes. I have found, however, that the biggest crowd drawers are always invariably snakes. Whenever I have gone snake-catching in someones house or compound, neighbors, housewives, passers-by and children spontaneously gather around. All claim they detest snakes or are terrified of them. Yet everyone of them without exception sits glued to the show, assiduously watching the proceedings. And if I have to handle a snake near a road, then bikes, cars and even passenger buses will halt to catch a glimpse of the snake catching session in progress.

What is it that makes reptiles in general  and snakes in particular  so loathed and feared yet so morbidly fascinating as well? What place do snakes occupy in natures scheme of things and within our society today? Most people look upon snakes as dangerous, poisonous, slimy, revengeful and  most important  associated in some way with the supernatural. One source for these feelings is pure superstition passed down from one generation to the next. The second is movies, originating from both Bollywood and Hollywood.

Though Bollywood usually makes snakes into heroes, they encourage people to believe that snakes can perform outrageous feats such as opening door handles by coiling around them, drinking milk when offered to them, protecting vulnerable heroines and chasing villains, and most famous of all  approaching beens when they are played by the actors. The myth about beens is so firmly entrenched in people that I remember my neighbors actually turning down their T.V volumes during these been playing scenes, fearful that the sound would bring snakes into the house! Street-side snake charmers prey upon these fears for their trade.

Hollywood movies are equally bad. One old famous movie is The Black Stallion. The first scenes show a boy and a black horse stranded on an island. The boy is sleeping exhausted on the sand, after having survived a storm. Suddenly a snake is shown approaching the boy  obviously to harm him  when the horse appears in the nick of time and stomps the snake to death. The movie Anaconda was a joke. Anacondas dont grow that big, they dont chase people  since they are very heavy they move very slowly   and they are never that vicious and bloodthirsty. My father recently was watching a movie called Out of Towners, about a township coming up on a nest of rattle-snakes. He found it creating so many negative feelings in him about the snakes that he soon turned it off.

India has loads of myths about snakes. I am going to call attention to only two to three which I believe to be the most notorious.

The first is that snakes  cobras especially  are vengeful creatures. Kill or harm a snake and its mate will track you down over thousands of miles and years of time to finally find you and pay back.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Snakes have a very small brain used only for their instinctual life. They lack the capacity to remember or even distinguish one human from another. Secondly, snakes are petrified of humans. Even the much dreaded cobra is a coward and will raise its hood only when frightened or severely provoked. During my eight years of snake catching I have released hundreds of snakes right behind my house  with their teeth intact. None of them has ever returned to harm me.

Another myth concerns Nag Panchami and snake charmers. This year we celebrated the festival on 2 August. Every year, according to Maneka Gandhi, sixty to seventy thousand snakes die in Maharashtra and neighboring states during this festival alone. Cobras and other poisonous snakes have their fangs pulled out and their mouths bruised and smashed beyond repair. These snakes are then taken from door to door by snake charmers, their mouths forced open and milk poured down their throats. Milk is not snake food. It is more like a poison for them; it has adverse effects on them, choking them, causing lung infections and finally death.

I find it amazing that adults who pride themselves on their capacity for rational thought blindly accept such practices. Just ask yourself, where in the wild would a snake get milk to drink? Snakes do not produce milk. They do not feed milk to their young ones. Nor will any cow tolerate a snakes sharp teeth round one of its udders. Yet the entire Indian population is firmly mired in the belief that snakes must be fed milk!

By the way, though I have used the word snake charmer, in actual practice we find that snakes are incapable of being charmed. Snakes are stone deaf to air borne sounds, they couldnt possibly hear the snake charmers been if it were played with an amplifier attached to it. Neither can they hear any of the commands or mantras of the snake charmer. They respond only instinctively to the movement of the been as the snake charmer waves it in front of them. They see an enemy object and they try to scare it away by hissing or raising their hood. They are not dancing to the music but they are terrified, raising their hoods only in self defense. Hardly charming whichever way you look at it!

Once a snake has had the misfortune to land in a snake charmers basket, it will never see the wild again and death is just a month or two away. Even if they are rescued from these snake charmers, they cannot be released into the wild as they will certainly die; they will be unable to hunt again and fend for themselves. They need their fangs to inject their prey before they can feed on it. Snake charmers rarely bother to feed their snakes; they keep them starving till the day they die of hunger  which may take anything up to two months  or exhaustion, which probably comes earlier. Therefore do not patronize or give money to snake charmers.

Also remember that misusing snakes for entertainment or rituals is against the countrys wildlife laws which protect besides pythons and cobras, even ordinary non-poisonous snakes like the rat snake. If you are really concerned, inform the forest department and have the snake charmer arrested.

Let me give you some honest facts about snakes, their bodies, their powers and their ecological role.

The body of a snake is covered with dry scales giving it a smooth, glossy, dry feer give money to snake charmers.

Also remember that misusing snakes for entertainment or rituals is against the countrys wildlife laws which protect besides pythons and cobras, even ordinary non-poisonous snakes like the rat snake. If you are really concerned, inform the forest department and have the snake charmer arrested.

Let me give you some honest facts about snakes, their bodies, their powers and their ecological role.

The body of a snake is covered with dry scales giving it a smooth, glossy, dry feence evolved from reptiles, losing their limbs along the way. For all purposes, they are no different from any of the thousands of amazing animals living today.

Only four of the two hundred and fifty six species of snakes in India are considered to be dangerous or fatal. That is the cobra, the krait, the Russells viper and the saw-scaled viper. Unprovoked and left alone even these four will never intentionally accost and bite human beings.

All snakes are carnivorous and hence play an important role in maintaining the balance of pests such as rats. Rats consume some 30-40% of our grain every year. In addition they spread dreadful diseases like the plague and different types of fevers. The only animals able to hunt them down their burrows are snakes. They are in fact designed for this purpose, hence they lack limbs. Young snakes feed on a lot of insects as well. Take snakes away and, some of these harmless insects could explode in population taking to our fields and homes for their food.

Natures balances are so complex that they are very often beyond our understanding. Besides I have always believed that we have no right to kill or exterminate any animal for that matter. Every organism was put on this earth with a purpose, and has just as much right as we have to exist peacefully on this earth. It is only we who classify them with one purpose in mind  economical/non-economical.

Moreover snakes are present everywhere, it is just because we dont see them that we feel that they arent there. They mind their own business hunting rats and frogs and living their lives, only occasionally are they so pre occupied chasing their prey that they enter human homes. This is when we notice them and assume the worst intensions. Snakes cannot move on smooth surfaces. They would therefore never enter human homes except by mistake.

Snakes only bite if stepped upon (incidentally that is the best way to get bitten by a dog as well!) Simple precautions will help you avoid ever having trouble with them. Whenever you step outside for a walk in forested or grassy areas, use thick leather boots and a good pair of trousers. Snakes can feel vibrations transmitted along the ground and will normally move away from your path much before you approach them. If you are working in grassy patches with your hands, use a thick pair of gloves. Lightly disturb the area with a long stick before you commence your work. Always use a torch at night.

80-90% of the snakes I have caught were located in piles of rubbish: discarded objects, firewood or under large piles of bricks or stone. Snakes also hide in rat holes once they have eaten the inhabitants. So, clean out all the rubbish and fill up all the rat holes around the house. Set up traps for rats on the roof. Cut any branches or creepers that are touching the walls of your house.

There are a lot of things you can do for snakes as well. For a start we can at least stop senselessly killing them. Though killing snakes is against the wildlife law, none of us thinks twice about taking a stick or stone to their head whenever we come across them. There are plenty of youth now trained to handle snakes, who will gladly come and take away the animal should you encounter one. In Goa, for example, where I live, everyone knows the phone numbers of trained snake-catchers. There are more than a dozen of them. Their numbers and addresses are published by animal welfare groups in the newspapers from time to time.

Snakes have been receiving a bad image since biblical times. Corporates can fund educational films to educate people on these much-maligned creatures and their uses. People need to be shown how the whole ecological balance set up by nature would be affected if snakes are all exterminated.

Though there are many snake lovers, snake protectors and enthusiasts, they lack the infrastructure and funding to carry out their snake saving activities on a professional and orderly basis. Corporates could help a lot by funding, say, a snake rescue and rehabilitation club.

We may be able to entertain the idea of living in a world without snakes, but I believe if that happens we will end up pretty miserable. And that will continue as long as we keep bringing more and more of Mother Natures animals to their extinction. The way I look at it we dont have a choice: we must save snakes if we are to save ourselves. Far better then that we improve our knowledge of these creatures and establish greater harmony in feelings between our species and theirs.

 

 

 

THE BREATH OF FRESH AIR

 

With forest being cut down to grow concrete jungles, rivers being choked by dams, and wild animals still butchered in large numbers, it is like a breath of fresh air when many youth of Goa are taking to wildlife and coming forward today in the cause of fighting and protection of the environment.

Each of these persons has his/her own unique area of expertise and they work hard and quietly doing their own thing, drawing inspiration and drive not only from the fact that they are helping to save whats left of our wildlife (they are too modest to admit that!), but from the joy and thrill that they all experience every time they step into the forest, save an animal, and confront wonder nature.

Aaron Lobo; Aaron caught his first snake when he was eight. The snake was a Russells viper (a deadly venomous snake) which Aaron gingerly picked up by the tail and brought home in a plastic bag only to be promptly killed by his shocked grandfather! His first pet   a toad! Along came fish, turtles and practically every snake found in Goa. Some of the snakes he even managed to breed like the checkered keelback and the sand boa. Two pythons grew up with him, and from babies they remained till they were well over six feet. Aaron released them in the end as he never managed to find enough food to satisfy their voracious appetites. By the time Aaron was in his teens he was already an able diver as well. One of his passions in addition to reptiles is studying Marine life.

In 2001 he stood first at the all India Wildlife exam, and then migrated to spent two years in Dhera Dhun where he completed his post graduation at the prestigious Wildlife Institute of India. For his project he worked on the impact of trawlers on sea snakes in Goa. An enjoyable though tiresome exercise, I myself went with him once as we spent twelve hours on a trawl boat from four in the morning to six in the evening counting the drowned sea snakes caught every time the fishing nets were pulled up. Aaron completed over fifty such trips in his six month project period! His project had been so meticulously produced and well researched that he was selected to present it at the University of Cambridge in England. The project won him the first place among other students who represented forty counties from all over the world.

Aarons advice to someone joining the wild line is to stick with dedication.

Because you can be sure that there wont be much money involved he smiles sincerely.

Get the Buzz on Aaron Lobo at; 2412265 9822135019

 

 

Nirmal Kulkarni; Nirmals bright fire for wildlife was sparked while watching Maneka Gandhis programme Heads and Tails on TV. At that time he says there was no one else involved working with wildlife and this whole idea of starting something different appealed to him immensely. A wildlife photographerNirmal has been working withlesser known fauna (reptiles, amphibians and insects) for the past six years. Being a snake handler Nirmal started photography clicking slides which were needed for his work involving wildlife awareness talks and snake education programmes. His work ison display and use at the State museum, in various forest department brochures and in different wildlife books. Most of Nirmals documentation and photography work is carried out at the Mahadai Wildlife Sanctuary and the Molem National Park.

Nirmal is presently employed as the Ecologist and Director of the Wildernest Nature Resort located way up in the Chorla Ghats. His plans are to set up a conservation facility for the documentation of the biodiversity of the Sahyadris where students can join in and get an opportunity to work with the wildlife available there.

What Nirmal loves most about his work is the adventure involved. He says that it also gives him immense job satisfaction. As advice to anyone interested in following this line he says that it is important to choose ones area of specialization. Too many people try to do too many things all at the same time and never achieve anything in the process.

Get the buzz on him at 3107079, 5642234.

 

 

Parag ramgnekar; Though Parags interest is in all wildlife his specialty has been insect photography. Prags interest lies actually in birds, and when I asked him why he didnt shoot birds instead, his reply was that he didnt posses the expensive equipment necessary for it, so he just photographs insects instead! A good friend and colleague of Nirmal Kulkarni, Parag recently held a joint exhibition on snakes and insects with him at the Kala Academy.

Though being interested in wildlife from a young age he never really managed to achieve much as he had no proper guidance and direction at that time. The guidance came when he met Rajendra Kerkar (founder of Vivekanand Environment Awarness Brigade) with whose help Parag completed a number on studies on the birds of Mhadei. This checklist of birds also served as his dissertation project for the M.Sc course in Ecology that he completed through correspondence from the Sikkim Manipal University. Parag is now involved with the creation of awareness and protection of the Mahadai River which faces a heavy threat of soon being destroyed.

Get the buzz on him at 9822129811

 

Neil Alvares; working with wildlife seven years till date Neils interest and profession in this line started through a tourism venture. Along with partner in business Harvey DSouza a boat was bought by Neil which cruised the mangrove areas of the Cumbarjua canal teeming with tourists all hoping to get a glimpse of the mugger crocodile that still survives there.

By the end of the year Neil had already started doing non profit trips for students interested as well. The trip highlights in addition to the spotting of crocodiles, is the vast biodiversity of birds that thrive there. I have personally been on a number of trips( that they never charged me for!) with them and got to see a lot of birds like the ofsprey, egrets, herons, four or five species of kingfishers, and many water birds- including migratory species that fly over from all parts of the world. The White Bellied Fishing Eagle is also a sight worth seeing as it glides through the air, a giant raptor searching for fish and sea snakes.

A few years down the line Harvey and Neil founded Southern Birdwing  their very own NGO for conserving wildlife. Neil admits that the Forest Department also backed them up with a lot of support when they needed it.

The things that Neil likes about his profession is that he gets to see a lot of places all over Goa.  Plus you are always happy that your are not doing something that is damaging to the environment he chuckles.

Neil feels that group rivalry among wildlife enthusiasts is the biggest setback to our efforts, and he firmly believes that in order to really make a difference when saving wildlife we need to push our differences aside and unite as one to succeed.

Get the Buzz on him at 2402957  9823028688

 

 

 

 

 

 

SAINATH SHIRODKAR

 

Have you ever been frightened or bothered by any of these animals – Leopards, crocodiles, snakes, monitor lizards, Gaur, deer, porcupines, jackals, monkeys, civet cats

Giant Squirrels, birds or any other wild animals– and not known what to do or whom to contact?

Next time dial Sainath Shirodkar’s number for quick relief! Sainath is a full time wild animal rescuer working with the Forest Department in Campal.

Sainath began his career working as a snake handler at the Forest Department in 2000. But with no one else to rescue other wildlife in Goa he automatically got transferred to the post of rescuing all other wild animals as well.

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