How we went from charming to rescuing snakes

American herpetologist Romulus Whitaker helped Indians start milking snakes for their venom to make anti-venoms, the only cure for snakebite

A wolf snake (Credit: Ranjit Lal)

6 min readOct 3, 2024 06:08 PM IST First published on: Oct 3, 2024 at 06:07 PM IST

In the ‘old days’ if you found a snake in your garden, you screamed and sent for the snake charmer. If he was not too busy entertaining a crowd with his basketful of deadly if defanged cobras and his been (a musical wind instrument) and maybe a mongoose, he would come over and find the snake. Well, he had to because otherwise he would have had none, to entertain you with. So India earned a reputation of being a land of snake charmers.

Today, there’s a new breed of snake charmers around in Africa, Australia, the United States and India: usually comprising gung-ho young men or women, or couples who love snakes and do their best for them. This means, rescuing them from unsuitable locations and releasing them in areas more congenial to the reptiles. And since this is the age of information, the whole procedure is professionally videoed and made into a production complete with suitable background music scores.

So is this all really for self-aggrandisement? Not quite because their main intention is (a) to rescue the snake from its unsuitable accommodation and prevent it from being killed or biting someone. And (b), to educate the awed crowd on how to deal with snakes and avoid attracting them into their homes and from getting bitten. And if the worst happens — what to do

Some 50,000 to 60,000 people die of snakebites in India every year, many needlessly and most in our vast rural areas. Rice fields attract cobras like a Michelin-starred restaurant would a gourmand because of the number of rats, bandicoots and frogs they (both?!) harbour. So do homes where grain and other foodstuffs are stored and spilt in dark corners. People working in fields and those at home, cooking (usually women) are barefoot; a careless step on a cobra or Russell’s viper lying low and well, that’s that.

Most rural folks don’t have access to suitable hospitals where anti-venom is available or don’t have the transport to take them there in time. Anyway, many of them believe that the traditional hocus pocus jiggery-pokery treatment suggested by the local witch doctor or traditional healer will cure them. It does not.

Actually, it’s a sort of conundrum that only a country like India can throw up. While millions worship snakes and many live congenially along with them, there are equally those who will stone and beat them to death on sight regardless of whether they are venomous or not. Snakes are offered milk (which, they don’t drink) and flowers and women and children can be seen going about their daily chores and games while cobras zigzag around them! Or else they are battered to death.

It’s not only the rural areas that may be affected. More and more snakes are being rescued from houses in cities — Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi, and Mumbai — and states like Goa, especially during the monsoons, when water floods their holes and they seek shelter.

What the modern snake-rescuing stalwarts are trying to do is to put forward and encourage a more rational and sensible attitude. It’s better not to have cobras or vipers in the corner of your kitchen, or up in the rafters in the first place. So, ensure your home and its surroundings are clean and there is no malba piled up outside. Wear footwear in the fields (if possible) and mind where you put your feet. Stamp around when walking along paths, especially after dark — snakes are deaf but sense vibrations and will hasten away because they are more afraid of you than you are of them.

The rescuers do go a bit goo-goo gaga over the snakes they manage to rescue but then, most snakes really are quite beautiful, what with their lacquered scales and stunning colour combinations. And no, they’re not slimy. Remember all those (very expensive) snakeskin shoes, handbags, wallets and belts that once were in vogue (and a status symbol)?

Till the Government banned the trade in snakeskins (in 1976, I think) those world champion snake-catchers, the Irulars of Tamil Nadu, used to meet the demand for snakeskins. The ban meant they lost their livelihoods until American herpetologist Romulus Whitaker (whom Indian snakes must be worshipping), suggested a simple solution. Let the Irulars catch snakes so they could be milked for their venom to make anti-venom, the only known cure for snakebite. After all, there was a dire shortage of anti-venom in the country. After a three-week stay (and donation of their venom), the snakes are to be released back into the wild. It’s now being found that apparently the anti-venom produced from say cobras in one part of the country may not be as effective if applied to a cobra snakebite received in another part of the country. So many more institutions and NGOs are required to set up snake-milking dairies and anti-venom labs all over the country!

Then, there are those who think snakes make ideal pets. Burmese pythons were imported to the US (Florida was one dream destination) in large numbers and when they grew XXL and Junior turned up missing from the breakfast table and were released into the Everglade swamps en masse, where they ran afoul of the local ecosystem and ate everything up. Worse they bred with Indian pythons and became twice as dangerous — able to attack from both the water and the trees. So much so, that the Irulars were summoned to catch them.

It’s stuff like this that really needs to be taught in (especially rural) schools all over the country. So much more useful and practical than Algebra!