Meet the King Cobra Rescue Team That Saves Both People and Snakes - A research station in India is on call 24/7 to aid wayward reptiles in need.
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AJAY GIRI JUGGLES AN EIGHT-FOOT king cobra in one hand and a snake hook in the other. The cobra’s forked tongue flicks. Its tail, coiled around Giri’s left arm, twitches restlessly. Hay, huts, fields, and farmers are all scorched under the afternoon sun at Heggodu, an agricultural village bordering the Agumbe Reserve Forest. Here, deep within India’s mountainous Western Ghats, Giri has come to rescue the king.
“King cobras are shy. They don’t attack humans unless provoked,” says Giri, the 35-year-old field director of the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station. The Western Ghats have lost more than 35 percent of their rainforests in the last century thanks to plantations and other development: The habitat of the region’s king cobras is shrinking. The snakes now hunt for prey in farms bordering the forests, putting them in closer proximity to humans. But, while snakes overall are responsible for more than 50,000 deaths each year in India, very few are caused by the king cobra.
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The Agumbe Rainforest Research Station has championed ethical rescues of king cobras since its creation in 2005. Giri joined the team in 2009, and is on standby to rescue and study the snakes. The cobra currently coiled around Giri’s hand is one such snake; its hunt for a wounded rat snake was interrupted after a farmer discovered it next to his house.
While Nagaraja handles crowd control, Giri gets an assist from another colleague, Jaykumar SS. The veteran rescuer, who goes by Kumar, has 27 years of experience. He and Giri have perfected their technique to cause minimal harm to the snakes.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...a-rescue-india