Wildlife activists demand 'urgent' SOPs in Karnataka to protect snakes and 'careless' rescuers

HUBBALI: Wildlife experts in Karnataka are calling for an urgent intervention of the Forest Department to protect animals and snakes from the rescuers itself. They now fear that the self-styled wildlife rescuers are causing more harm than doing good.

In the last one month, two snake rescuers have died in North Karnataka while attempting to catch snakes. 

There have been several instances of snake attacks while rescuing these reptiles mainly due to 'carelessness' of the person handling the situation. The increase in number of snake rescuers in different parts of Karnataka has once again demanded the need of guidelines for proper snake rescue and rehabilitation. 

Green activist Harshavardhan Sheelavant from Dharwad said that "time has come to rescue the wildlife from the rescuers itself. It is the craze of posing with rescued animals that causes such accidents.''

"Despite several incidents and deaths of snake rescuers, the forest department is yet to come up with strict guidelines. Through the Nature Research Centre of Dharwad we had submitted urgent SOPs for wildlife rescues in urban areas which needs to be followed up," he further added.

Many wildlife rescues are not intimated to the forest department, making the rescued animals and snakes vulnerable to long time captivity or possibly as a pet. 

"Several pictures and videos emerge of keeping snakes and wounded animals at homes. The department must put in protocol for handling wildlife," Sheelavant added.

Several hepatologists have been stressing on the need to bag the snake without physically touching it, but the majority of the rescuers do not heed to such suggestions.

"Snake rescuer who died in Bagalkot last week was claimed to have bitten more than 70 times in his snake rescue career. Why was he allowed to attend the snake rescue calls by the police or forest department if he was bitten that many times. There are methods to bag the snake without touching it and agencies must train rescuers on these lines," suggested wildlife activist from Ballari Aditya Vattam.

Train department staff in handling snakes and other wildlife

Experts also suggest that the forest department must seriously start involving their own staff at grassroot levels while handling snakes that need to be rescued and rehabilitated. 

"We have several forest training institutes and make snake rescues part of their curriculum. It's important that more and more forest staff must be in wildlife rescue," suggested a wildlife expert.