Gerard “Gerry” Martin remembers the first snake he held when he was three or four: a red sand boa. “I can still see my fingers and that red sand boa in my hand,” says the Hunsur-based herpetologist and conservationist, the founder trustee of the Liana Trust, which has recently set up India’s first serpentarium focusing on research, snakebite management and conservation.
Breeding snakes in captivity “is doable, not rocket science,” he says, as he offers a virtual tour of the serpentarium, which currently houses seven species of snakes — spectacled cobras, common kraits, Russel’s vipers, saw-scaled vipers, two species of pit vipers (the Malabar pit viper and hump-nosed pit viper) and four king cobras — some of which have already laid eggs.
“What we have done here, which is different from pretty much every single venom production setup in the world, is we are trying to marry best practices in husbandry with best practices in venom production,” he says, as I catch a glimpse of a massive enclosure housing king cobras, a miniature version of the dense, tropical forests in which these animals are usually found. “We’re giving them naturalistic, as much as possible, bioactive enclosures to try and replicate their own space in the wild.”
In the interview, Martin discusses his dreams for the serpentarium, why India is the world’s snakebite capital and how this new space could help change the narrative around snakebite treatment in the country.
Currently, snakebites are treated in India using a polyvalent antivenom developed against the big four snake species: the spectacled cobra, common krait, Russell’s viper, and the saw-scaled viper. Can we talk briefly about its limitations, why we need to improve antivenom specificity and effectiveness, and how this new serpentarium can help?
Species diversity in snakes is much more than what we’ve traditionally thought. There is variation between species but also geographic variation within the species. So, the Russell’s viper in Chennai and Russell’s viper in Punjab have very different venoms. This does not necessarily mean that the antivenom will not work. But from the work that we’ve done so far, it does seem that the antivenom works to different degrees in different parts of the country, with it being almost ineffective in some places. So, we need not have a single national polyvalent antivenom but several regional ones.
Of course, a lot of legwork needs to be done before that. We must first figure out where the variations are and where the antivenom is least effective, and then we must have regional-specific spaces. This is speculation at the moment, but I estimate we will need at least seven or eight more units like this one in different parts of the country.
I’m hoping that in about 15 to 20 years, we won’t need to have snakes in captivity, and we won’t need venom. Alternate therapies are currently being developed, and hopefully, antibodies that can neutralise snakebite toxin could all be synthesised by then.
What we need to do right now is figure out a good anti-venom for the next 15 years. This can save anywhere between six and nine lakh people, and we could also cut down the number of cases of morbidity where they have a permanent loss of life function.
Karnataka was the first state to declare snakebite as a notifiable disease. How does this impact how the snakebite issue is addressed in the state?
Amazingly, the Karnataka Health and Family Department has taken this initiative, going the extra mile before any other state did. That has given us a lot more data already. Unfortunately, people are latching onto the numbers and saying that snakebite is on the rise in the state. This is not true; it is just much better reported now.
We still have a long way to go to get good-quality data. But along with the Humane World for Animals India (formerly the Humane Society International/India) and the Karnataka Health and Family Department, we are working on training their staff on snake bite treatment and therapies, and they’re doing a great job. We should have the state action plan for snakebite and envenomation out early next financial year.
Of course, many cracks need to be filled at the grassroots level, such as medical personnel skills needing to be upgraded. Fortunately, in South Karnataka, we have a comparatively good health system. While not without flaws, the department is hugely approachable, and we can make quite a difference. Once we have a better idea of the snakebite landscape, we can focus our efforts on so-and-so geographies and so-and-so aspects of snakebites, a lot of trench and leg work that needs to be done. I think that’s something that we could get going as a state and as a country.
India is often called the “snakebite capital of the world” because it accounts for roughly half of all global snakebite deaths. Are there any specific factors that are driving this number?
I think it is a combination of things. It is hard to speak of the reasons at a national level because they vary considerably from region to region. The Northeast, where people are much better at bushcraft because they are largely tribal, has a very different kind of snakebite problem compared to the average farmer in Mysore, who works in a heavily irrigated rice field with lots of grain and rodents.
Many different things come to my mind when I think about snakebites and rice fields here. For instance, you often only get electricity to water your fields at night, so you must go to the pump in the dark to do that stuff. The bunds, the embankments between the fields, are all riddled with rodents and have very low visibility of where you’re stepping because of weeds. Those are great places for Russell’s viper, the primary species involved with snakebite in that region. Similarly, if you go to northern Karnataka or even Maharashtra, there are many more cobra and krait bites. People sleeping out on the floor at night are getting bitten a lot. Cobra bites happen in places with much more firewood usage while people collect the wood.
There are so many variables at play: different crops, different levels of sanitation, whether you have your livestock attached to the house or not… I think the fundamental questions need to be this: Is there food for the snake, and do people’s activities bring them close to snakes?
You could have a ton of snakes around and be safe, like in most Indian cities. I like to say, ‘Snakes don’t bite rich people.’ You need to work with your hands to be at high risk unless you are one of the thousands of rescuers we have now, which, in my opinion, is a problem, too.
Snakes are vital to our urban landscapes, yet we are often very intolerant and afraid of them and have always been. Do you see this narrative changing in any way?
We’re not tolerant of snakes at all. I believe that back in the day, we were more tolerant. I’ve seen an old lady sweep a cobra out of her house with one of those long ceiling brooms and then return to chaffing her grain. On the other hand, her grandson goes into orbit each time he sees the smallest snakes.
The media, too, has played a significant role in sensationalising snakes and showing how dangerous they are. So, there’s very little understanding and tolerance for snakes. While our reflex now isn’t to kill the snake, we just want to remove it. And the thing is, when you move a snake from one place to another, you’re not only killing the snake but also affecting the ecosystem. Like crows, pigeons and sparrows, snakes like cobras, rat snakes, and checkered keelbacks are commensal species that are essential parts of our cityscapes. They do well around human filth, and that’s why they’re there in such high numbers.
So, the occasional snake that pops its head out and creates a frenzy is not the only snake in that area. It’s not even the only snake inside that little compound; there will likely be many others. The only thing that changes at that moment is that we’ve seen it, spiking our fear. This whole rescue concept is a fraudulent narrative because you’re not saving anything: when you take the snake from its home and move it to another place, it dies. The only thing we’re achieving in that case is to remove the accountability of who killed the snake. You’re certainly not enabling people to live with them.
Conservation in India often takes a very top-down approach, with local communities, who live near wildlife and have a much higher probability of dealing with conflict, frequently not consulted when big decisions about conservation are made. What are your thoughts on this as someone who works closely with communities?
I think there are a couple of misconceptions here. Firstly, I believe, it is the synonymisation of not killing an individual animal with conservation. Yes, of course, it is not the main issue. The issue started when Indians started owning land, leading to landscape-level changes.
If you ask most people what the number one cause of the decline in tiger populations is, they will say poaching or how the British killed so many of them. But the fact is that we have changed our landscapes, and there is just no space left for tigers now. The other big thing that changed things was the Green Revolution, when intensive farming took over traditional farming methods. I probably sound pretty clichéd here, but it is very capitalistic.
I live here in this agricultural community, which is pretty much the frontline for snake bites, and I chat with everyone, so I know the difficulties. There is a host of things: climate change with anyone reliant on rain being doomed, being unable to get a definite minimum assured rate for their vegetables, all these kinds of things… It’s really difficult for them to manage. So, I don’t believe that we have any right to tell people not to kill or not to do whatever they need to do to survive when, in cities, we’re not even willing to have a rat snake in our compound.
Additionally, the Western approach to conservation is more preservation. For instance, they have had the luxury of something like Yellowstone National Park because you don’t have subsistence people living on the edge of it. Here we do. We have 1.4 billion people in India, many of whom are just about getting by economically, so we cannot have the same approach to conservation.
While anti-venom in India is relatively cheap, access and affordability continue to be a major problem in this country, with many patients continuing to go to faith healers instead of formal healthcare facilities. Will this initiative help make it more affordable?
It is a real catch-22 situation. While the government has stipulated a cap on antivenom prices and has mandated that, anti-venom producers say that’s not enough profit for them. They won’t cut prices, even though we’re giving it (the venom) to them for free. But what the government should do, considering that it still has by far the cheapest anti-venom in the world, is to fund or make it themselves, especially since it is a problem affecting the poor. I also feel that this is the kind of thing the CSR from pharmaceutical companies could solve.
