How researcher's are protecting the king cobra

The mighty King Cobra found in abundance in Agumbe in North Karnataka has found a helping hand at the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station (ARRS).

“Hello, Ajay Sir, there is a cobra outside my house. Can you help?” This is a call that Ajay Giri, Field Director at ARRS is used to. After all, the Western Ghats has been home to the elusive king cobra for years now and there has been a conscious effort to protect its habitat while mitigating human conflict as well.

Hues of Herpetology

Romulus Whitaker, a renowned herpetologist set up ARRS in 2005 to initiate studies not only on king cobras but also on the flora and fauna of Agumbe and Central Western Ghats. ARRS has started a king cobra Telemetry Project where a chip-size transmitter is inserted in the coelomic cavity of the cobra before it is released. “I am the coordinator for this project, and we have one female and two male cobras that have been tagged with transmitters. We monitor its behaviour daily through our set of volunteers who collect data on its movements, habitat, and temperature and humidity conditions. Very less is known of the ecology and behaviour of the king cobra and this project is aimed to provide data on the same.

We get many calls from the forest department officials as well as locals and we go there and depending on the situation we take a call. Like if it is inside a house, we rescue it and release it as close as possible as we do not like to disturb its habitat. However even for that we follow a safety protocol and carry all proper equipment and use the proper method to rescue the snake,” explains Ajay. Working for 11 years, Giri would know well but he admits that he has just received a permit to start tagging king cobras and hence it is impossible to put a count on the number of king cobras. “We get calls from a radius of 80 km around Agumbe and we collect GPS data.it will take at least two more years for us to even give an estimated number of king cobras,” avers Giri.

Unique Behaviour

The breeding season of the king cobras is usually after February and male cobras travel miles from their home range in search of a female.in fact, four to five cobras vie for the female cobra’s attention and this usually sees fights among the male cobras. “We get about ten calls a day during the breeding season. We have seen male snakes combat with each other and the winner gets to mate with the female. The loser male cobras then actually leave and return to their home range and this was found out because of the telemetry project.” Transmitters are used to track the snakes and the signals are usually available in a one-kilometre range. Again, if the area is hilly or denser the signal that a snake is close is available in a 600 to the 700-meter range.

Interestingly, king cobras have a unique behaviour unlike any other snake in the world. The female builds a nest to lay her eggs using dry leaf litter and once she lays the eggs there is no incubation either by the male or female as they simply leave the place after that. Being the top predators in the food chain, they control the population of other snakes in the region like cobras, rat snakes and pit vipers. Agumbe incidentally has two kinds of pit vipers – hump nosed and Malabar pit viper. “Our work is to educate the people of the region who live along with the snakes in the same habitat. The instinct once they see a snake is a fear. Hence what we do is when we rescue snakes it takes only a few minutes, but we spend close to an hour talking to the people and explaining them about the snake’s behaviour that helps us mitigate human-snake conflicts and make them feel comfortable about the snake being around their homes,” says Giri.

The success story happens when the people agree to allow the snake to remain in the vicinity as the team gives them pamphlets and explain the way they behave so that people understand it too. This is a fantastic way to mitigate man-cobra conflict and Agumbe’s unsung heroes are leading from the front.

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