Sighting King Cobra and addressing the fear factor
Some three years back, in June 2021, a video was trending on Facebook, in which one could hear a person yelling (and surprisingly in a western accent) at his pet dog to return. The dog was barking nervously at a giant snake that was otherwise slithering into the forest. The caption of the video ran something like “…incidence of King Cobra presence in Dhaulakuan, Paonta Sahib”. The video gained a lot of publicity. Surprised at this unusual record, my first reaction was to dismiss it as a fake post. In fact, I remember my rather sarcastic comment, “Two coincidences at the same time — presence of King Cobra in the valley and a sudden change of Sirmauri accent to western.” The sarcasm was ultimately found to be unwarranted; the video was real and the gentleman turned out to be an NRI from Paonta Sahib. This was my first memory of King Cobra (KC) from Himachal Pradesh and remains its first recorded evidence from the state.
King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) is the largest venomous snake of the world which is endemic to South and South-east Asia. KC (female) is the only snake which makes nests and shows parental instincts, caring for its nest housing the eggs. Venom injected in one bite of KC is sufficient to kill 10 adult persons. Despite this, they are not programmed naturally to attack or prey on human beings. However, they do bear enough courage and speed to fight back, if threatened. King Cobras are very principled fighters. To guard their territories (which can extend to around 8 sq km) from other males and to win females, they often indulge in fights that involve hood-hitting and body-force. However, they refrain from injecting venom into their competitor which would instantly kill it. The defeated individual humbly cedes the territory and any claim to the female. As wars rage on in the human world, the human kings have much to learn from these ‘principled’ kings!
The natural habitat of KC comprises the broad-leaved rainforests, and in India, it is the Western Ghats that have the highest population. The village of Agumbe in Karnataka is known as the King Cobra capital of India, having its highest density. In north-western India, the hitherto known upper limit of the KC has been thought to be in Uttarakhand.
The first videographic evidence of KC’s presence in Paonta valley may not really be very surprising to ophiologists as the biogeographic conditions of Uttarakhand and Himachal are almost the same. The specimen found in HP and Uttarakhand has the same morphology as well. Had the King Cobra’s presence in Paonta Valley not been conclusively established by subsequent records (till date, five such records have been made), the first record would have been taken as the rarest of the rare incidences; a fluke, perhaps. However, one of the subsequent records confirmed a juvenile KC and the two other records proved the existence of a mature specimen, measuring about 10 feet. This latter record is from October 7, 2023, and attributed to a villager, who was nervously surprised to find the King lay across the length of the road that he would otherwise routinely traverse to and from his village, Janglot in Paonta valley.
Having a keen personal interest in snakes and serving in the Wildlife Wing of the HP Forest Department, it was both a personal calling and a professional duty to conduct a thorough follow-up of every record that I came across. The evidence from the autumn of 2023 had not yet flashed on our mobile screens that my team and I, along with my superior — an IFS officer — launched a search operation to film the King. Our hours of hard work notwithstanding, the King eluded us, and we ended up in sweat, clothes pierced by thorns, and shoes covered in mud. However, the search concluded with a campaign in the nearby village of Janglot so that awareness about snakes is raised, the overpowering fear of these otherwise harmless creatures is addressed, and the snake-human conflict can be reduced. I also proposed the name of the person who filmed the snake for an honorary certificate so that people could be encouraged to shoot snakes with a camera and not with the gun!
King Cobra is called the king of all snakes — one of the oldest inhabitants of Planet Earth. Having a first claim to the land, they certainly deserve their share of respect and rights alongside us. Snakes neither have limbs nor eyelids, not even a proper hearing mechanism. Imagine yourself in that situation. To top that, they do not even have a well-developed brain and thus, survival for them is no easy task, surrounded by predators (both natural and irrational, read humans) as they are at every step.
Is it so difficult to understand that all the species have an equal right to life? One species’ pursuit of pleasure cannot and should not be a death trap for others. A common thread of life binds us all.
— The writer is Range Forest Officer at Col Sher Jung National Park in Sirmaur
