Climate change triggering shifts in venomous snakes’ hotspots, snakebite risk in India: Study

Climate change is triggering shifts in venomous snakes’ hotspots and snakebite risk in India. Regions currently unaffected could become vulnerable, while some high-risk areas may see declining exposure to snakebites, reshaping the geography of snakebite risk in India, a first of its kind of study has revealed.

“The projected reconfiguration of snake species hotspots indicates large-scale habitat shifts that could alter ecosystem services while intensifying snakebite risk in vulnerable regions,” the study, undertaken by a group of experts from wildlife, biology and space domains, said.

“In particular, the projected change in the range of the big four medically important species suggests a potential increase in human-snake interactions and snakebite risk, particularly in northern and central India,” the study added. It has been published in the latest issue of Nature, a 156-year old peer-reviewed international journal.

Amidst several global environmental challenges, climate change severely threatens biodiversity, leading to shifts in species distributions, and, in extreme cases, local or global extinctions.

The researchers modelled the current and future distributions of biodiversity hotspots for terrestrial venomous snake species across India and evaluated shifts under two climate change scenarios that represent future greenhouse gas concentrations for the years 2050 and 2070.

They compiled 4,966 occurrence records of 30 species obtained from citizen science platforms, open-access repositories, social media groups, and scientific literature, which were further thinned to 2,931 unique locations.

“Future scenarios suggest increasing snakebite risk in parts of northern India, including Himalayas and northeast India, and southern elevated ranges, such as the Western Ghats,” the researchers reported. “Our study provides the first nationwide assessment of climate-driven distributional shifts in venomous snakes in India, highlighting the need to integrate climate-driven conservation planning with adaptive public health strategies to minimise biodiversity loss and human-snake conflict under future climate change scenarios,” they said.

India, according to the study, harbours over 700 reptile species, nearly half of which are endemic. Of these, 285 are snakes, including more than 40 terrestrial venomous snake species. India also reports the highest snakebite-caused mortalities worldwide, with an estimated 50,000 fatalities annually, disproportionately affecting rural and economically marginalised communities, However, the actual numbers are likely higher due to underreporting from marginally literate areas.

This crisis is largely caused by four widespread and medically important species, collectively known as the “big four”, which are Common Krait, Spectacled Cobra, Russell’s Viper and Saw-scaled Viper. These species are ecologically dominant and highly tolerant of human-modified environments, which perpetually make them a persistent public health concern, the study pointed out.