Volunteers are working overtime to rescue snakes which have come out of hibernation.
For quite some time now, animal behaviour experts and scientists have been trying to prove that animals have that crucial sixth-sense which enables them to foretell changes in the environment. The elephants and other animals on the island of Andaman and Nicobar, for instance, were so agitated that they fled before the deadly tsunami struck in December 2004.
Animals can definitely smell and hear what humans cannot, agree animal rescuers in Mumbai. Minor changes in the weather in the city have triggered off a spate of snake rescues, making volunteers and rescuers from animal welfare organisations work overtime, in the past week.
“In the past five days, I have rescued seven snakes, including highly venomous cobras and the non-poisonous dhaman (rat snake),” said Sunish Subramanian, Secretary, Plant and Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) Mumbai.
While a fully-grown six-feet long cobra was rescued from Vashi, a couple of baby cobras measuring around three feet and a rat snake were rescued from the residential area around Agra Road in Mulund.
According to experts, snake rescues during this time of the year are highly unusual. “The snakes which are usually in hibernation around this time have been agitated by the climatic changes. These reptiles are highly sensitive to weather changes,” explained Subramanian, who has already released three snakes in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park.
Nilesh Bhanage of PAWS-Thane, another animal welfare organisation which works in the Thane district, revealed that volunteers had reported eight snake rescues in the last week. Among the rescued snakes was the Russel’s Viper, chequered keelback, striped keelback, rat snake and four cobras. “While the cobras were rescued from snake charmers, the other reptiles were rescued after we received calls of snakes that had been spotted by people,” said Bhanage.
“The snakes have started coming out of hibernation for some reason. Probably, it is the change in weather that is responsible for this,” he said. “We did not see so many distress calls last year in November,” recalled the snake rescuer.
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