Ganesh- his tryst with snakes
Ganesh Chowdhury, barely 29, a strapping young fellow with an interest in wildlife, is making a real difference with his passion for local wildlife conservation. He is known for his abiding interest – rescuing snakes that stray into human homes in Katwa & Burdwan districts. He has captured and released over 20,000 venomous and non-venomous snakes and other reptiles that strayed into local homes in the last 10 years. In these areas he is fairly well known already for his conservation activities as he continues to rescue and release endangered species of snakes and reptiles, and his efforts to educate the local people about snake behaviour and how to co-exist with snakes have been widely appreciated.
Ganesh was passionate about wildlife, but initially he was very scared of snakes .But this fear and apprehension gradually turned to passion when he came in touch with the renowned wildlife conservationist and filmmaker Tanmay Ghosh, who was working in this field for more than 20 years with various reputed organizations like the BBC, National Geographic, and Discovery. In the course of his efforts, he had also transformed Belun village to a sprawling Eco-Village to conserve nature and wildlife with the collaboration of the villagers. Ganesh soon got involved with Nature Environment and Wildlife Society (NEWS) as a volunteer where he was provided with multiple opportunities to learn methods of conservation. The relevant exposure and field training served to give him the motivation.
Some local wildlife enthusiasts were already practicing the capture and rescue of snakes. Ganesh started to get involved with them to know more about snake habits and habitat and learnt to handle them in different situations with safety tools. He was an avid learner and studied their behavior, food habits, their mating, nesting, scalation practices and the threats for survival that they faced. Gradually he started to understand the co-relation of the conflict between man and snake with relation to its habitat and human habitation. He was learning quickly and started to respond proactively when local people started calling him for snake rescue. He also started discovering and identifying different local snake species and their behavior.
Ganesh understands that it is really difficult to convince villagers not to kill any snake when it is discovered near human habitat. There is an element of fear and the perceived threat has to be eliminated immediately. So, he started working on it. He started showing images of venomous and non-venomous snakes to the local villagers so that they could identify the snakes at a glance and not panic immediately. He also tries to educate them about the urgent steps that have to be taken in case of a snake bite. He takes pains to convince the local villagers about the natural benefits that snakes provide and why their presence is so important in balancing our ecosystem.
It is his understanding that snakes primarily migrate for their food requirement. The common non venomous species found are Checkered Keelback, Wolf Snake, Striped Keelback, Rat Snake, Banded Racer, Banded Kukri, Bronzeback Tree Snake, Vine Snake, Olive Keelback and Cat Snake. Venomous species found in some places comprise the Russels Viper, Indian Monocled Cobra, Indian Spectacled Cobra, Common Krait and Banded Krait. Also, some other reptiles like monitor lizards, fresh water turtle etc.are common in the countryside.
During his journey where he closely studied snake habitat, he observed interesting human habits that have a bearing over snake incidents. Very often, people dirty their homes, throwing unconsumed food morsels all over the place. This attracts rats, frogs, lizards, insects, all the favourite food of snakes. The snakes would soon come here in search of food, their preferred food items all gathered in one place. If, however, people discard the wastages in proper manner then conflict can be avoided. Sometimes, people store wood, grass, plant materials, food grains inside the house which naturally welcome the snakes as well as their prey. Monsoon is another difficult time, when snakes look for shelter in homes to survive from the water and the floods. In winter they seek the shelter of homes for hibernation. Snakes also sometimes lay eggs inside homes as this place is safe from other predators in nature. Snakes are beneficial and important for balancing our ecosystem as they consume a variety of insects, frogs, small reptiles, small birds and mammals specially rat which create havoc with crops.
Ganesh spreads the awareness about how to co-exist with snakes and how to avoid snake man conflict situations by keeping the kitchen and bedrooms clean, as much as possible, so that insects, small reptiles and snakes do not frequent these places. He also advises that the wood and fueling stock are kept at a distance from the kitchen and bedroom. In case of a snake bite, the snake should be identified immediately, primary help should be sought and the person transferred to a hospital as soon as possible. Ganesh is always there to reach out to the victim and provide emergency support and guide to the locals, as well as the hospital staff in his capacity as a snake expert. He is very apprehensive about common krait incidents as its bite is almost unrecognizable if the snake is not immediately seen in the vicinity. Its venom is the most deadly. It kills silently as anti-venom medicine availability is rare.
Despite all the difficulties, Ganesh is constantly making an effort to try & reduce human snake conflict round the year with his rescue/release practices and the awareness campaigns that he launches to serve the local populace. He is trying to build a team so that he can properly tackle most of the cases and spread awareness, far & wide. He also needs support from the forest department and needs local cooperation so that he can survive financially and this can motivate him to go further in future. He also needs the availability of a personal transport which will help him meet emergency situations in distant villages. He gratefully acknowledges the support he received from NEWS who have motivated him to meaningfully take forward his conservation activities and helped him fuel his passion