photo by Kamalnv – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5064660
Two deadly snake stories slithered into last week. A certain silver-bellied cobra is becoming popular around here. K’s dog Princess found a skin a few weeks ago, at which she sniffed and did her evil growl.
photo by Eileen Kay
The next sampling came in two phases. K found a severed head here, and the rest of a snake’s body there. Workers saw what happened. Princess plus another did this. Same sort of snake, same plain brown skin and shiny white underbelly, maybe two meters long.
I have been snake-aware and in possession of a reasonable field book, for some time now, but this week was my first major face-to-face.
I was hanging laundry on the rack on the balcony, and there it was, about a metre away. It did not give a damn I was there. It was on the lower bathroom roof, trying to get up to the kitchen roof. It was long, but not a very adept climber.
It was sniffing and sniffing, at the space between the kitchen roof and its ceiling. A lizard darted out and disappeared into the distance. A big mouse did the same, in the opposite direction. Silver Belly sniffed all this, then slowly poured himself little by little, into the roof-space, perhaps to hang around in their house for a while, waiting for some other member of the family to come home.
I watched this from a few meters away. It wasn’t exactly clear where he went, at that point. The trouble is, there are a few places where he can accidentally plop down on the shower floor, with no way out, and no way up the slippery tiles. Then we have a trapped and panicked snake situation. This is not good. However, it’s also not good to have no precise idea where he went.
photo by Rushenb – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47791404
By now I’d phoned Mrs Landlord, who zipped uphill to find Mr L, an expert in these matters. Unfortunately, he was too far into the jungle to be found, and he is not a man of mobile phones.
I also phone the local volunteer snake rescue guy, who didn’t answer until a few days later. Likewise, Mrs L phoned another neighbour, and left a message.
She then phoned the rescue squad. I didn’t know they were prepared to deal with snakes. It could be they knew Mrs L, who is from one of the Bigwig families of this island. Or it could be if I phoned them, I’d be too over-excited to explain anything in either Thai or English.
The two rescue guys came quickly. One had an extra long bamboo pole with a loop on the end, and the other had a big sack. There was a long search, with no snake found, and they left.
They left!?
But there is all this to contend with:
https://www.thailandsnakes.com/thailand-venomous-snake-photos/
Mrs L was also about to shrug and leave, when I saw it! It was sticking its snout out the kitchen roof.
“Cobra?” I asked.
“Cobra, yes, cobra,” she nodded.
Then she took a long pole and bopped it on the nose. It disappeared inside. I can’t say I was happy about this move, but I can’t criticise. I was of no use here, and had no idea what to do. At least we knew where it was.
Mr L showed up by accident, and had the strategy of banging the roof to annoy it away. At first this did not work. They said, “Never mind, it’s not really inside. It’s just in the roof. It will leave later.”
“No!” was my reply. “No, it must go, now. I cannot live here, with a cobra!”
“They want lizards and rats. They don’t want you,” I am told. I know this. This is not the point.
“They only come inside sometimes.”
“Sometimes is too much!”
So, the hunt went on.
To be fair, I had a short glimpse into why some people just let these deadly things live in their rooves. It was the way this one was quite close, and had no interest in me at all. I was no threat in the least. It was following the scent of its lunch, I was not in its way, and so I was not a problem. It let me stand and watch. It didn’t rise up, in their famous pose. It wasn’t displaying the famous hood, which is when they are truly officially angry with you.
It wasn’t anything like this one, a large aggressive cobra, upright, moving fast, angry hood extended, and not looking benign:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0xKDa66biU&feature=youtu.be
My one was busy and did not care. There was no horror movie behaviour like it chasing after me, or jumping out of some surprising place. On the contrary. It may have been hiding from these big crazy noisy things banging sticks on the roof. And it was only looking for a snack!
Mr L organised a new campaign. More sticks were fetched. They all banged loudly on one end of the roof, while I played lookout on the other end. The snake finally oozed out, dangled and stretched, but could not find anywhere to latch on. It dropped onto the balcony.
The entire Landlord family (daughter too now part of the posse) zipped up my steps in pursuit, while I edged back, staying away, and also watching for where it might fall down. If I’d learned anything, it was that you want to watch where they go. You don’t want to not know where they are.
I could only see chaos ensuing behind all the tangled hanging laundry. I could only hear scuffling and thumping, then female shrieking, then Mr calling out, “I kill, or, no kill?”
It was a policy decision. Some people are opposed to killing any wildlife. Maybe Mr L let deadly things go, if they were non-aggressive. Or, if they were not in his house, but in mine.
“Kill it,” I said. It was done in seconds, with the blunt end of a broom and two short blows.
Mrs scooped it up, drooped it over a stick, and took to the compost. It was at least a metre and a half long, with a very shiny silver belly.
There are those very much against this creature being killed. One guy, for example, is nursing a deadly cobra back to health, in his home, and he intends to let it loose into the jungle again.
In my opinion, we have too many deadlies around here. In our neighbourhood, there has been a huge increase in the numbers of all sorts of snakes, especially large deadly ones, coincidentally ever since the zoo closed.
Most locals agreed that the way they closed the nearby hideous zoo and “snake farm”, was to simply open the cages.
This is with the exception of the elephants, we think. Although, no one had an answer, or even a guess, when I asked where they went. As for the snakes, there are certainly a lot more of them than there used to be.
I cannot imagine all those lethargic things were all gathered, put into transport cages, and taken to some other zoo. No, I think they were simply let loose, when they haven’t known the wild in a long time.
So, that’s the second silver cobra this week, on this corner. Yes, kill them, for goodness sake. It won’t hurt the rodent population that much, I’m sure. I am willing to take this risk.
Whether these have been monocled cobras, or kings, or some other type, I don’t know. There are endless varieties, plus endless translations, but here’s an idea of the range:
And here is where people are commenting, cringing, etc:
https://www.facebook.com/Noodle-Trails-Eileen-Kay-1560532710838005/
More travel stories collected here:
http://www.noodletrails.com/buy-book/
In the meanwhile, happy trails to you – may they be snake-free.
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