massive snake deaths

Factual Questions
1

I recently heard from a very reliable source (who heard it on Jeopardy) that 10,000 people die from cobra bites in India every year, and that another 10,000 die from bites from other types of poisonous snakes annually in that country.

Now let that sink in a moment.

I know that there are horrible, terrible conditions in the poorer countries of the world…but it just seems to me that this might be a problem that could be dealt with somehow. And how come we don’t hear any relief organizations asking for help with the terrible cobra problem or a call for humanitarian and scientific aid to combat the fanged menace?

As an animal rights advocate, I’m not for the wholesale slaughter of the cobra population, but can’t something be done?

Can it be that 20,000 snake deaths (and who knows how many other non-reptile animal associated deaths) are insignificant compared to the other problems in that country?

If 20,000 die, then how many more barely survive?

All I’m saying is that if a charitable organization out there were showing this problem during a fundraiser,and asking for help, I’d likely get out the checkbook.

Maybe I’m just a well-off American with blinders on regarding conditions in the rest of the world, but WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE??

2

I can offer a couple of suggestions right off.

First, politely suggest to the billion people in India that birth control is a viable option in family planning.

Second, you might encourage the people who are hacking down tall grassland that is some species of cobra’s habitat to examine modern methods of farming that actually can renew the land they are already using.

Some types of cobra are very territorial and generally only attack “unprovoked” when an intruder passes within an invisible but very real radius from their nests. Some (I’ll never find the citation) animal behaviorists have speculated that the attack radius from the cobra’s nest is almost exactly as long as the cobra: his tail is in his hole when he strikes. So fencing or roping off the radius of a cobra nest might be an effective way to allow the cobra his peace and the humans their room to move.

This of course works great until the cobra decides to venture forth to feed.

3

You don’t have to suggest family planning to the people in India - they’ve figured it out for themselves. Birth rates there have been dropping precipitously for the last 10 years, and is now at 3.2 children per couple, which is getting close to replacement levels considering the higher infant mortality.

And it’s still dropping. Mind you, this is happening all over the world, in all countries.

4

Just a couple of notes…

Cobras are worshipped in many places in India. You don’t often want to kill the things you worship.

Cobras eat alot of rats. In the big picture, rats do more damage to India than snakes because they because they damage and contaminate the food supply.

5

Send your check to “The Steve-o Indian Snake Isolation Fund”. I…er…I mean they accept cash also. :stuck_out_tongue:

Things are random only insofar as we don’t understand them.

6

We’re talking an average of about 60 human deaths a day in one country due to poisonous snakes!!

I’m willing to accept population, worship, and rogue farming to some degree as partial answers, but come on, this goes against a well-known truth about animals:

TRUTH: When animals and humans collide, too bad for the animals.

Let’s face it, if a bear or tiger comes down into a village and kills someone, the animal may win the first round, but then a large number of humans go out, track, and kill the offending beast. Animals are trained to know their place, and most seem to learn the lesson.

I can’t understand when countrymen are dying at the rate of 60 a day to poisonous snakes, why that doesn’t cause people to change their habits a wee bit.

Worship, OK. But after a few neighbors fall victim, isn’t it time to worship from afar?

If I’m cutting down grasslands, and people around me start falling victim to vipers…well I must have some pretty powerful reasons to still hang out in the grass.

Deadly Cobras would seem to be an effectual deterrent from just about any activity from which one might come into contact with them.

This is a country with the bomb, for God’s sake!!

60 a day to poisonous snakes in one country!! Can so many humans still be falling victim to non-microbial animals on a daily basis in the year 2000? This just seems to conflict with what I know about the world.

It’s not as if cobras are a new problem that’s just cropped up and will be under control in the next few years. Cobras have been around for a long time. And while people have often followed destructive religeous practices, it would seem to me that this particular one would have a hard time catching on and sticking with people.

Help people, what am I not getting here???

7

I did some poking around on Medline and found an article in 1998 from the Bulletin of the World Health Organization that stated there had been no systematic study of the mortality rates of snakebites in the world since 1954. There were studies for local areas.

There was also a cite to an historical article written by a British doctor in the 1880s I believe. That doctor estimated that there were 20,000 snake bite deaths in all of British India in 1872 (that would include the present Pakistan and Bangladesh).

So, if the total today were 20,000 deaths per year then the mortality rate is dropping.

8

The following site gives snakebite deaths in India as 5.6 to 12.6 per 100,000 (in a country with 812M people). (It is not clear to me whether these morbidity rates are based on deaths per population or deaths per bite. I suspect that it is the latter, but I am not sure. If it is the former, India should be losing over 100,000 people each year to snakebite.)
http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic544.htm

It also indicates that cobra deaths are likely overreported because of a tendency to associate all venomous attacks with cobras.

On another site, I found the (unverified) statistic that 26% of domestically produced grain in India is consumed by rodents. If this is true, the number of deaths by snake is miniscule compared to the potential for starvation if the snakes were eradicated.
http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~sjoshi1/mirror/snakemiscon.shtml

Tom~