Assam’s Bodoland Records High Human-Snake Interface; Ethical Rescue Initiative Launched

Guwahati: Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR), which shares borders with Bhutan and West Bengal in Assam, has emerged as an area with a high human-snake interface because snakes frequently inhabit cultivated fields, village peripheries, embankments and forest fringes, officials said on Friday.

Marking the World Snake Day, the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) Forest Department organised a two-day refresher training programme on Ethical Snake Rescue and Emergency Response, besides launching a mobile application and an Information, Education and Communication (IEC) booklet on the snakes of Bodoland.

The two-day Snake Rescuer Training Workshop under the SERPENT Assam initiative was held on July 16 and July 17 at the Convention Centre of the Council Head of Forest of Bodoland Territorial Council in Kokrajhar.

The programme was jointly organised by the Forest Department, the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Help Earth, with support from the HCL Foundation.

Around 30 experienced snake rescuers from different parts of Assam, along with 20 frontline personnel of the Bodoland Forest Department, participated in the training programme.

Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Additional PCCF) and Council Head of Department (CHD) of BTC, Sonali Ghosh, said that Bodoland forms an important biogeographic bridge between the Gangetic Plains and the Eastern Himalaya-Indo-Burma region, a transition that is clearly reflected in the diversity of its snake fauna.

She added that the region encompasses the foothills of Bhutan, the braided river systems of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries, extensive grasslands, semi-evergreen and moist deciduous forests, tea gardens, agro-ecosystems and densely populated rural settlements.

“This mosaic of habitats supports a rich diversity of serpents, representing both Indo-Gangetic and northeastern faunal elements,” Ghosh said.

According to the senior forest official, around 20 snake species have been reliably documented in Bodoland, but field experience, rescue records and incidental observations by forest personnel and local communities suggest that the actual number is considerably higher, particularly among small, cryptic and nocturnal species.

She said systematic scientific surveys, including night-time road transects and microhabitat-focused searches, are likely to reveal additional species in the coming years.

Ghosh noted that one of the most striking features of Bodoland’s herpetofauna is the presence of several medically important venomous snakes, including the Spectacled Cobra (Naja naja), Russell’s Viper (Daboia russelii), kraits and various species of pit vipers, all occurring within the same landscape.

“In ecological terms, this makes Bodoland a zone of high human-snake interface, as these snakes frequently occupy cultivated fields, village peripheries, embankments and forest fringes,” she said.

The senior Indian Forest Service (IFS) official added that for several snake species, Bodoland represents either the easternmost limit of their distribution from the Gangetic Plains or a contact zone where they overlap with closely related northeastern species.

She noted that such distributional edge populations are of considerable biogeographic importance because they often exhibit unique genetic, morphological and ecological characteristics and may respond differently to land-use changes and climate variability.

“For conservation planning, recognising Bodoland as a range-edge and overlap zone for multiple snake species strengthens the case for landscape-level management beyond the boundaries of protected areas,” Ghosh added.

Referring to India’s snakebite burden, Additional PCCF said that the country accounts for a disproportionately large share of global snakebite fatalities.

A nationally representative study estimated that nearly 1.2 million people died from snakebites in India between 2000 and 2019, averaging around 58,000 deaths annually.

The same study estimated that India recorded between 1.11 million and 1.77 million snakebite incidents in 2015, with nearly 70 per cent of victims suffering symptoms of envenomation.

Officials said nearly half of the snakebite deaths occurred among people aged between 30 and 69 years, while more than one-fourth of the fatalities involved children below the age of 15 years.

Most deaths occurred in rural households, with nearly half taking place during the monsoon season, indicating that snakebite primarily affects people in their economically productive years and imposes a significant socio-economic burden on rural communities.

The officials also highlighted that human-snake conflict remains one of the most neglected aspects of human-wildlife conflict.

Public attention is generally drawn only after a snakebite incident or the killing of a snake.

However, they said, the conflict begins much earlier when snakes enter houses, schools, workplaces, farms or other human-use areas and people are unaware of safe response mechanisms.

In many parts of the country, snake rescue operations continue to be carried out informally without standardised equipment, scientific training, documentation or release protocols, thereby posing risks to rescuers, local residents and the snakes themselves.

Officials emphasised that snakes play a vital ecological role by controlling rodent populations and maintaining ecosystem balance.

They stressed that conservation efforts must simultaneously protect human lives while preventing the unnecessary killing or injury of snakes through scientific rescue, public awareness and trained emergency response mechanisms.

(Sujit Chakraborty can be contacted at sujitchakrabortyne@gmail.com)

(IANS)