TIMES OF INDIA (New Delhi) 27 June 08 What's in my shoes? It's a snake (K Praveen Kumar)
Chennai (TNN): It's virtually a jungle out there. Karthikeyan, a resident of Selvavinayagar Koil Street in West Mogappair, had a brush with death on Wednesday night when he reached out to pick up a shoe in his house. To his shock, he found a snake popping its head out. He called up the Velachery animal rescue and rehabilitation centre which rushed its personnel to the house. What they recovered was a 3.5-feet-long female adult krait (Bungarus fasciatus), the most poisonous land snake found in India.
"It could have been fatal if the man had put his hand or leg into the shoe. These snakes with black and white bands are very rare in Chennai. We rescue just one or two kraits a year from the city," Sathyamurthy, wildlife warden, Velachery, told TOI.
The krait's venom is a very powerful neurotoxin, 16 times more potent than cobra venom. Krait venom induces muscle paralysis and subsequently death. The specialised members of the rescue team have now moved the reptile to the animal rescue and rehabilitation centre in Velachery. The snake will be released in the wild.
The Velachery forest officials had hitherto rescued nearly 1,050 snakes, both venomous and non-venomous, from different parts of the city. "We have rescued snakes from bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens of houses. People of Chennai usually do not kill snakes, they inform us instead. We rescue the snake, keep it in our centre and once we have enough numbers, we release them in the wild," Satyamurthy said.
Among the poisonous snakes found in Chennai, cobras are the most common. "We rescued around 200 cobras last year. Russell's vipers and scaled vipers are very rare in the city. Like in the case of kraits, we have only one or two rescue of vipers in the city," the wildlife warden added.
What's in my shoes? It's a snake