Snake encounters on a Monday morning

After coming back quite late in the night after the workshop I stayed over at my mom's place which is in the outskirts of the city. The next morning i had an adventurous encounter with a large Rat snake (non-poisonous) that went into my mom's car bonnet (at her place last night until morning) after swallowing 4 frogs!! I jumped out of bed hearing my brother shout. This weekend we went for a work shop to talk to villagers living deep in the jungle on how to deal with conflict with wild animals, and here an incident struck at home. Applied some of the man-animal conflict knowledge and asked everyone to leave the snake alone. Called a person from the Friends of Snakes organization in Hyderabad. He gave me some tips to help a local guy get the snake out.. but the snake was scared an tightly wrapped itself inside the cars bonnet and we could not see much of the body except the tail hanging out next to the tire. After the local guy failed to get it out, the guy from Friends of Snakes came and got the snake out most gracefully in less than a minute. Seems like life has challenged me with the knowledge I am trying to convey to the rest of the world and I am glad the snake was finally safe though a bit injured as the local guy tried pulling it out.

This incident has only reemphasized the need for me to learn more about snakes and handle them. It?s a big help since I go to jungles frequently.

But life is such a bundle of surprises! It is most ironical that I go 1000 kms up and down to see animals in the wild and conduct a workshop dealing with man-animal conflict, and when I'm back, a snakes visits at home to give me a first hand experience of living close to the wild :) I was thrilled and tired at the same time !!

Backblipped the weekend Tadoba workshop.