Over the past four years I have kept a careful record of every snake I’ve had to move out of harm’s way in the area surrounding my home. These are simply log entries for each time someone called me because a snake had wandered into human space and needed help. I’ve counted 53 rescues in 2022, 110 in 2023, 85 in 2024 and 114 in 2025. These numbers are NOT a measure of how many snakes live here – they only reflect the times I actually intervened. There were nearly as many occasions when no rescue was necessary because the snake had already moved on or we were able to convince the humans it was okay to be let it be. In many cases we ended up educating people about the animal and walking away.

Why share these statistics at all? Because they reveal patterns in our encounters with snakes and highlight the situations in which human fear, rather than the snake’s distress, drives the call. A true rescue is when a snake would likely die without intervention or is trapped inside a home. Most of our work is simply moving animals a few metres away to calm frightened residents. My hope is that as people learn to live around snakes, these numbers will shrink not through habitat loss but because fewer ‘rescues’ are needed.

Below is a year‑by‑year look at the rescues alongside a handful of memorable encounters that illustrate the range of situations I’ve faced. Species counts give an overall picture, while the individual stories show the reality of working with wild reptiles.

2022 – A Year of Firsts

My first recorded rescue of 2022 set the tone for the year: a Russell’s viper curled up near Footprints park. Known as one of India’s “big four” (debatable topic) venomous species, Russell’s vipers are unpredictable and always command respect. Moving that snake for the first time brought a mix of awe and caution that I still remember.

The most nerve‑wracking moment of the year was my first spectacled cobra rescue. This juvenile had entered a house and hissed loudly every time I moved. Each hiss prompted an involuntary hop worthy of a Michael Jackson move, yet eventually the cobra was coaxed into a bag and released. By the end of 2022 the numbers told their own story: spectacled cobras and Russell’s vipers dominated my rescues, with smaller counts of rat snakes, trinkets, wolf snakes and a few keelbacks. It was clear that people were more likely to call me when a snake looked dangerous; there were many benign encounters I never recorded.

2023 – The Year of the Cobra (and More)

In 2023 the number of rescues more than doubled. There were a lot of spectacled cobras (forty), but the year also brought more variety: Checkered Keelbacks, Anamalai Wolf snakes and a few Kraits showed up. Several encounters illustrate why education is just as important as relocation.

One of the earliest rescues that year was a young spectacled cobra hiding inside a hollow brick. Instead of trying to grab the snake, we simply carried the brick itself and set it down in a safe area. It’s a good reminder that sometimes the easiest solution is to move the environment along with the animal.

Later that year I had my first ever common krait rescue. Kraits are highly venomous and usually nocturnal; this sub‑adult had hidden in leaf litter and took fifteen minutes of careful combing before it could be safely bagged. 

By year’s end the pattern was clear: more people were comfortable calling for help, and the rescues covered a wider range of species. However, many calls were still about snakes that posed little threat. In each case I tried to explain the animal’s behaviour, encourage coexistence and only intervene when needed.

2024 – Fewer Calls, More Variety

After the busy pace of 2023, 2024 felt quieter with 85 recorded rescues. While spectacled cobras were again the most common species, other snakes made memorable appearances.

Early in the year a spectacled cobra turned out to be the toughest rescue I’d faced. What should have been a simple catch stretched into an hour as the snake coerced me into a 25 to 30 feet dark and dingy enclosure.

The most dramatic event of 2024 was the Indian rock python labelled “perumpaamb” by locals. The python had disappeared into a rubble pile, and it took nearly an hour of climbing over boulders to coax and lift the gentle giant into a bag. 

The lower call volume suggests that people were becoming more comfortable coexisting with snakes – or, perhaps, my message of not calling unless necessary was resonating.

2025 – When Experience Meets Challenges

2025 was my busiest year yet, with 114 rescues. I had grown more comfortable handling snakes and more assertive in telling callers when a rescue wasn’t warranted. Yet there were still plenty of incidents that reminded me how unpredictable this work can be.

Early in the year I found a spectacled cobra that cats had battered. At first glance it looked dead, but once carefully lifted it sprang back to life. On another call, a baby Russell’s viper was glued to a piece of tape; I had to peel it off without injuring the snake. A day later a cobra was trapped on a glue mat – the same type people use for rats. These cases prompted me to speak more loudly against glue traps.

The year also included a pair of baby vipers: one hissed non‑stop for twenty minutes, while another was misidentified as a python, leading us on a 65‑kilometre round trip to a village.

There were also sobering moments. A large spectacled cobra in a rabbit farm killed several baby rabbits and vomited them up during the rescue. Several checkered keelbacks insisted on living in a sump; I removed four over two days, knowing there might still be one more. A glue‑trapped rat snake allowed me to show residents how coconut oil frees animals without harming them. And I spent an afternoon digging through a construction site for a cobra that kept disappearing among debris. 

The volume of calls was high, but so was the number of “educational visits” where we simply asked neighbours to watch and let the snake move on.

Patterns and Reflections

Looking back at four years of rescues, a few themes stand out:

• Cobras are our most frequent visitors. Spectacled cobras accounted for roughly two‑fifths of all rescues each year. They’re highly adaptable and quick to exploit shelter like drains, pipes and sheds. While they are venomous, they prefer to escape rather than bite, and most of my interactions involve calmly guiding them into a bag.
• Rat snakes and vipers are here to stay. Non‑venomous rat snakes, with their impressive size and appetite for rodents, cause plenty of alarm but pose little danger. Russell’s vipers, on the other hand, are genuinely dangerous; thankfully they tend to be sluggish, which makes moving easier if done cautiously.
• Misidentification drives many calls. People often mistake harmless species for dangerous ones. Wolf snakes look similar to kraits, while Banded Kukris are sometimes called Kraits by frightened callers. Part of my role is to correct these mistakes and sometimes decline a rescue if the animal is better off left alone.
• Glue traps and cats are recurring problems. A surprising number of rescues involve glue mats meant for rodents. These traps don’t discriminate and often cause more suffering to unintended victims. Domestic cats also injure snakes or chase them into human spaces, leading to unnecessary conflict.
• The goal is coexistence, not relocation. Every rescue is an opportunity to show people that snakes aren’t villains. By explaining the difference between venomous and non‑venomous species, demonstrating safe distances and encouraging people to let snakes pass through, I hope to reduce both unnecessary rescues and snake deaths. Ultimately, success will be when there are fewer entries in this log because our community has learned to live alongside these animals.

Conclusion

These records represent only a fraction of the snake-human interactions in my locality. They are not trophies but reminders of the animals we share this space with and the responsibility that comes with that coexistence. Spectacled cobras, rat snakes and vipers may dominate the numbers, but each rescue, whether of a tiny wolf snake jammed between tiles or a six‑foot cobra hiding in a pipe – tells a story about curiosity, fear and ultimately respect. We will keep rescuing when necessary, but my real hope is for a future where more people know when not to call. In that world, snakes will continue to thrive, and my logbook will remain mercifully empty.

For the complete log, click here.