Robbed of habitat, snakes seek out urban dwellings

HYDERABAD: Snakes on a plane are passé, its snakes in the house here with the now homeless reptiles crawling into denizens' homes for shelter. While many people found new homes in the several apartments and residential complexes that came up in areas like Gachibowli, Kondapur, Uppal, Kukatpally and LB Nagar over the last decade, hundreds of snakes living in open spaces there lost their natural homes.And this has led to a significant rise in the number of cases of these uninvited guests slithering into houses and offices in these areas.
The most recent sightings of the reptile were a week ago at an MNC office in Madhapur where a snake was spotted in the building by a security guard and around three weeks ago at My Home Jewel in Madinaguda where residents saw a snake on two separate occasions on the jogging track there. Then P Naresh, a resident of L B Nagar found a Russell's viper in his house on Thursday evening said, "Our house was built around four years ago along with many other buildings which were coming up at that time. Before that there was around 30 to 40 acres of open land here with lots of trees and bushes."
Members of Friends of Snakes Society (FOS), which rescues and rehabilitates snakes found across the city, said that in the past three years the number of rescues in the above mentioned areas has gone up by at least 50%. With its many open areas engulfed by the expanding concrete jungle, Gachibowli seems to be on the top this list currently. Officials from the body said that while around three years ago there were no calls for snake rescues from the area, now they receive at least one or two such calls daily.
Avinash Visvanathan, general secretary of FOS said, "Last year there were around 1,000 rescues in total, this time it is already more than 1,400 and we have been receiving at least five calls per day on average. Sightings in areas like Gachibowli, Kondapur and even Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills have increased by more than 20%. We also receive around three calls in a week from Banjara Hills now." He added that apart from the common non-venomous types like rat snakes, there is an increase in sightings of venomous snakes like spectacled cobra, common krait and Russell's viper, adding that while last year they rescued around 40 vipers, this year the figure is close to 100.
Experts from the real estate field said that till the year 2007, the locations where most of the big residential constructions have come up were covered with rocks and bushes adding that more than 50% of the existing buildings in these areas have come up only in the past few years. Farida Tampal, state director of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said, "It is only natural for snakes to look for new places to take shelter in as all the naturally occurring homes for reptiles like rocks and crevices in the peripheries of the city have been cleared out. People are making parks but even in there they do not want snakes. Their natural habitat is being completely damaged."