‘There is very little understanding and tolerance for snakes’ Premium

Breeding snakes in captivity “is doable, not rocket science,” he says, as he offers a virtual tour of the serpentarium, which currently houses seven species of snakes — spectacled cobras, common kraits, Russel’s vipers, saw-scaled vipers, two species of pit vipers (the Malabar pit viper and hump-nosed pit viper) and four king cobras — some of which have already laid eggs.

Gerard “Gerry” Martin remembers the first snake he held when he was three or four: a red sand boa. “I can still see my fingers and that red sand boa in my hand,” says the Hunsur-based herpetologist and conservationist, the founder trustee of the Liana Trust, which has recently set up India’s first serpentarium focusing on research, snakebite management and conservation.

Breeding snakes in captivity “is doable, not rocket science,” he says, as he offers a virtual tour of the serpentarium, which currently houses seven species of snakes — spectacled cobras, common kraits, Russel’s vipers, saw-scaled vipers, two species of pit vipers (the Malabar pit viper and hump-nosed pit viper) and four king cobras — some of which have already laid eggs.

“What we have done here, which is different from pretty much every single venom production setup in the world, is we are trying to marry best practices in husbandry with best practices in venom production,” he says, as I catch a glimpse of a massive enclosure housing king cobras, a miniature version of the dense, tropical forests in which these animals are usually found. “We’re giving them naturalistic, as much as possible, bioactive enclosures to try and replicate their own space in the wild.”

In the interview, Martin discusses his dreams for the serpentarium, why India is the world’s snakebite capital and how this new space could help change the narrative around snakebite treatment in the country.