If you are not a trained snake-handler, avoid fooling with snakes and do NOT ever handle with bare hands, unless it’s a serious emergency. However, if inclined to do so or you need to handle snakes for study or photography, use a snake hook or better still, a snake grabber/ tong, specially designed for the job. Nowadays, there is snake handling equipment available in the market (especially, in the Western countries), which is professionally produced. Also, one should never handle venomous snakes when alone, even if you are an expert, unless there is emergency. One must learn handling of snakes, under the guidance of a well-trained snake handler. One must store live snakes in cloth-bags, which should be made of strong cloth and check for holes and weak points along the seams. Must replace these snake bags, at the beginning of every monsoon season, as these get weaker with exposure to moisture, and a snake can tear open the bag by pushing its head through weak cloth. Avoid handling snakes for fun or `show-off’’ or to be a `macho-man’; it is not worth it. Remember, anti venom serum also can cause death (some people are allergic to serums), in many cases it may lead to complications and result in ever lasting side-effects e.g. some experts have lost limbs. So, never fool around with snakes without a clear purpose.

ADVISORY:

• Never feed a snake with live rat, when its in a cloth snake-bag. Usually, snakes avoid attacking its prey in such close places, in effort to avoid any injury ensued from the scuffle for grabbing its prey. Snake will not attack it’s prey for long, will keep lying in ambush to administer a venomous bite to immobilize the prey and rat (prey) will remain alive. It will get enough time to attempt to make an escape from the bag, by chewing a hole through the snake-bag. It happened at my place, when a Russell’s viper made an escape at my place, in August 2000.
• Snake bags should be made of dark and thick cloth which is usually meant for trousers. In the West, one gets ready-made snake bags.
• Never pin down a snake and hold from the neck, very dangerous. Unless, you are doing some serious work and it needs to grab it’s neck.
• Never indulge in any kind of conversation, while handling a venomous snake. First of all, finish the handling of the snake, which is in your hands for specific purpose and place the snake in secure place and then talk. Many snake-handlers have got bitten in such a way.
• Snakes are known for making great escapes and give surprises all the time. Beware !!!

Snake Handling Equipment: Venomous snakes should never be handled with bare hands, no matter how expert one is. There are specially designed equipment/ gadgets being sold in the international market for herpetologists i.e. hooks, tongs, gloves, shoes, bags, etc. These come in various sizes and shapes, made of variety of materials.

WORD OF CAUTION: Please do not use locally made contraptions, which you have not been tested by yourself. Try and fabricate hooks with good material i.e. a broken golf club makes a very good snake-hook. Best is to buy a tested and tried equipment produced by a branded company, its worth any price. Always, make snake-bags of dark colour cloth, as snakes love dark area to be comfortable when disturbed.

Snake Keeping: Avoid keeping venomous or unknown snakes as pets. Remember, that they pose serious hazard not only to you, but also to your family and neighbours. Also, I advise that as Indians we should NOT try keeping snakes as pets and there are a few reasons for that. First of all, it is illegal to keep snakes as pets in India, all are protected under WILDLIFE PROTECTION ACT. Only a researcher could do that to study the behaviour of snakes, even then a formal permission from the wildlife department has to be sought for the purpose. It is hard to understand the requirements of snakes, especially at different times under different circumstances, for different purpose i.e. sickness, special diet, growth, baby feed, etc. Also, in India we do not have good support system for such pets i.e. special food, equipment, clinics etc. Snakes could die easily under stress, which is caused by frequent handling and variation in temperature around them. One of the most difficult aspects of snake-keeping, therefore, is gaining the expertise required to know when things are not right; spotting the subtle differences in behaviour patterns, which indicate that the animal is struggling to survive.

In India, snake-keeping is regarded as a somewhat suspicious occupation, carried out by a few, rather weird enthusiasts. We do not have any stock which is captive bred in zoos or pet-shops. All the snakes available through snake-charmers are caught from the wild, which means depletion of environment, affecting your ecosystem adversely.

So, I would like to advise you to never keep a snake as a pet and deny him his basic `rights of freedom’, as they are NOT meant to be in captivity. Also, avoid environmental depletion.

Legal Aspects: All reptile species are protected in India, through listing in the country’s wildlife conservation legislation – Wildlife Protection Act 1972. Keeping snakes without a proper legal permission would invite an `uncomfortable place’ in jail.

NOTE: Soon, I will be selling snake tongs and snake hooks, basically to raise funds for the Snake Cell and to help snake enthusiasts have easy access to snake handling equipment/gear.

MISSION: SAVE INNOCENT SNAKES AND IGNORANT PEOPLE, WITH MY CAMERA

We all know that `an image is worth thousand words’!  I say that a good image is worth million words! Isn’t it?

So, I decided  to accomplish my mission by educating people about snakes and snakebite, basically to make them comfortable with the presence of snakes, through good quality photos. I strongly felt that good photos will project snakes as beautiful creatures and handsome, thus hoping that the hostile attitude of common man may get friendlier towards snakes after seeing their beauty through my photos.  So far, I have been encouraged by the remarks and comments of the viewers of every quality snake image I have shown to public through my websites, blogs and others forums on internet.

I am sure, this endeavour will save the snakes from being misunderstood, as most dreaded animals. There are reports that in pre-independence India, British government promoted extermination of venomous snake species from certain areas, though it turned out to be a futile effort. This indicates how hostile we can be against innocent creatures, without even making an attempt to understand our neighbours,  who cohabit this beautiful planet Earth. I do not blame the commoner squarely, as he struggles to muster for basics for his living. It’s the government agencies who have to organise the right type of educational material and effective strategy, which has had glaring failures in the field of  `nature conservation education’ so far. For the will to do quality work is missing at all levels in the government department of wildlife.

My endeavour will be to bridge the gap between  `INNOCENT SNAKES, IGNORANT PEOPLE’, through well written literature containing good information about snakes alongwith good quality images; common man needs it the most, to join hands to `SAVE OUR BEAUTIFUL PLANET’.

Finally, I said, “What the heck, why I can’t do photos of snakes, so what if I am poor at this stage, if I start now then one day I shall create good snake photos”. That was enough to motivate me. I started trying my hand with snake photography, while using rescued snakes,  and as the time passed by, with practice I started getting reasonably good photos, ever since I have been improving. I am happy with the results.

Here, I would like to advise you to be careful about buying any camera equipment `on line’, especially the one you have not used before, one must refer existing users of equipment, first. I bought Canon macro lens 180mm L series and a 2x converter to compliment it, alongwith a Canon Ring Flash MR 14-EX. Soon, after some photography with snakes, I discovered that ring flash had no role in snake photography for me. Also, I realised that snake photography can be done with other lenses i.e. tele lens, wide angle lens, etc. Most people think that snake photography means macro lenses.

Now, I love doing snake photography, though I have a long way to go, before I can make my snake photos stunning for quality. I am dreaming to do some quality shots for the `snakes & snakebite poster’, which should be able to attract and stop any onlooker with its quality of images and get them read the text.

In the past, whenever I posted my snake photos on my Flickr account, I used to get mails from viewers, who were curious to know how to go about snake photography. And I was quite surprised that there wasn’t much on the subject on the net. Therefore, I decided to publish about this subject on the internet, in stead of writing individual mails. Be rest assured that I have explained all about snake photography on my own blog and websites, as much as I know, nothing has been hidden. I love to share my experiences and knowledge with everyone. So, this will be a sincere  endeavour to disseminate knowledge about snakes through my Canon.

Snake photography is not at all difficult, provided you know the snakes well (like you are supposed to know your subject well, in any branch of good photography), one should have a competent snake handler for the snake shoot, follow the safety instructions, suitable camera equipment, etc.

Many Flickr viewers have commented on my snake photos there that I am gutsy, bold, brave and what not. I do not agree with all that. Fact remains, when you know about snakes well and about the consequences of snakebite, you are more scared and respect snakes more ! Its a matter of practice and knowing your subject, keeping in mind the safety.

Good discipline is the key to snake photography!

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