Mongabay India: What made you think of king cobras and why did you follow this particular subject?

Gowri Shankar: When I started my fieldwork in Karnataka’s Agumbe, I started rescuing king cobras in people’s houses. If there’s a king cobra in somebody’s house, we have to rescue and relocate it, right? During one of those rescues, I got bitten, and I had to go to the hospital. And there was no antivenom for king cobra.

Of course, I had an antivenom from Thailand, but I knew that it wouldn’t work because it was different. It was from a different population. So when it didn’t work, I almost died. But, I survived, and that’s when I decided to find out whether they are different species and different population. 

Only if we know this fundamental question to be answered that there are different species, that is when you’re going to come up with different antivenom, species specific, region specific, antivenom. That is why I chose this subject.

Mongabay India: Snakebites are a public hazard in India. And out of the ‘big four’, cases of snakebites from king cobras are less. So does this study help in finding more about the antivenom?

Gowri Shankar: Definitely. You are right. Right now, the biggest problem we have is before ‘big four’ venomous snakes. Like you said, spectacled cobra, common krait, Russel’s viper and saw scaled viper. Close to 58,000 or 60,000 people die due to snakebites in India every year and more than 200,000 people permanently get disabled because of the snakebites. King cobras don’t fall into that ‘big four’ or ‘big five’ or ‘big six’.

Luckily, they are restricted to the Western Ghats and northeast and eastern parts. The good thing is people here in the Western Ghats, they coexist with them. They are found only in deep jungles, though there is human animal conflict, snakebites or the king cobra bites are very, very low right now. But if this kind of developmental activity (infrastructure development) continues and the king cobra lose its habitat, in future they might become like cobra or krait or Russel’s or saw scaled.

They we will reach that stage where human and king cobra interaction will be up, and that is when the snakebites might occur. So, there is no harm in knowing they are a different species and trying to find out and design a specific antivenom.

Mongabay India: Does this study also solve a larger conservation goal?

Gowri Shankar: Definitely. Because, even in some of the good habitats where we have tigers, leopards, lions or elephants, they are the apex predators or apex animals or umbrella species. Using that, we could conserve or protect the entire landscape. So similarly, if you see in the Western Ghats, we know the population of tigers and leopards, it’s very low.

So king cobra could be that umbrella species or the keystone species, because king cobra is an apex predator, it feeds on close to 30 to 40 different species of snakes. Which means the entire food chain and king cobra is on the top of the food chain. So king cobra could be used as a keystone species to protect the entire landscape and the Western Ghats, a highly biodiverse forest in the entire world. So we have to protect the species and the landscape.

Mongabay India: What kind of prey king cobra have and what is the status of the prey base?

Gowri Shankar: Like I mentioned, they feed on close to 30 to 40 species of snakes. Meaning, kraits, Russel’s, even pit vipers, pythons, you name it and they are going to feed on them. So, if king cobra is there, that means the entire prey base is healthy. King cobra also help humans, particularly the villagers, in controlling the population of other snakes.

If there is a good population of prey base that means the snakes and the frogs and the insects are doing well.

Mongabay India: When it comes to conservation, it cannot be done without the community’s involvement. Out of these four species, you named two of them after their local names. Could you tell us more about that?

Gowri Shankar: Yes. I have been working in the central Western Ghats, particularly in Karnataka for a long time. I have learned a lot from the local people. These local people here in Malnad region are very closely connected, culturally connected with the species. They consider king cobra as their ancestors. And, there’s a belief also that if king cobra pass through their plantation or paddy fields, they are going to get a bumper harvest. There is a lot of positivity. They also conserve them, they don’t kill them. So in honour of them, I wanted to give the scientific name, as Kaalinga, which is, in Kannada, the term for king cobra.

So it’s Ophiophagus kaalinga. This is basically to make our community proud about their cultural attachment with the species and their conservation efforts that they’ve been doing for centuries now.

I want the entire world to know how these people are connected with this species. So I hope our Karnataka people will feel proud about a king cobra being named in their language. 

And, the second species again. Ophiophagus salvatana from Luzon. Luzon is one of the largest islands in the Philippines, and this is the most endangered species as of now among these four species of king cobra.

So I named even that species out of their local language, Tagalog language, Salvatana, because I want them to follow what we have done here in the Malnad region. I wanted them to feel proud the way local Malnad people are feeling proud because they have to protect them, the community should be involved. There (in Luzon) people kill them due to fear. Here (in Malnad) people have fear, but they have more respect towards the species.

So I want this as a good model which can be used in the Philippines and Luzon. And the conservation status goes up for that species.

Mongabay India: What is the difference you see between the practices the Malnda people use or other people use? What is the status of community’s involvement?

Gowri Shankar: There (in Luzon) the fear takes over. They just unnecessarily kill them, they prosecute them because they are scared. And of course, king cobra is also looked at like any other chicken or any wild meat. So food, and skin, once they kill it, they use the skin also for leather products. The pet trade for Europe and America, but luckily no snakes from the Western Ghats are going into the international market. The protection level here is quite high, thanks to the forest department and the community who protect the species. Now that’s a big difference.

Mongabay India: You worked with different people, in different countries, different regions for this project. What are the challenges of doing this kind of study and cooperation and collaboration with international players?

Gowri Shankar: King cobra was discovered in 1836 by Cantor, and since then, many speculated there could be different species, but no one established it. And they took a long time because they didn’t have proper technology at that time. But, morphologically, people knew they looked different, but they couldn’t establish it. So with the present DNA work, I managed to say, they are four different species.

Challenges would be collecting samples; king cobra is a venomous snake, capturing them in the wild or anywhere and collecting samples is the most dangerous thing you could do. If it is a frog or even a bird or any plant species, it’s easy to collect and take it to the lab and get the DNA done. But king cobra being the longest venomous snake is the biggest challenge.

We need their ventral scales as tissue samples to extract the DNA. So we have to capture them and do it very scientifically. Along with that, we also collected samples in the zoos and museums traveling across Europe and other countries to collect the samples.

But the biggest challenge is financial, funds, because the research spilled over to eight years. It’s a very long study. So it was a challenge. And permits, king cobra is highly protected in India and other countries. Getting permits to collect samples was one more challenging thing, it took me two years to get the permits.

We had almost 11 states in India to cover. So in almost seven or nine states I managed to get the permits and collected samples. These are the challenges I faced while doing this project. Now of course, leaving the family, friends and spending more time in the field or traveling was another challenge.