Let us catch those King Cobras

Among the many documentary films shown by National Geographic and Discovery channels that I have been most fascinated with are those featuring wild animals. Amidst the obvious patience with which these motion pictures are being shot, these are really educational shows. Believe it or not, from viewing films on tigers, lions and cobras, I imagined I could handle these animals whenever I would have the disaster of walking close to them.

But, lessons I learned from two different television episodes told me that death really followed where the venomous snakes prowled. The experiences of an Indian who was bitten by a King Cobra and an American who was also stung by a Diamond Head were, even vicariously, extremely harrowing. I cringed to see that within minutes from the bites, most of the human anatomy of the victims ceased to function normally. They were just few hours of losing their lives. Only timely medical interventions saved them.

It did not help my psyche at all that the statistics released by the television channels indicated that hundreds die annually in India and Thailand from cobra bites. The recent incident where Ronaldo Aventurado, an experienced snake handler of the Cebu City Zoo, got bitten by a King Cobra drove home that dreaded point. He was helpless on his hospital bed and was just literally waiting for his time. It was only by a rare twist of fortune that someone, in the person of the late plane pilot Capt. Bahinting, took the mercy flight of getting the anti-venom medicine from a Camiguin hospital and the rest is now proverbial history.

The documentary films tell me that the habitats of the King Cobra are primarily India and Thailand. That should account for the recorded deaths and near deaths among the Indians and Thailanders from snakebites. We can thus, assume from these shows that these reptiles are not found in our province.

For whatever natural reason there may be, these highly venomous animals are not bred hereabouts. And we should thank heavens for sparing us from the dread the winged snakes carry. Indeed, in all these years of my existence, I have come across only of “Ugahipon” and “Udto-udto” which, though acknowledged to carry some venom, have not killed anyone. Oh yes, there too, are the “Banakon” and “Sawa”, which are the bigger ones but like the smaller “Hanlulukay” they do not produce a kill from their bite.

It therefore shocked me to hear of that recent incident involving that young man in Busay, this city. A king cobra bit Ronaldo there and that fact led me to cower in fear to realize that this deadliest among the snakes, after all, inhabits in our island. And there were many times that I walked on a very small parcel of land in Busay which I own.

Let me try to reconstruct the incident. Informed that there was a King Cobra seen nearby, Ronaldo went to the site not quite believing that it was indeed a cobra. He was experienced to handle such deadly animal but what was probably foremost in his mind was to get it before it could kill a human being. As fate had it, he got bitten.

Last week, another King Cobra was found in Malubog, a barangay next to Busay. This discovery, a second, raises a deadly signal. If Cebu is not to be a habitat of this deadly snake, why were there two such reptiles recently found? Could it be that someone kept this pair as his pets, grrr, but either he lost them or just released them to the wild where they might have multiplied?

However these snakes have crept into our shores, the important thing to do now is to track them. We all concede that death from cobra bites stalks our residents. Before anything like what happened to Ronaldo takes place, it is the duty of government to keep our people safe. We must find these King Cobras, if there are more remaining wild, catch them and keep them where they could not bite unsuspecting farmers or trekkers. Time is of the essence.