LAHORE – Rescue 1122 released the statistics of their Animal Shelter Services, which took place in Lahore for 2010. The emergency services also operate in the rest of Punjab’s 36 districts for rescuing animals, found stuck or wounded in dangerous situations, and humans, threatened by dangerous animals such as snakes.
In fact the number of emergencies related to snakes has been the highest in number with about 46 snakes being removed from places which may harm either the snakes themselves or human inhabitants of the area. Out of 46, however, only half of the operations, 24, have been successful.
Adil Siddiqui, a Herpetologist (reptile researcher) specialized in Reptile Form from South Africa, has been collaborating with the rescue services. Prior to this, he has also been working with the Lahore Zoo, but is now working on an independent project of crocodile farming in Sahiwal. However, whenever there are reptiles involved, Adil accompanies the Rescue 1122 workers to retrieve the animal in complete safety and make sure that it is saved without endangering the people around.
“Twenty four of these operations have been unsuccessful because many times we found out that either the public had already killed the snake or the snake had fled,” says Adil. “Once there was a snake which was about to lay eggs, but when we reached there, it suddenly died. So incidents like these also happen.”
But a new phenomenon of the rescue animal work has been uncovered. Providing the snakes especially for research purposes to vets is much better than killing the animals. At present, Adil says, there are several projects which are working on finding anti-venom, but not all snakes found are venomous either. The three venomous kinds are Cobra (with two sub species), Soft Scale Viper and Krait. These are found in Lahore, while a total of 14 species of venomous snakes are found in Pakistan. Meanwhile, non venomous snakes consist of rat snakes and many others.
“People often do not understand that not all snakes are poisonous, and superficially we cannot really solve that problem because by looking at the snake you cannot tell its type either. But we catch the snake, and either leave it in its habitat, or give it to the zoo. Leaving them in their habitat is good because in those areas there are lots of rats, so we lessen disease carrying rats in a natural way,” he said.
Farmers experience some trouble regarding the increase of snakes outside the urban area, but Dr Adil says it is good for the ecosystem too. The increase of snakes is more when the weather changes to winter, because at this point in time, snakes are looking for places to hibernate in and usually end up in houses. They are also looking for food and within Lahore, they can turn up anywhere from the Walled City to Defence.
Besides snakes, other reptiles, that is lizards have also been found. As listed by the rescue services, these are usually dangerous, and large in size. Nine of these cases were reported while five were successful.
Other animals included cats that were found to be trapped in different places (three cases, all resolved), eagles and other large birds wounded or injured badly (three cases, all resolved) and 11 cases of cows or buffalos also trapped or fallen into a ditch, all of them resolved.
Twenty-four of these operations have been unsuccessful because many times we found out that either the public had already killed the snake or the snake had fled. Once there was a snake which was about to lay eggs, but when we reached there, it suddenly died. So incidents like these also happen
