Snake rescues in Telangana increase five fold in 10 years; nearly 50% of snakes rescued in 2025 are spectacled cobras

There is simply a five-fold summation successful the fig of snakes rescued successful Telangana by Friends of Snake Society, successful coordination with the State Forest department, successful the past 10 years; from 3,097 successful 2016 to 15,265 successful 2025. Venomous snakes constituted 55.61% of the reptiles rescued past year. Increase successful operation and improvement enactment was 1 of the factors for the rescues clustered successful the municipality fringes, with immoderate of the hotspots being Miyapur, Dammaiguda, Nagaram, Rampally, Manikonda, Bandalguda Jagir, Vanasthalipuram and Balapur. Majority of the rescues were wrong Outer Ring Road limits.

49.3% were Spectacled Cobras

Of the 15,265 snakes rescued past year, Spectacled Cobras constituted 49.3% (7,525), followed by 23.5% Rat Snakes (3587), 7.8% of Checkered keelback (1195) and 5.9% Russell’s Viper (897), according to the Society’s investigation of information connected taxon composition.Avinash Visvanathan, wide secretary, Friends of Snakes Society (FoSS) said that the dominance of venomous snakes successful the creation has cardinal implications connected nationalist information and calls for the request for trained interventions successful snake rescues. Trained members of the nine rescued the snakes — which were released into suitable habitats, arsenic per a property release. 

Venomous snakes adapting to municipality settings

The precocious fig of venomous taxon rescued successful municipality and peri-urban regions indicates their ecological adaptability and relation with human-modified environments that provide prey, shelter, and water. Though non-venomous snakes rescued were fewer, they encompassed a wide scope of guilds, indicating the continued beingness of divers microhabitats wrong the municipality landscape. “At the aforesaid time, their displacement into quality spaces signals expanding situation compression and nonaccomplishment of ecological buffers,” said Mr. Avinash. 

The hotspots of the rescue incidents corresponded with accelerated residential and infrastructure improvement zones. The human-snake struggle is astir aggravated successful landscapes wherever ongoing operation overlaps with remnant earthy habitats, arsenic per the Society. 

Likely reasons for summation successful snake encounters

“Habitat fragmentation, nonaccomplishment of shelter, and disruption of question corridors successful these areas are apt driving higher brushwood rates. Increased consciousness astir snakes, their value successful situation and astir snake rescue teams besides led to summation successful the rescue activity. While specified clustering accrued unit connected rescue teams, it besides enables targeted mitigation done focused assemblage outreach, improved discarded and rodent management, and strategical deployment of rapid-response resources,” said Mr. Avinash. 

He said that considering the information and its analysis, determination is simply a request to displacement from a predominantly reactive rescue exemplary to an anticipatory and preventive framework. The FoSS wide caput said that integration of the information into municipality planning, infrastructure development, discarded and rodent management, and green-space plan tin assistance trim struggle astatine its source.

“Targeted assemblage consciousness successful identified hotspot zones, extortion of drainage corridors and remnant habitats, and aboriginal deployment of rescue resources during high-risk seasonal windows volition beryllium critical,”he said. The society’s 24/7 helpline fig is 8374233366.