Where is my Green Vine Snake?

That was a rainy morning on a day in August 2008, my father was busy plucking a flower from our garden in front of my home which is in the remote village of Honnavara taluk of Uttara Kannada, in the mysterious Western Ghats. Suddenly he spotted green vine snake not one, not two but it was four in number on hibiscus plants. It was a common scenario to site them together in the garden of households of Western Ghats. As though there were some myths like it will attack eyes among the people, the majority of the people were harmless to them. The perfect example of the beauty of human and nature coexistence.

But time changed, developmental activity slowly started to destroy this beautiful relationship. Everything was not the same. Continued encroachment, cutting of trees, clearance of forest, and introduction of more vehicles slowly started to take over this relationship. Now we are in 2022, but sadly the common sightings of this beautiful snake have now disappeared. From last 05 years, I have never sighted them in my garden. Some were spotted in the form of roadkill’s only. These
creatures are important in controlling the population of insects and other snakes. But sadly day by day these snakes are maintaining social distance from humans and ultimately my heart is asking this question “Where is my Green vine snake?”

Snakes, like most reptiles are highly misunderstood. For example, there has been many myths about identifying venomous from non-venomous snakes. These myths prove fatal as snakes are suffering significantly from human wildlife conflict. With over 1 million people losing their lives to snakebites this century across India, these slithery reptiles undergo significant persecution. Furthermore, snake charming is also a major threat to the taxa.

Written by: N M Guruprasad, Research Scholar, Department of Environmental Science, Kuvempu University Shivamogga

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