1.
Some days M5 will travel eight kilometres, and other
days he will not move from a burrow. Regardless,
these trackers are shadowing him for at least ten
hours every day.
By this time we had seen a total of four King Cobras
and were getting close to the promised number of
five. Two days went by without incident, but then on
our second last day at Agumbe we got the call we
were all waiting for. Our fifth king was about an hour
away, so we all piled into the Jeep and set off. It
proved to be the biggest of the lot, at four and a half
metres long and weighing eight kilograms. Like the
other three rescue call-outs, the snake was bagged
and relevant data obtained.
Each of the King Cobras rescued by Ajay and his team
are released back into the wild at a location as close
as possible to the original catch site. The data
collected will be valuable in estimating the population
of these snakes in the wild, as well as providing
information about growth rates and other important
insights.
2.
1.
This big male
King Cobra weighed
almost 8 kilograms.
2
(slide show)
Female King Cobra
rescued from a roof
space; large male
found under a pot;
Ajay educating the
locals.
Images courtesy
Ross Howlett and
Adam Sapiano.
3. Flying Draco
lizards were
everywhere at the
ARRS.
.