Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) in Assam, bordering Bhutan and West Bengal, is facing a significant human-snake interface due to snakes inhabiting various areas like cultivated fields, village peripheries, and forest fringes. To address this issue, the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) Forest Department conducted a two-day training program on Ethical Snake Rescue and Emergency Response, introducing a mobile application and an Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) booklet about the snakes of Bodoland. The training workshop, part of the SERPENT Assam initiative, involved around 30 experienced snake rescuers from different parts of Assam and 20 frontline personnel from the Bodoland Forest Department.
The region, acting as a biogeographic bridge between the Gangetic Plains and the Eastern Himalaya-Indo-Burma region, boasts a diverse snake fauna. Bodoland’s varied habitats support a rich variety of serpents, representing both Indo-Gangetic and northeastern faunal elements. Notably, the area is home to several medically important venomous snakes, making it a zone of high human-snake interaction. Bodoland also serves as a distributional edge and overlap zone for multiple snake species, emphasizing the need for landscape-level management beyond protected areas for conservation planning.
India, burdened with a high number of snakebite fatalities globally, has recorded a significant toll due to snakebites. A recent study estimated that India witnessed approximately 58,000 snakebite-related deaths annually between 2000 and 2019, with a large number of incidents occurring in 2015. The study highlighted that snakebite fatalities predominantly affect individuals aged between 30 and 69 years, as well as children under 15 years. The socio-economic impact of snakebites is particularly severe in rural areas, especially during the monsoon season, underscoring the need for effective response mechanisms and awareness to mitigate human-snake conflicts.
