A Snake's Fight For Its Life

If you could save a wild animal from a natural death, would you?

Hey friends,

Greetings from Chandigarh, Punjab!

I am right now in the orderly city of Chandigarh. I’ll spend some time here, before going to Himachal Pradesh, where I will trek to the famous Barua Pass at 15,000 ft. My university semester just ended, and so I wanted to spend some time in the mountain forests and alpine zones of the Himalayas before heading back to Bangalore.

For this week’s issue, here is a short story I recount about an exciting snake encounter I had a few years ago.

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I once trailed a white-throated kingfisher through a forest patch. I weaved through the trees, eventually stumbling into a large clearing. I looked around, but the bird was nowhere in sight.

Disappointed, I turned my attention to some rose-ringed parakeets on a tree.

It was then that I noticed the branches in the vicinity fiercely thrashing. At first, I dismissed it. But the movement was too violent to be natural. I peered into the tree.

Amongst the branches was a 7-foot-long rat snake, its jaws wrapped around a chameleon. The reptile had subdued its prey and was sending it down its throat.

A rat snake climbing up a tree

This was unexpected. This enormous creature—taller than me—was just a few feet away, and I hadn't noticed it. I thought of how many snakes I had missed simply because I wasn't paying attention.

The snake hung behind the parakeets, which hadn't flown off in fright yet for some reason. They perched within striking distance, missing the predator in the shadows. Looks like they also hadn’t noticed it.

That's when things went wrong. One second, the snake was gorging on its prey, and the next, it was thrashing about, a thorn having penetrated its scales.

It pulled back in reflex, pushing the thorn deeper. The more it struggled, the deeper the thorn penetrated. The parakeets burst into flight. Soon, the snake was flailing about, throwing the maze of branches into chaos.

I watched the snake desperately trying to unhook itself. If it didn't escape in time, sepsis would kill the snake.

A terrible feeling erupted in my stomach. Instinct beckoned me to grab a stick and unhook the snake.

But I faced a conundrum. If I freed the snake, I'd interfere with a natural process. The snake got itself hooked, so its eventual death would be in the order of things. Many animals die natural deaths; who was I to intervene?

This remains an eternal debate among naturalists. Should you save a creature's life in the wild if you could?

For some, the answer is yes, on the emotional grounds of compassion and empathy. They say watching a wild animal die tugs at their heartstrings, so they must do everything they can to save it.

But this narrative is problematic. Scores of people have shot tigers and leopards to protect "innocent" deer or boars from suffering. But what about the tiger? By saving the doe's life, the tiger goes hungry. Its cubs stand the risk of starvation. In deeming one life more important than another, some animals are doomed to death.

Perhaps that snake was meant to die, and its rotting body was meant to replenish the surroundings. If I freed it, I'd be denying the plants their sustenance.

Yet, even this stance has complications. If you find a species teetering on the edge of extinction, how can you let one of them die? By not intervening, aren't you dooming the species to total annihilation?

After an hour of struggling with this dilemma, the snake seemed to have given up. Its movements were less pronounced; strength was failing it. The truth was stark—this gorgeous creature, in the prime of its life, would die a slow death.

Paralysed by indecision, I stood there until, finally, fate snatched the choice out of my hands.

The snake tore away from the hooked thorn in one last lurch, splattering blood everywhere. A large gash appeared near its mouth, a foot long at least and copiously streaming red. But it was alive and free. With any luck, the wound would close up and heal.

It wasted no time lingering about. At once, it began to ascend. Triumph glinted in its reptilian eyes. Soon, it slipped behind the leaves, and vanished out of sight.

The moment gave me this strange confidence that I could overcome any difficulty, just as the snake did. Strangely, I felt like we were mirroring each other.

A flash of blue burst from the tangle of green. The kingfisher was back, and he seemed to have a friend alongside—a second kingfisher. Both perched like spectators watching a game. "Was it you who led me here?" I wondered.

Postcard

These are seeds from the silver oak tree. They remind me of the acorn that the Ice Age squirrel loved :)

I found them in the grand oak forests of Uttarakhand.

Favourite Quote

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” – John Lubbock

Have a creative, wild and inspiring week!

If you’re new, welcome to The Owlet! My name is Ishan Shanavas, and I am an Artist, Photographer, Writer and Student of the Natural World.

Here I talk about my work, along with curating the most interesting ideas on the internet. I confine them to topics like Nature, Culture, Photography, and Art but often fall prey to other genres.

I would greatly appreciate it if you shared my newsletter and work with your friends. It really helps me out :)