King Cobra drinking water: After video goes viral, conservationist cautions against charming snakes with human hospitality

Have you ever seen a cobra drink water from a bottle? It happened. It probably shouldn’t have. Wildlife generally does not like human confrontation and are least interested in whether we offer them water or not. On Thursday, a video was widely circulated appearing originally on Cater News’ YouTube channel — a 12-feet-long King Cobra can be seen sipping water from a bottle. [caption id=“attachment_3361696” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A screengrab from the YouTube video of the snake drinking water.[/caption] According to The News Minute, the man giving water to the snake is the deputy range forest officer of Karwar forest range, CN Naykka, who along with snake expert Raghavendra had rescued the snake. “The Kaiga Power Plant is located near the forest range. The snake had wandered into the Kaiga Township, located near the plant sometime in the morning. We spotted the King Cobra at around 12.30 pm and it was dehydrated due to the extreme heat. Hence, I offered it some water and took it to a rescue centre…Whenever a snake wanders into civilian-populated areas, we first offer it water. There is nothing sensational about it. The Kali River, which runs through the Karwar Forest Range is flush with water and so are the backwaters located near the Kaiga Power Plant. During summer, many different birds and animals come for water including cobras,” he is quoted as saying in the report. According to wildlife conservationist, Janaki Lenin, the snake should have been left alone because “a cornered snake is looking for one thing only: Escape. Not water, not food, not human hospitality. Just stay out of their way,” as she wrote on Facebook. Lenin also wrote that there is no antivenom available for a King Cobra bite in India and strongly dissuaded people from indulging in such activities in the future. “This is not how you treat wild animals. This is called torture. Please stop manhandling animals and pretending you have their best interests at heart. Sharing the video is condoning idiocy and cruelty,” she wrote.