Natural World (1983) s30e13 Episode Script
One Million Snakebites
Ever since the Garden of Eden, humans and snakes have had a difficult relationship.
And nowhere more so than here, India.
One of the world's most crowded countries, and home to over one billion people.
A recent scientific survey has confirmed what some have long suspected.
India is facing a hidden health problem of epidemic proportions.
It's on a collision course with its snake population, and the human casualty count is far, far greater than official estimates.
Reptile expert Romulus Whitaker has committed his life to conservation.
Long ago, he realised protecting India's snakes would be impossible without first factoring in human welfare.
Armed with this new data, and more than three decades of field experience, Rom is about to investigate the natural history behind these incredible statistics, and find out why India has become the land of one million snakebites.
India is one of the snakiest countries in the world, and home to an estimated 65 species of venomous snakes.
Of these, 15 have been known to cause human deaths.
For centuries, an accurate figure for the number of people bitten and killed by snakes in India has been simply unknown.
Until now.
At his farm in South India, Rom's received some interesting reading.
I'm looking at an absolutely fascinating report just out, and it's about numbers of snakebite deaths in India.
This is based on something called a Million Death Study, and it's not hospital records, it's not records from state government sources.
This was based on interviewing families and households all over India to find out the causes of death, and snakebite deaths are incredibly significant.
If the survey is accurate, each year India suffers 50,000 deaths from as many as one million snakebites.
Comparing this to Australia, home to double the number of venomous snakes, yet with only an average of three fatalities per year, and the extent of India's problem becomes very apparent.
These statistics, compiled by Toronto University's Centre for Global Health Research, suggest a mortality rate far in excess of any official estimates, which have been as low as 1,400 deaths every year.
The cat's really out of the bag now.
Snakebite is an extremely serious problem in India.
The estimates of close to 50,000 deaths by snakebite per year are absolutely way, way above the previous estimates, and of course way above the official government statistics.
And something does need to be done, and now.
Armed with this new data, Rom sets out to explore the natural history behind the report's chilling statistics.
He needs to find out which snakes are doing the biting, which bites are fatal, and what can be done to mitigate this soaring human death toll.
But for a mission of this magnitude, Rom is going to need some help.
He's come to visit some old friends.
The Irula, a southern Indian tribe, are in Rom's opinion quite simply the best snake catchers in the world.
All the Irulas I see here, including some of the women, are snake catchers from way back.
Their faces are etched in my memory, but they're all part of the original gang that started 30 years ago? 35 years ago? God, long time! Rom has shared most of his extraordinary life in India and his passion for snakes with the Irula.
Together, their knowledge and experience is unrivalled.
To understand why so many of his fellow Indians are losing their lives to snakebite, Rom will team up with his son Samir, a scientist and biotechnology graduate.
And Kali, one of the Irula's finest.
Rom first heard about the Irula in the 1960s.
The young snake-obsessed American had found a tribe whose knowledge and experience of these remarkable legless lizards match his own passion.
We're just arriving at the headquarters of the Irula Snake-Catchers Co-Operative.
Here's where all the snakes are brought, the venom is extracted, the venom is processed.
It's a little place, but a lot gets done here.
Probably most of the venom being supplied for anti-venom all over India is being produced right in this little place.
Morning.
The Co-Operative provides the Irula people with a sustainable livelihood, which in turn has saved countless lives.
At present, around 80% of the anti-venom produced in India is made from venom sourced by the Co-Operative.
An effective polyvalent anti-venom, a one-shot cure for all of India's venomous snakes, is still a long way off, and Rom also knows it will never be a magic bullet.
The answer to India's snakebite epidemic is going to need a better understanding of many factors.
If the ability to deliver fatal venom were the only qualification, there'd be one snake that stands literally head and shoulders above the rest as India's deadliest.
Growing up to five and a half meters long and capable of delivering colossal amounts of venom in a single bite, the king cobra is the world's largest venomous snake.
It's found in undisturbed jungle and preys upon other snakes.
Its Latin name, Ophiophagus Hannah, translates as "snake eater".
Rom is visiting Agumbe, a place where he's spent many years working to protect the king.
We're heading over to the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station, which I set up about five years ago.
We're just about to go and meet Gowrie Shankar, who's been heading the king cobra study for several years now.
Hey, man.
How's it going over there? Good, good.
How are you? Really good.
We just got a call that a king cobra has been sighted in a farm down here, and the farmer is very worried about doing his work with his cows and ploughing the field, so we're going to see if we can help him out with this situation.
That's perfect! Good hiding place! Yeah, I see him there.
Really? There, there.
Oh, yeah.
OK.
It's a big one too.
Let's lift some of this stuff aside.
If it comes that side, just grab it.
He's moving.
OK.
I'd just like to get some of this out of the way, because we need a clear field.
He's up here, he's up here.
OK.
If he's coming out, it might be easier than removing the whole bunch of junk.
Let's see what happens.
Slowly, slowly.
All right.
He's a big guy, he's a big male.
Wow, let me bring him from the top here, if possible.
OK, now what we want to do is to at least get these photographs.
Get one back shot.
Got it? Let's get him from this side.
Once you reverse I'll come this side and you go that side.
Go, go.
Oh, he's coming, OK.
Watch out, you're lower than he is.
You know, the hoods of king cobras are basically like our fingerprints.
Each one is different, and by getting very clear photographic documentation, we'll be able to identify one snake from the other.
One second.
Watch out, watch out! Samir, get the bag around.
Ready? Keep the bag low, on the ground.
Yes, got him.
That is too good, man! Yes! I mean, what a co-operative snake! He says "Don't let it go very close to my house!" Well, between you and me, since we're speaking our own language, he's got to be let go within his own home range, basically.
Just around the corner is probably where we have to go.
Rom knows that statistically, king cobras pose an almost negligible risk to humans, and in all the years he's worked with the king, he can recall only a handful of deaths, invariably due to human provocation.
Sitting a few feet in front of me is the largest venomous snake in the world, the king cobra.
Been known to grow to over 18 feet long in Thailand, and here in south India, the record length is about 15 feet, seven inches.
This guy is close to 12 feet long.
He's got enough venom to, they say, kill an elephant, and certainly at least 10 or 20 human beings.
If you consider the snake's hardware, so to speak, this guy is stacked up to be public enemy number one.
And yet he hardly bites anybody, because he knows how to keep out of people's way.
When you consider the other venomous snakes in India, the cobra, kraits, the Russell's viper and the saw-scaled viper, they're snakes which come in contact with people every single day, but the king cobra, primarily living in rainforests like this, rarely comes into contact with people, and when it does, it sees the people first, it's very alert, very aware, incredibly good eyesight, and it gets the hell out of there as fast as it can.
Just the way a good snake should.
The king cobra is a classic case of not judging a book by its cover, illustrating the complex, sometimes counterintuitive nature of India's snakebite problem.
Far less imposing snakes are responsible for far more deaths.
OK, a snake like this, if he wanted to kill me, if he wanted to kill any of us, he very well could.
But the point is, the king cobra wants nothing more than just to keep away from human beings.
We've all seen these TV snake molesters who are always going, "Whoa! What a hero I am! "Oh, how dangerous this is!" But I think this is a really good opportunity for me to show you exactly how dangerous this snake is.
Need I say more? So if the king cobra isn't part of the problem, then which snakes are? Rom and his team are heading to the plains of Tamil Nadu, in search of a snake that may very well be India's number-one killer.
This land has been shaped by agriculture and manual labour, which Rom suspects are two key factors in making this state a snakebite hot spot.
It's abundantly clear that it is rural people, the workers, the agriculturalist farmers, who are getting bitten by snakes.
These are the people most at risk from snakebite, simply because they're putting their feet and their hands where snakes live.
The team starts the hunt, and it's not long before a little healthy father-son competition begins to surface.
I reckon we're going to get many more snakes than Rom.
Younger team, ready to go! The banks and field edges are peppered with rat holes.
To locate the ones occupied by snakes, the Irula hone in on the subtlest of clues.
The Irulas are looking for signs like this, and I think you can pretty clearly see this is nice and smooth.
As the snake rubs along it, it's actually shining it up.
The snake slides along and actually polishes the soil.
Kali is a natural snake hunter, and he and Samir have been close friends since childhood.
I used to go out snake hunting with Kali a fair bit.
Just now starting to get back into it.
Kali's a great teacher, so I'm just going to watch and see what I can learn from him.
It's good so far.
We haven't seen signs of anything that we're after.
Lots of snake skins.
Rom knows that mitigating India's snakebite epidemic is not just about the 50,000 fatalities.
If the figures are accurate, India has as many as 950,000 snakebite survivors every year, each left with an understandably negative view of snakes.
These victims might be quite justified in asking, why not just kill all snakes? But even if that were possible, would it make India a better place for humans? Snakes are a key species in India's ecology.
Removing them would have profound consequences.
One simple consideration is the part snakes play in controlling India's rodents.
Yeah, Kali is looking for a snake in a rat hole, but found a store of grain instead.
Rats are a huge problem to agriculture in India, and if it wasn't for snakes, they could clear up maybe 1,000 kg per acre, and we could be facing famine.
Snakes play a crucial role in India's pest control.
But this is understandably of little consolation to those who get bitten or bereaved.
Rom is on the hunt for a snake that's responsible for some of the most agonising and disfiguring bites, and the most deaths.
Russell's viper, common throughout much of India, and in particular the hedgerows and field edges of Tamil Nadu.
Mostly nocturnal, it is an ambush predator, relying on its exceptional camouflage to avoid detection.
It often stands its ground when approached, and is frequently stepped on.
Yeah, looks like a Russell's.
Kali almost put his hand on top of it, and it hissed, so that's how he knew there was a snake in there.
So what they're trying to do is flush it out and send it towards us.
Well, hopefully Kali! Right, so Kali reckons the snake is right in there now.
You can actually hear it hissing.
I can see it.
It's right under us, basically.
Nice, fat Russell's.
The Russell's is armed with a cytolytic venom, a complex toxin which can cause catastrophic cell breakdown, haemorrhaging and loss of the blood's vital clotting agents.
Its bite is excruciatingly painful.
It's just eaten something big, probably a rat.
You can see the bulge in the stomach.
Seems to have shed recently, the colours are nice and brilliant.
Rom has something special in mind for this specimen.
Finding this snake in broad daylight took an Irula's expert eye, but to the untrained, and in the dark, this master of concealment would be all but invisible.
More than 65% of India's population lives without indoor sanitation.
Heading into the night barefoot to answer the call of nature is the norm in rural areas, and one of the most common causes of snake encounters.
Using the figures from the new report and his own decades of field experience, Rom estimates that the Russell's viper could be responsible for half of all fatalities.
Many occur in circumstances just like this.
OK, let's have the main light on.
It's such accidental interactions between people and snakes that are at the heart of the problem, and Rom has devised an experiment to analyse exactly what's going on.
What we're doing here is replicating what could be a very common occurence, someone walking around at night accidentally steps on a snake, in this case a Russell's viper, and gets nailed.
But what's really special about this is that we've got a high speed camera which can shoot up to 5,000 frames per second, showing a snake bite like no-one's ever seen it before.
To make things as realistic as possible we've got this artificial leg which is actually very light, much lighter than a human leg so although it looks pretty invasive, we're not actually hurting the snake, but we are definitely threatening him with a human leg.
What we've got here is a series of images of snakes striking.
You know some of us who have had experience with these creatures feel that we know what they're doing but it took this kind of reveal, doing this kind of high speed photography, slowing down the motion to see exactly what's going on, the mechanics of a snake bite.
My impression is that when you step on a viper, he reacts immediately by giving you a big, strong, tough bite.
Mmm, ouch, ouch, ouch, oo-oo-ouch.
But what we actually found was that the majority of times that our artificial foot actually comes in contact with the viper, the snake just wants to get away.
But sometimes, so dramatically he sort of half leaps through the air to get away.
As well as Russell's viper South India is home to another snake that is high on Rom's suspect list The Spectacled cobra, the commonest of India's four cobras.
The cobra is the iconic Indian snake, feared and revered, even worshipped, throughout the subcontinent.
It's bite can deliver a powerful neurotoxic venom, which brings on paralysis and if untreated, death.
Although not as lethal as the Russell's viper, Rom reckons that India's Spectacled cobra may account for up to 30% of snakebite deaths.
As many as, 15,000 per year.
There's a cobra, it's coming out, it's already out.
THEY SPEAK IN TAMIL Basically this is a smallish cobra, a female.
Probably laid her eggs this season, so she's not very fat right now because she's just gotten rid of all her eggs.
And in she goes and you twist it up, and you have your cobra.
Cobras are very common throughout the whole of India, so why fewer fatalities than the less common Russell's viper? Rom hopes the high-speed camera will give some answers.
Those of us who have had a lot of experience with cobras have often said that the cobra doesn't strike open mouthed, rather he boxes.
He strikes at you with his mouth closed.
He's basically wanting you to get the heck out of there, he doesn't want to make contact.
He doesn't seem to want to bite.
And that is what is extremely surprising when you see these images.
It's clear from Rom's experiment that for this cobra, biting is a last resort.
It would appear that this snake offers us every opportunity to avoid being bitten.
In contrast to the cobra with its clear warning to keep away, it's the snake you don't see which presents the bigger danger.
Thousands of rural Indians run the risk of bites to the arms and hands whilst collecting grass or firewood, and it's to this group that Rom's next snake poses the greatest danger.
It doesn't try to escape like the Russell's viper or mock charge like the cobra.
This snake means business.
Saw-scaled viper, as a biter is second to none.
Rom estimates it causes around 5,000 deaths every year, many of which are children.
Possessing perhaps the fastest strike of any snake, it makes the perfect candidate for Rom's high-speed snake lab.
Different from any other snakes is the saw-scaled viper.
When this guy strikes, he's striking to bite every time.
He strikes with his mouth wide open, his fangs extended and he makes contact.
Like many vipers, it's a well camouflaged and effective ambush predator.
It's common throughout much of India.
Although most active by night, it will bask in the early morning sun, often bringing it into contact with people.
When it comes to snakebite, intent is all, and the saw-scaled viper ALWAYS strikes to bite.
A fact that is soon apparent, and all too close to home.
Kali has received some worrying news.
Kali's mother got bitten by a saw-scaled viper just minutes ago and we're heading to see what's up.
She has been bitten whilst collecting firewood, an all too common event.
Although saw-scaled bites in this region are not usually fatal, Rajamal is elderly and frail, so this bite gives cause for concern.
Old habits die hard.
The gruesome procedure that follows vividly demonstrates what an uphill task Rom has on his hands.
Kali has worked with Rom all his life, but still he will not take his mother to hospital.
The following day he opts to treat her himself using traditional tribal medicine.
This type of blistering is typical of bites from saw-scaled vipers.
Its necrotic venom attacks clotting agents in the blood often causing bleeding from the teeth and gums.
Kali just explained to me that the whole concept here is to get the venom down to the hand where they'll be doing the cutting.
SHE MOANS We offered a scalpel blade but Kali prefers to do it the traditional way with a piece of broken glass.
Even though it looks very painful, I mean it is very painful! Many Indians share this deep-rooted faith in traditional treatments, practices that Rom knows have little or no scientific merit.
Rom often hears of cases where the time wasted, taking a victim to a local medicine man has made the difference between life and death.
I still have a problem with this kind of treatment because when you see the germ possibilities from all the things that were there, including cutting with a piece of broken bottle, really crude, but this is something the Irulas have been doing for a heck of a long time.
And no matter how much I insisted, there wasn't going to be any hospital and there won't be.
So I'd like to come back and check her out, make sure she'd going to be OK.
For those who do chose to go to hospital help is on hand, in a drug in the form of anti-venom.
And ironically its availability is largely thanks to the people of Kali's tribe, the Irula.
Saw-scaled vipers are one of the many snakes milked here, including Rom's cobra.
So we got the cobra with us that we caught when we were out snake hunting in the rice fields, and this is the first venom extraction for this snake, he'll be here for another three weeks and the venom will be extracted once a week.
SNAKE HISSES This has to be done very carefully, it's kind of a question of being gentle yet firm because you don't want to hurt the snake, but you don't want to get bitten either.
Watch carefully, there it comes.
Drop after, drop after drop.
These are literally golden drops of death, there's a lot of venom there.
And he's bitten again, and even some more and more.
Probably ten drops coming from each fang, that's a lot of venom Wow.
The first anti-venom was produced in 1895, and for more than 100 years it has been the most effective treatment for a venomous snakebite the world over.
This is the venom collected from four cobras, there's probably enough venom here to kill this bunch of people right here! And on the other hand there's enough venom in here to make anti-venom to save many lives, so this is really important.
As a biotech graduate, Rom's son Samir is across new developments that are finally revealing how snake toxins actually work, and how they vary not only between different species, but also regionally between the same species.
Although anti-venom should be the answer, in reality there is a problem.
For some snake bites the anti-venom produced in the South just isn't effective.
The collection and analysis of venom from other regions will be essential before a single anti-venom for all snakebites in India can be produced.
For Rom and Samir this is the holy grail.
Through this venom research, we are ultimately trying to produce a polyvalent anti-venom serum that is effective throughout the country no matter how the venoms may vary regionally.
To see how toxins vary, even within the same species, Rom's heading north to the deserts of Rajasthan.
Home to some of the world's largest saw-scaled vipers.
Up to 1.
5 times bigger than their Southern relatives, these monster saw-scaleds are thought to be the region's biggest killer.
Rom suspects that the anti-venom produced by the Irula Co-op back home in the south, has little or no effect on a bite from one of these snakes.
On this leg of their journey, the team opts for local transport.
Malnath, a local tribal snake catcher who knows this desert well, joins them.
We're up here in the deserts of Northern Rajasthan, it's a beautiful, wild desolate place.
It's a place where the really huge saw-scaled vipers are found and that's what I'm really eager to see.
I've never been snake hunting on a camel before but, hey, what a way to cross the hot desert.
Setting up camp in the desert will save the team time, and put them right in the heart of some prime snake habitat.
Well, the local people have told us that saw-scaled vipers are on the move at night, and that makes sense, being nocturnal.
The other reason for being here is that the desert comes alive at night and we want to see what's here.
We'll take a wander after a little while, wait until it gets pitch dark.
Well, there's plenty of scorpions afoot I'm told, and this cool little light which is basically a UV light makes them jump out at you like sparks.
Let's see if we can find one.
There's one now! HE CHUCKLES Look at that, he's fast, man! He' looking for a place to hide, look he's trying to dig in.
Yep, he's digging down inside.
He's going to dig himself in, look at that.
That is so cool.
HE LAUGHS Like the ostrich hiding his head under the sand.
Ha-ha, he's gone.
The next day, the viper hunt continues.
Kali is kind of interacting with Malnath.
Difficult because it's a different language, Tamil and Hindi, but both of them are skilled snake hunters so they're sort of trading off information about where to find a snake.
This is Kali's first time outside of his home state, and Rom is keen to see how his snake hunting skills stand up against Malnath's with his local knowledge.
Anyway, it wasn't a cobra, it was a monitor lizard.
The fact that the majority of India's anti-venom is sourced from snakes from the south is a worry, especially if their theory of regional differences in venom proves to be correct.
And here we are kind of racing a long behind Malnath, very different from the way the Irula's hunt, they sort of meticulously look for a sign at every hole, but Malnath's looking for tracks and the most efficient way of finding tracks is to cover as much ground as quickly as possible.
Rom hopes to include tribes of snake catchers from other regions, in an attempt to form a nationwide venom collectors co-operative.
Malnath's people could be likely candidates.
Getting the Irula and other tribes to share their knowledge with each other may take time.
This hole is going really deep and the sand is nice and damp and cool down inside, which makes a lot of sense for a cobra, or any snake really because up here it's blooming hot.
Well, it looks like it's one for the snake, couldn't find him.
Come, let's go.
Come on, Kali! THEY SPEAK IN HINDI OK, that's a bundi for sure, saw-scaled viper.
Look at that very distinctive side winding track.
Snake tracks, man.
Bundi, bundi.
Look how clean that is, man.
Clear, clear, clear, clear.
Saw-scaled vipers have to find some place to spend the day, it's already getting very hot and its only eight in the morning.
So he's obviously gone in there last night or early this morning and he's definitely in there, the tracks go straight inside.
I'm just explaining to Kali that these are big saw-scaled vipers, not the little tiny ones we have down in Madras.
I'll get a bag out, or maybe that's a getting little too optimistic.
Ha-ha! Yeah, don't jinx it, man! Oh, man it's huge.
That is huge, man! That is tremendous.
Yes! Nice! Very nice.
This is a saw-scaled viper.
For us it's just an incredible snake as it's just so much huger than the ones we have in South India.
And its very likely the venom has some differences.
And this is the whole point of this exercise, we want to collect venom samples from this snake up here and compare it with the venom of the South Indian saw-scaled viper.
Right now the only anti-venom available for the bites of the saw-scaled viper here are made from venom from South India.
And that seems to be where the problem is because sometimes they have to give huge quantities of that anti-venom and it's still not effective for it.
So there is definitely something going on and we're going to try to get to the root of the matter by testing its venom.
After a full day's snake hunting the team have managed to collect a number of specimens.
And there's the venom.
In field conditions like this we have to collect the venom on dry ice basically, otherwise the venom will be spoiled almost instantly in this hot weather.
What we're doing here is just taking a small sample of the snake for DNA because the taxonomy, or exactly which snake this is, is under some question.
Is it a true species by itself? Or is it just a sub species of the saw-scaled viper found around the rest of India? So this is a pretty important thing that we're trying to do here.
Ah, I saw some venom spewing through the air that time.
And it come dripping down, a little bit like orange juice.
The venom and data that Rom and Samir have collected from some of these giants, once analysed will prove vital in helping scientists produce far more effective saw-scaled viper anti-venom.
Rajasthan's deserts are remote and sparsely populated, but the worst snake bite hot spots are where people and snakes come into close contact.
With this in mind, the team are heading 1100 miles to the east, to the state of Assam.
The Common Krait, found throughout most of India is one of the world's most venomous land snakes.
And it seems to be particularly inclined to enter houses.
Snakes often come into a home on the trail of a meal but the common krait, for reasons unknown, has gained a reputation for biting people in their sleep.
A krait bite is painless, its fang marks small and almost undetectable.
Fast acting, powerful neurotoxic venom brings on paralysis and if untreated, death.
The victim simply never wakes, and few clues are left as to the reason.
Many tribal people believe the snake coils up on the chest of the victim, then sucks their breath away a simple, but in a way accurate description of respiratory failure.
Kali's own sister was bitten by a krait on her wedding night and died.
We're up here in Assam, in North East India.
We are actually pretty close to the Chinese and Burmese borders and there are species of snakes up here found nowhere else in India.
Rom suspects that like the saw scaled viper, their venoms vary, so he is keen to add samples to his collection.
You kind of expect us to be hunting in the jungle for snakes around here but as a matter of fact, as is typical with a lot of parts of India, the snakes seem to be concentrated in places where they might be able to find food, around the village - rats, frogs, the whole works.
But more importantly, this whole area's a wetland, and during the monsoon, the snakes gravitate towards where people have built up on higher ground.
That's where we're going to find the snakes I hope.
As populations expand into what was once wilderness, snakes and people come into increasingly frequent contact.
And snakes and people just don't mix.
Piles of brick and rubble, cool and shady.
The perfect place for a snake to avoid the heat of the day.
Hands! Be very, very careful please.
We continually tell people to keep brick piles away from their houses, this is a dead attraction for snakes.
Yeah, go for it.
No, he is going deeper.
Don't want to lose him, Don't want to lose him Just take that one Uh, careful, and here it is! Yesss! Banded Krait, this is a first for Kali, beautiful - absolutely stunning animal.
Yeah, it's gorgeous.
Kali was saying it looks like it's thin, it looks like it needs food, but as a matter of fact Banded Kraits always look like this, with this high ridge on the back.
That's a nice snake.
If it does bite, however, it could be very serious, and the one reason we want to investigate this snake and its venom is to see if the anti-venom made for south Indian snakes would protect somebody who was bitten by one of these up here.
It's a pretty important part of our work and it's going to take a lot Kraits to get enough venom of course, but it's a start.
Kraits are one of the world's most venomous snakes.
This Banded Krait is living in the shadow of from this family's house.
India is incredibly diverse, and it's testament to the adaptability of snakes that they have managed to colonise almost every available niche.
Rom wants to show that people and snakes can co-exist.
Every encounter need not end in tragedy.
Samir has come to meet a krait bite survivor.
So we've come here to met Biplop Phukan, who was recently bitten by a venomous snake, and survived.
So we're just trying to get an idea of what his story was and how he survived and whether we can learn something from it.
TRANSLATOR: 'The first I realised that there was a snake in my home, was when it bit me in my leg.
'I never saw it come in.
I knew it was important for the doctors to know, 'what sort of a snake it was, so I took a picture with my mobile phone.
'I then tied a tight bandage over the bite, 'got on to my motorbike and went to the hospital as quickly as I could.
'At the hospital they identified the snake as a Banded Krait 'and they gave me anti-venom, they kept me there for five days.
'I was very lucky.
' Luck had little to do with it.
Biplop Kept a cool head and carried out almost textbook first aid.
He photographed the snake that bit him, applied a pressure bandage, not a tourniquet, and he didn't detour via a village quack.
Correctly identifying a snake is a crucial first step in the treatment of any bite.
Although Rom is thought by many to be the leading expert on India's snakes, he's the first to admit that there are still a number of species he has yet to identify.
Rom wants to fill the gaps in his own knowledge and has come to the forests of Assam, in an attempt to track down some of the so far, unidentified snakes that this area is home to.
This vine snake is one of India's 250 non-venomous snakes.
We're in standard snake habitat here up in Assam.
They're hard to see, they basically don't jump out at you, so walking slowly and looking carefully is exactly the technique that we have.
MAN BECKONS HIM Hey, hey, hey, hey It's kind of embarrassing, because Rom's supposed to know the different species of snakes, but this is one of the four or five green pit vipers up hear in the north east.
Probably the white-lipped pit viper but we will have to check the scales and stuff.
This is great, look at him, it's absolutely gorgeous.
Ok.
Let's leave this guy and move on.
Watch out, Kali.
Watch it, man, it's really slippery! HE FALLS THEY LAUGH Its slippery, guys.
Yeah, no kidding! The team makes camp in the forest, and Rom settles in for some bedtime reading, in an attempt to ID today's find.
There are a number of different species of pit vipers up here in these forests and I just for the life of me can't figure out some of them, especially these green pit vipers that all look very much alike.
And if I can't figure them out, how does a doctor or someone who's been bitten tell the difference? That's one of the reasons we produced this snake book.
The sales of the English edition are able to subsidise the production of a very, very cheap India edition which we can distribute free to villagers so they know which snakes they're looking at or what they've been bitten by.
If everyone in India could identify the snake that bit them, many more lives could be saved.
Although India's snake bite death toll dwarf's all other nations, those who don't die must not be left out and it's this group that Rom now turns his attention to.
Rom and the team are heading for the Western Ghats, where vast tea estates have now replaced what was once rainforest.
This is home to huge numbers of pit vipers India's most diverse group of snakes.
Rom knows that a bite from a pit viper is rarely fatal, so why is he so interested in them? The Western Ghats, like much of India is agricultural and the large majority of its people earn a living with their hands.
Like many developing countries, India has limited welfare provision.
A worker disabled by snakebite will struggle to support themselves and their family.
Rom knows any effective snake bite policy must address India's annual 950,000 snake bite survivors.
At present, extraordinarily, no anti-venom exists for the treatment of pit viper bites.
So some of this tea is about 100 years old.
So sort of, your vintage? So, if we get some of those pit vipers, do you reckon I can have a go at milking one of them? Yeah, I'd love to see you get bit! No, I think it would be a good idea, a good way to cut your teeth, so to speak.
Good.
Extracting venom on his own will greatly help Samir's work, as well as being an important right of passage.
The team needs to find the large-scaled green pit viper, a snake that has a reputation for biting tea-pickers.
and yet again little is known about this snake's venom.
Yeah, I mean, the pit viper's original habitat has been replaced by these miles and miles of tea.
It's literally like looking for a needle in a hay stack.
So to maximise our chances to find pit vipers we're going to probably change strategies and look along forest edges and streams edges.
They have decided to try again after dark, when this nocturnal snake is more active.
That looks like there's plenty of food around, can see rats moving around, there's a ton of frogs, this is theoretically a perfect place.
There's one right there! My God, what luck, what luck, what luck! That, friends and neighbours is the large-scaled green pit viper You don't want to bring it too close to your nose - they do have heat sensitive pits.
And my nose is large so mmm, yes.
This is about an average size for a large-scaled green pit viper.
I believe it's a male, males are smaller than females so, yeah, we're probably looking at an average size male.
They call it the large-scaled green pit viper for very obvious reasons.
Look at the overlapping scales on the top of the head, very unique, very different from any of the other pit vipers.
Although not as deadly as a Cobra or a Krait, this snake possesses venom that is crucial for the team's work.
Haha, you're kidding man, it's a joke right? THEY LAUGH Can I have a look? Guess what it is.
Large-scaled? Wow, gorgeous.
It's all curled up right now so you can't see it very well but it's a beaut.
Where was it? Close-ish, high, low? It was so obvious, you guys going to buy you glasses You're putting it on a bit there! This large-scaled green pit viper is last but by no means least on the team's list.
A venom sample from this snake will go a long way towards helping by far the biggest group affected by India's snakebite epidemic - the snakebite survivors, who are left maimed and unable to work.
On this occasion, it all falls to Samir and he is rightly nervous.
Yes, oh, that's a good one.
OK, let's just do a quick measurement of this guy.
It's 39cm.
That's small.
Did you hear the barking in the background? Maybe there's a tiger on the prowl! Not bad, that's what I like about doing this sort of stuff out in the jungle.
Yeah, these are the best working conditions.
Hey, man, this is my first drop of extracting venom.
Samir holds in his hand snake venom never before tested by scientists.
This is the first sample of macrolepis venom possibly that's ever been collected for this kind of test.
Congrats, old boy! More than cool, my friend, more than cool.
Long-term, anti-venom is undoubtedly the answer but prevention is always going to be better than cure.
And there is one very simple thing Rom knows could greatly reduce the number of people bitten by snakes.
Whenever I see people walking on these roads at night without a flashlight, I'm thinking, they'll find a snake! Seriously, it's really dangerous.
There is a little lady walking a long there no light.
You know, we have established that most snakebites take place at night, and most snakebites are on the feet or legs.
In other words, carrying a light around a night is the main way of avoiding snakebite and this wind-up torch is just what we need.
As they head for home, there's one more stop that Rom wants to make.
Rom has returned to the Irula village, bearing gifts.
These torches will last for years, cost little, and need no batteries.
Something so simple could save the lives of tens of thousands of people.
It's been six months since Rajamal was bitten.
At least there's some flexion, it's not as if she's lost the use of her hand.
Although she is showing some improvement, her hand is far from right.
In many ways Rajamal was lucky, But it's now known, thanks to the statistics from the University of Toronto, that many Indians aren't so fortunate.
SIREN WAILS On the 17th April, 2010, Sister Greeshma, a nun from a town of Thrissur, was bitten by a cobra whilst out cutting grass.
It was a close-run thing and she was fortunate to survive.
Every year, 50,000 Indians won't be so lucky.
There is only one truly effective and reliable cure for a venomous snakebite anti-venom.
And yet, the drug produced in the South from Irula-sourced venom works, but only for some bites, some of the time.
Rom hopes his continuing research will eventually make it the wonder drug India so desperately needs.
In the meantime, avoidance will always be the best, first line of defence.
The results of the "Million Deaths Study" have revealed that close to 50,000 people die from snake bite every year in India, and that's out of perhaps, over a million snake bites.
There's no more denying that snake bite is a serious problem, it's reached almost epidemic proportions.
The venom samples we've collected will be sent to various labs in India, and through this venom research we're ultimately aiming to produce a polyvalent anti-venom serum that is effective throughout the country, no matter how the venoms may vary regionally.
Rom knows it will take more than just field work.
Science will have to play a big part.
Now it's up to the next generation, people like my son Samir.
These are the people who will lead us into the future and hopefully mitigate what is really a very serious problem.
I've always been a snake man, but I learned pretty early on that if I'm going to protect snakes, I've got to protect the people too.
And nowhere more so than here, India.
One of the world's most crowded countries, and home to over one billion people.
A recent scientific survey has confirmed what some have long suspected.
India is facing a hidden health problem of epidemic proportions.
It's on a collision course with its snake population, and the human casualty count is far, far greater than official estimates.
Reptile expert Romulus Whitaker has committed his life to conservation.
Long ago, he realised protecting India's snakes would be impossible without first factoring in human welfare.
Armed with this new data, and more than three decades of field experience, Rom is about to investigate the natural history behind these incredible statistics, and find out why India has become the land of one million snakebites.
India is one of the snakiest countries in the world, and home to an estimated 65 species of venomous snakes.
Of these, 15 have been known to cause human deaths.
For centuries, an accurate figure for the number of people bitten and killed by snakes in India has been simply unknown.
Until now.
At his farm in South India, Rom's received some interesting reading.
I'm looking at an absolutely fascinating report just out, and it's about numbers of snakebite deaths in India.
This is based on something called a Million Death Study, and it's not hospital records, it's not records from state government sources.
This was based on interviewing families and households all over India to find out the causes of death, and snakebite deaths are incredibly significant.
If the survey is accurate, each year India suffers 50,000 deaths from as many as one million snakebites.
Comparing this to Australia, home to double the number of venomous snakes, yet with only an average of three fatalities per year, and the extent of India's problem becomes very apparent.
These statistics, compiled by Toronto University's Centre for Global Health Research, suggest a mortality rate far in excess of any official estimates, which have been as low as 1,400 deaths every year.
The cat's really out of the bag now.
Snakebite is an extremely serious problem in India.
The estimates of close to 50,000 deaths by snakebite per year are absolutely way, way above the previous estimates, and of course way above the official government statistics.
And something does need to be done, and now.
Armed with this new data, Rom sets out to explore the natural history behind the report's chilling statistics.
He needs to find out which snakes are doing the biting, which bites are fatal, and what can be done to mitigate this soaring human death toll.
But for a mission of this magnitude, Rom is going to need some help.
He's come to visit some old friends.
The Irula, a southern Indian tribe, are in Rom's opinion quite simply the best snake catchers in the world.
All the Irulas I see here, including some of the women, are snake catchers from way back.
Their faces are etched in my memory, but they're all part of the original gang that started 30 years ago? 35 years ago? God, long time! Rom has shared most of his extraordinary life in India and his passion for snakes with the Irula.
Together, their knowledge and experience is unrivalled.
To understand why so many of his fellow Indians are losing their lives to snakebite, Rom will team up with his son Samir, a scientist and biotechnology graduate.
And Kali, one of the Irula's finest.
Rom first heard about the Irula in the 1960s.
The young snake-obsessed American had found a tribe whose knowledge and experience of these remarkable legless lizards match his own passion.
We're just arriving at the headquarters of the Irula Snake-Catchers Co-Operative.
Here's where all the snakes are brought, the venom is extracted, the venom is processed.
It's a little place, but a lot gets done here.
Probably most of the venom being supplied for anti-venom all over India is being produced right in this little place.
Morning.
The Co-Operative provides the Irula people with a sustainable livelihood, which in turn has saved countless lives.
At present, around 80% of the anti-venom produced in India is made from venom sourced by the Co-Operative.
An effective polyvalent anti-venom, a one-shot cure for all of India's venomous snakes, is still a long way off, and Rom also knows it will never be a magic bullet.
The answer to India's snakebite epidemic is going to need a better understanding of many factors.
If the ability to deliver fatal venom were the only qualification, there'd be one snake that stands literally head and shoulders above the rest as India's deadliest.
Growing up to five and a half meters long and capable of delivering colossal amounts of venom in a single bite, the king cobra is the world's largest venomous snake.
It's found in undisturbed jungle and preys upon other snakes.
Its Latin name, Ophiophagus Hannah, translates as "snake eater".
Rom is visiting Agumbe, a place where he's spent many years working to protect the king.
We're heading over to the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station, which I set up about five years ago.
We're just about to go and meet Gowrie Shankar, who's been heading the king cobra study for several years now.
Hey, man.
How's it going over there? Good, good.
How are you? Really good.
We just got a call that a king cobra has been sighted in a farm down here, and the farmer is very worried about doing his work with his cows and ploughing the field, so we're going to see if we can help him out with this situation.
That's perfect! Good hiding place! Yeah, I see him there.
Really? There, there.
Oh, yeah.
OK.
It's a big one too.
Let's lift some of this stuff aside.
If it comes that side, just grab it.
He's moving.
OK.
I'd just like to get some of this out of the way, because we need a clear field.
He's up here, he's up here.
OK.
If he's coming out, it might be easier than removing the whole bunch of junk.
Let's see what happens.
Slowly, slowly.
All right.
He's a big guy, he's a big male.
Wow, let me bring him from the top here, if possible.
OK, now what we want to do is to at least get these photographs.
Get one back shot.
Got it? Let's get him from this side.
Once you reverse I'll come this side and you go that side.
Go, go.
Oh, he's coming, OK.
Watch out, you're lower than he is.
You know, the hoods of king cobras are basically like our fingerprints.
Each one is different, and by getting very clear photographic documentation, we'll be able to identify one snake from the other.
One second.
Watch out, watch out! Samir, get the bag around.
Ready? Keep the bag low, on the ground.
Yes, got him.
That is too good, man! Yes! I mean, what a co-operative snake! He says "Don't let it go very close to my house!" Well, between you and me, since we're speaking our own language, he's got to be let go within his own home range, basically.
Just around the corner is probably where we have to go.
Rom knows that statistically, king cobras pose an almost negligible risk to humans, and in all the years he's worked with the king, he can recall only a handful of deaths, invariably due to human provocation.
Sitting a few feet in front of me is the largest venomous snake in the world, the king cobra.
Been known to grow to over 18 feet long in Thailand, and here in south India, the record length is about 15 feet, seven inches.
This guy is close to 12 feet long.
He's got enough venom to, they say, kill an elephant, and certainly at least 10 or 20 human beings.
If you consider the snake's hardware, so to speak, this guy is stacked up to be public enemy number one.
And yet he hardly bites anybody, because he knows how to keep out of people's way.
When you consider the other venomous snakes in India, the cobra, kraits, the Russell's viper and the saw-scaled viper, they're snakes which come in contact with people every single day, but the king cobra, primarily living in rainforests like this, rarely comes into contact with people, and when it does, it sees the people first, it's very alert, very aware, incredibly good eyesight, and it gets the hell out of there as fast as it can.
Just the way a good snake should.
The king cobra is a classic case of not judging a book by its cover, illustrating the complex, sometimes counterintuitive nature of India's snakebite problem.
Far less imposing snakes are responsible for far more deaths.
OK, a snake like this, if he wanted to kill me, if he wanted to kill any of us, he very well could.
But the point is, the king cobra wants nothing more than just to keep away from human beings.
We've all seen these TV snake molesters who are always going, "Whoa! What a hero I am! "Oh, how dangerous this is!" But I think this is a really good opportunity for me to show you exactly how dangerous this snake is.
Need I say more? So if the king cobra isn't part of the problem, then which snakes are? Rom and his team are heading to the plains of Tamil Nadu, in search of a snake that may very well be India's number-one killer.
This land has been shaped by agriculture and manual labour, which Rom suspects are two key factors in making this state a snakebite hot spot.
It's abundantly clear that it is rural people, the workers, the agriculturalist farmers, who are getting bitten by snakes.
These are the people most at risk from snakebite, simply because they're putting their feet and their hands where snakes live.
The team starts the hunt, and it's not long before a little healthy father-son competition begins to surface.
I reckon we're going to get many more snakes than Rom.
Younger team, ready to go! The banks and field edges are peppered with rat holes.
To locate the ones occupied by snakes, the Irula hone in on the subtlest of clues.
The Irulas are looking for signs like this, and I think you can pretty clearly see this is nice and smooth.
As the snake rubs along it, it's actually shining it up.
The snake slides along and actually polishes the soil.
Kali is a natural snake hunter, and he and Samir have been close friends since childhood.
I used to go out snake hunting with Kali a fair bit.
Just now starting to get back into it.
Kali's a great teacher, so I'm just going to watch and see what I can learn from him.
It's good so far.
We haven't seen signs of anything that we're after.
Lots of snake skins.
Rom knows that mitigating India's snakebite epidemic is not just about the 50,000 fatalities.
If the figures are accurate, India has as many as 950,000 snakebite survivors every year, each left with an understandably negative view of snakes.
These victims might be quite justified in asking, why not just kill all snakes? But even if that were possible, would it make India a better place for humans? Snakes are a key species in India's ecology.
Removing them would have profound consequences.
One simple consideration is the part snakes play in controlling India's rodents.
Yeah, Kali is looking for a snake in a rat hole, but found a store of grain instead.
Rats are a huge problem to agriculture in India, and if it wasn't for snakes, they could clear up maybe 1,000 kg per acre, and we could be facing famine.
Snakes play a crucial role in India's pest control.
But this is understandably of little consolation to those who get bitten or bereaved.
Rom is on the hunt for a snake that's responsible for some of the most agonising and disfiguring bites, and the most deaths.
Russell's viper, common throughout much of India, and in particular the hedgerows and field edges of Tamil Nadu.
Mostly nocturnal, it is an ambush predator, relying on its exceptional camouflage to avoid detection.
It often stands its ground when approached, and is frequently stepped on.
Yeah, looks like a Russell's.
Kali almost put his hand on top of it, and it hissed, so that's how he knew there was a snake in there.
So what they're trying to do is flush it out and send it towards us.
Well, hopefully Kali! Right, so Kali reckons the snake is right in there now.
You can actually hear it hissing.
I can see it.
It's right under us, basically.
Nice, fat Russell's.
The Russell's is armed with a cytolytic venom, a complex toxin which can cause catastrophic cell breakdown, haemorrhaging and loss of the blood's vital clotting agents.
Its bite is excruciatingly painful.
It's just eaten something big, probably a rat.
You can see the bulge in the stomach.
Seems to have shed recently, the colours are nice and brilliant.
Rom has something special in mind for this specimen.
Finding this snake in broad daylight took an Irula's expert eye, but to the untrained, and in the dark, this master of concealment would be all but invisible.
More than 65% of India's population lives without indoor sanitation.
Heading into the night barefoot to answer the call of nature is the norm in rural areas, and one of the most common causes of snake encounters.
Using the figures from the new report and his own decades of field experience, Rom estimates that the Russell's viper could be responsible for half of all fatalities.
Many occur in circumstances just like this.
OK, let's have the main light on.
It's such accidental interactions between people and snakes that are at the heart of the problem, and Rom has devised an experiment to analyse exactly what's going on.
What we're doing here is replicating what could be a very common occurence, someone walking around at night accidentally steps on a snake, in this case a Russell's viper, and gets nailed.
But what's really special about this is that we've got a high speed camera which can shoot up to 5,000 frames per second, showing a snake bite like no-one's ever seen it before.
To make things as realistic as possible we've got this artificial leg which is actually very light, much lighter than a human leg so although it looks pretty invasive, we're not actually hurting the snake, but we are definitely threatening him with a human leg.
What we've got here is a series of images of snakes striking.
You know some of us who have had experience with these creatures feel that we know what they're doing but it took this kind of reveal, doing this kind of high speed photography, slowing down the motion to see exactly what's going on, the mechanics of a snake bite.
My impression is that when you step on a viper, he reacts immediately by giving you a big, strong, tough bite.
Mmm, ouch, ouch, ouch, oo-oo-ouch.
But what we actually found was that the majority of times that our artificial foot actually comes in contact with the viper, the snake just wants to get away.
But sometimes, so dramatically he sort of half leaps through the air to get away.
As well as Russell's viper South India is home to another snake that is high on Rom's suspect list The Spectacled cobra, the commonest of India's four cobras.
The cobra is the iconic Indian snake, feared and revered, even worshipped, throughout the subcontinent.
It's bite can deliver a powerful neurotoxic venom, which brings on paralysis and if untreated, death.
Although not as lethal as the Russell's viper, Rom reckons that India's Spectacled cobra may account for up to 30% of snakebite deaths.
As many as, 15,000 per year.
There's a cobra, it's coming out, it's already out.
THEY SPEAK IN TAMIL Basically this is a smallish cobra, a female.
Probably laid her eggs this season, so she's not very fat right now because she's just gotten rid of all her eggs.
And in she goes and you twist it up, and you have your cobra.
Cobras are very common throughout the whole of India, so why fewer fatalities than the less common Russell's viper? Rom hopes the high-speed camera will give some answers.
Those of us who have had a lot of experience with cobras have often said that the cobra doesn't strike open mouthed, rather he boxes.
He strikes at you with his mouth closed.
He's basically wanting you to get the heck out of there, he doesn't want to make contact.
He doesn't seem to want to bite.
And that is what is extremely surprising when you see these images.
It's clear from Rom's experiment that for this cobra, biting is a last resort.
It would appear that this snake offers us every opportunity to avoid being bitten.
In contrast to the cobra with its clear warning to keep away, it's the snake you don't see which presents the bigger danger.
Thousands of rural Indians run the risk of bites to the arms and hands whilst collecting grass or firewood, and it's to this group that Rom's next snake poses the greatest danger.
It doesn't try to escape like the Russell's viper or mock charge like the cobra.
This snake means business.
Saw-scaled viper, as a biter is second to none.
Rom estimates it causes around 5,000 deaths every year, many of which are children.
Possessing perhaps the fastest strike of any snake, it makes the perfect candidate for Rom's high-speed snake lab.
Different from any other snakes is the saw-scaled viper.
When this guy strikes, he's striking to bite every time.
He strikes with his mouth wide open, his fangs extended and he makes contact.
Like many vipers, it's a well camouflaged and effective ambush predator.
It's common throughout much of India.
Although most active by night, it will bask in the early morning sun, often bringing it into contact with people.
When it comes to snakebite, intent is all, and the saw-scaled viper ALWAYS strikes to bite.
A fact that is soon apparent, and all too close to home.
Kali has received some worrying news.
Kali's mother got bitten by a saw-scaled viper just minutes ago and we're heading to see what's up.
She has been bitten whilst collecting firewood, an all too common event.
Although saw-scaled bites in this region are not usually fatal, Rajamal is elderly and frail, so this bite gives cause for concern.
Old habits die hard.
The gruesome procedure that follows vividly demonstrates what an uphill task Rom has on his hands.
Kali has worked with Rom all his life, but still he will not take his mother to hospital.
The following day he opts to treat her himself using traditional tribal medicine.
This type of blistering is typical of bites from saw-scaled vipers.
Its necrotic venom attacks clotting agents in the blood often causing bleeding from the teeth and gums.
Kali just explained to me that the whole concept here is to get the venom down to the hand where they'll be doing the cutting.
SHE MOANS We offered a scalpel blade but Kali prefers to do it the traditional way with a piece of broken glass.
Even though it looks very painful, I mean it is very painful! Many Indians share this deep-rooted faith in traditional treatments, practices that Rom knows have little or no scientific merit.
Rom often hears of cases where the time wasted, taking a victim to a local medicine man has made the difference between life and death.
I still have a problem with this kind of treatment because when you see the germ possibilities from all the things that were there, including cutting with a piece of broken bottle, really crude, but this is something the Irulas have been doing for a heck of a long time.
And no matter how much I insisted, there wasn't going to be any hospital and there won't be.
So I'd like to come back and check her out, make sure she'd going to be OK.
For those who do chose to go to hospital help is on hand, in a drug in the form of anti-venom.
And ironically its availability is largely thanks to the people of Kali's tribe, the Irula.
Saw-scaled vipers are one of the many snakes milked here, including Rom's cobra.
So we got the cobra with us that we caught when we were out snake hunting in the rice fields, and this is the first venom extraction for this snake, he'll be here for another three weeks and the venom will be extracted once a week.
SNAKE HISSES This has to be done very carefully, it's kind of a question of being gentle yet firm because you don't want to hurt the snake, but you don't want to get bitten either.
Watch carefully, there it comes.
Drop after, drop after drop.
These are literally golden drops of death, there's a lot of venom there.
And he's bitten again, and even some more and more.
Probably ten drops coming from each fang, that's a lot of venom Wow.
The first anti-venom was produced in 1895, and for more than 100 years it has been the most effective treatment for a venomous snakebite the world over.
This is the venom collected from four cobras, there's probably enough venom here to kill this bunch of people right here! And on the other hand there's enough venom in here to make anti-venom to save many lives, so this is really important.
As a biotech graduate, Rom's son Samir is across new developments that are finally revealing how snake toxins actually work, and how they vary not only between different species, but also regionally between the same species.
Although anti-venom should be the answer, in reality there is a problem.
For some snake bites the anti-venom produced in the South just isn't effective.
The collection and analysis of venom from other regions will be essential before a single anti-venom for all snakebites in India can be produced.
For Rom and Samir this is the holy grail.
Through this venom research, we are ultimately trying to produce a polyvalent anti-venom serum that is effective throughout the country no matter how the venoms may vary regionally.
To see how toxins vary, even within the same species, Rom's heading north to the deserts of Rajasthan.
Home to some of the world's largest saw-scaled vipers.
Up to 1.
5 times bigger than their Southern relatives, these monster saw-scaleds are thought to be the region's biggest killer.
Rom suspects that the anti-venom produced by the Irula Co-op back home in the south, has little or no effect on a bite from one of these snakes.
On this leg of their journey, the team opts for local transport.
Malnath, a local tribal snake catcher who knows this desert well, joins them.
We're up here in the deserts of Northern Rajasthan, it's a beautiful, wild desolate place.
It's a place where the really huge saw-scaled vipers are found and that's what I'm really eager to see.
I've never been snake hunting on a camel before but, hey, what a way to cross the hot desert.
Setting up camp in the desert will save the team time, and put them right in the heart of some prime snake habitat.
Well, the local people have told us that saw-scaled vipers are on the move at night, and that makes sense, being nocturnal.
The other reason for being here is that the desert comes alive at night and we want to see what's here.
We'll take a wander after a little while, wait until it gets pitch dark.
Well, there's plenty of scorpions afoot I'm told, and this cool little light which is basically a UV light makes them jump out at you like sparks.
Let's see if we can find one.
There's one now! HE CHUCKLES Look at that, he's fast, man! He' looking for a place to hide, look he's trying to dig in.
Yep, he's digging down inside.
He's going to dig himself in, look at that.
That is so cool.
HE LAUGHS Like the ostrich hiding his head under the sand.
Ha-ha, he's gone.
The next day, the viper hunt continues.
Kali is kind of interacting with Malnath.
Difficult because it's a different language, Tamil and Hindi, but both of them are skilled snake hunters so they're sort of trading off information about where to find a snake.
This is Kali's first time outside of his home state, and Rom is keen to see how his snake hunting skills stand up against Malnath's with his local knowledge.
Anyway, it wasn't a cobra, it was a monitor lizard.
The fact that the majority of India's anti-venom is sourced from snakes from the south is a worry, especially if their theory of regional differences in venom proves to be correct.
And here we are kind of racing a long behind Malnath, very different from the way the Irula's hunt, they sort of meticulously look for a sign at every hole, but Malnath's looking for tracks and the most efficient way of finding tracks is to cover as much ground as quickly as possible.
Rom hopes to include tribes of snake catchers from other regions, in an attempt to form a nationwide venom collectors co-operative.
Malnath's people could be likely candidates.
Getting the Irula and other tribes to share their knowledge with each other may take time.
This hole is going really deep and the sand is nice and damp and cool down inside, which makes a lot of sense for a cobra, or any snake really because up here it's blooming hot.
Well, it looks like it's one for the snake, couldn't find him.
Come, let's go.
Come on, Kali! THEY SPEAK IN HINDI OK, that's a bundi for sure, saw-scaled viper.
Look at that very distinctive side winding track.
Snake tracks, man.
Bundi, bundi.
Look how clean that is, man.
Clear, clear, clear, clear.
Saw-scaled vipers have to find some place to spend the day, it's already getting very hot and its only eight in the morning.
So he's obviously gone in there last night or early this morning and he's definitely in there, the tracks go straight inside.
I'm just explaining to Kali that these are big saw-scaled vipers, not the little tiny ones we have down in Madras.
I'll get a bag out, or maybe that's a getting little too optimistic.
Ha-ha! Yeah, don't jinx it, man! Oh, man it's huge.
That is huge, man! That is tremendous.
Yes! Nice! Very nice.
This is a saw-scaled viper.
For us it's just an incredible snake as it's just so much huger than the ones we have in South India.
And its very likely the venom has some differences.
And this is the whole point of this exercise, we want to collect venom samples from this snake up here and compare it with the venom of the South Indian saw-scaled viper.
Right now the only anti-venom available for the bites of the saw-scaled viper here are made from venom from South India.
And that seems to be where the problem is because sometimes they have to give huge quantities of that anti-venom and it's still not effective for it.
So there is definitely something going on and we're going to try to get to the root of the matter by testing its venom.
After a full day's snake hunting the team have managed to collect a number of specimens.
And there's the venom.
In field conditions like this we have to collect the venom on dry ice basically, otherwise the venom will be spoiled almost instantly in this hot weather.
What we're doing here is just taking a small sample of the snake for DNA because the taxonomy, or exactly which snake this is, is under some question.
Is it a true species by itself? Or is it just a sub species of the saw-scaled viper found around the rest of India? So this is a pretty important thing that we're trying to do here.
Ah, I saw some venom spewing through the air that time.
And it come dripping down, a little bit like orange juice.
The venom and data that Rom and Samir have collected from some of these giants, once analysed will prove vital in helping scientists produce far more effective saw-scaled viper anti-venom.
Rajasthan's deserts are remote and sparsely populated, but the worst snake bite hot spots are where people and snakes come into close contact.
With this in mind, the team are heading 1100 miles to the east, to the state of Assam.
The Common Krait, found throughout most of India is one of the world's most venomous land snakes.
And it seems to be particularly inclined to enter houses.
Snakes often come into a home on the trail of a meal but the common krait, for reasons unknown, has gained a reputation for biting people in their sleep.
A krait bite is painless, its fang marks small and almost undetectable.
Fast acting, powerful neurotoxic venom brings on paralysis and if untreated, death.
The victim simply never wakes, and few clues are left as to the reason.
Many tribal people believe the snake coils up on the chest of the victim, then sucks their breath away a simple, but in a way accurate description of respiratory failure.
Kali's own sister was bitten by a krait on her wedding night and died.
We're up here in Assam, in North East India.
We are actually pretty close to the Chinese and Burmese borders and there are species of snakes up here found nowhere else in India.
Rom suspects that like the saw scaled viper, their venoms vary, so he is keen to add samples to his collection.
You kind of expect us to be hunting in the jungle for snakes around here but as a matter of fact, as is typical with a lot of parts of India, the snakes seem to be concentrated in places where they might be able to find food, around the village - rats, frogs, the whole works.
But more importantly, this whole area's a wetland, and during the monsoon, the snakes gravitate towards where people have built up on higher ground.
That's where we're going to find the snakes I hope.
As populations expand into what was once wilderness, snakes and people come into increasingly frequent contact.
And snakes and people just don't mix.
Piles of brick and rubble, cool and shady.
The perfect place for a snake to avoid the heat of the day.
Hands! Be very, very careful please.
We continually tell people to keep brick piles away from their houses, this is a dead attraction for snakes.
Yeah, go for it.
No, he is going deeper.
Don't want to lose him, Don't want to lose him Just take that one Uh, careful, and here it is! Yesss! Banded Krait, this is a first for Kali, beautiful - absolutely stunning animal.
Yeah, it's gorgeous.
Kali was saying it looks like it's thin, it looks like it needs food, but as a matter of fact Banded Kraits always look like this, with this high ridge on the back.
That's a nice snake.
If it does bite, however, it could be very serious, and the one reason we want to investigate this snake and its venom is to see if the anti-venom made for south Indian snakes would protect somebody who was bitten by one of these up here.
It's a pretty important part of our work and it's going to take a lot Kraits to get enough venom of course, but it's a start.
Kraits are one of the world's most venomous snakes.
This Banded Krait is living in the shadow of from this family's house.
India is incredibly diverse, and it's testament to the adaptability of snakes that they have managed to colonise almost every available niche.
Rom wants to show that people and snakes can co-exist.
Every encounter need not end in tragedy.
Samir has come to meet a krait bite survivor.
So we've come here to met Biplop Phukan, who was recently bitten by a venomous snake, and survived.
So we're just trying to get an idea of what his story was and how he survived and whether we can learn something from it.
TRANSLATOR: 'The first I realised that there was a snake in my home, was when it bit me in my leg.
'I never saw it come in.
I knew it was important for the doctors to know, 'what sort of a snake it was, so I took a picture with my mobile phone.
'I then tied a tight bandage over the bite, 'got on to my motorbike and went to the hospital as quickly as I could.
'At the hospital they identified the snake as a Banded Krait 'and they gave me anti-venom, they kept me there for five days.
'I was very lucky.
' Luck had little to do with it.
Biplop Kept a cool head and carried out almost textbook first aid.
He photographed the snake that bit him, applied a pressure bandage, not a tourniquet, and he didn't detour via a village quack.
Correctly identifying a snake is a crucial first step in the treatment of any bite.
Although Rom is thought by many to be the leading expert on India's snakes, he's the first to admit that there are still a number of species he has yet to identify.
Rom wants to fill the gaps in his own knowledge and has come to the forests of Assam, in an attempt to track down some of the so far, unidentified snakes that this area is home to.
This vine snake is one of India's 250 non-venomous snakes.
We're in standard snake habitat here up in Assam.
They're hard to see, they basically don't jump out at you, so walking slowly and looking carefully is exactly the technique that we have.
MAN BECKONS HIM Hey, hey, hey, hey It's kind of embarrassing, because Rom's supposed to know the different species of snakes, but this is one of the four or five green pit vipers up hear in the north east.
Probably the white-lipped pit viper but we will have to check the scales and stuff.
This is great, look at him, it's absolutely gorgeous.
Ok.
Let's leave this guy and move on.
Watch out, Kali.
Watch it, man, it's really slippery! HE FALLS THEY LAUGH Its slippery, guys.
Yeah, no kidding! The team makes camp in the forest, and Rom settles in for some bedtime reading, in an attempt to ID today's find.
There are a number of different species of pit vipers up here in these forests and I just for the life of me can't figure out some of them, especially these green pit vipers that all look very much alike.
And if I can't figure them out, how does a doctor or someone who's been bitten tell the difference? That's one of the reasons we produced this snake book.
The sales of the English edition are able to subsidise the production of a very, very cheap India edition which we can distribute free to villagers so they know which snakes they're looking at or what they've been bitten by.
If everyone in India could identify the snake that bit them, many more lives could be saved.
Although India's snake bite death toll dwarf's all other nations, those who don't die must not be left out and it's this group that Rom now turns his attention to.
Rom and the team are heading for the Western Ghats, where vast tea estates have now replaced what was once rainforest.
This is home to huge numbers of pit vipers India's most diverse group of snakes.
Rom knows that a bite from a pit viper is rarely fatal, so why is he so interested in them? The Western Ghats, like much of India is agricultural and the large majority of its people earn a living with their hands.
Like many developing countries, India has limited welfare provision.
A worker disabled by snakebite will struggle to support themselves and their family.
Rom knows any effective snake bite policy must address India's annual 950,000 snake bite survivors.
At present, extraordinarily, no anti-venom exists for the treatment of pit viper bites.
So some of this tea is about 100 years old.
So sort of, your vintage? So, if we get some of those pit vipers, do you reckon I can have a go at milking one of them? Yeah, I'd love to see you get bit! No, I think it would be a good idea, a good way to cut your teeth, so to speak.
Good.
Extracting venom on his own will greatly help Samir's work, as well as being an important right of passage.
The team needs to find the large-scaled green pit viper, a snake that has a reputation for biting tea-pickers.
and yet again little is known about this snake's venom.
Yeah, I mean, the pit viper's original habitat has been replaced by these miles and miles of tea.
It's literally like looking for a needle in a hay stack.
So to maximise our chances to find pit vipers we're going to probably change strategies and look along forest edges and streams edges.
They have decided to try again after dark, when this nocturnal snake is more active.
That looks like there's plenty of food around, can see rats moving around, there's a ton of frogs, this is theoretically a perfect place.
There's one right there! My God, what luck, what luck, what luck! That, friends and neighbours is the large-scaled green pit viper You don't want to bring it too close to your nose - they do have heat sensitive pits.
And my nose is large so mmm, yes.
This is about an average size for a large-scaled green pit viper.
I believe it's a male, males are smaller than females so, yeah, we're probably looking at an average size male.
They call it the large-scaled green pit viper for very obvious reasons.
Look at the overlapping scales on the top of the head, very unique, very different from any of the other pit vipers.
Although not as deadly as a Cobra or a Krait, this snake possesses venom that is crucial for the team's work.
Haha, you're kidding man, it's a joke right? THEY LAUGH Can I have a look? Guess what it is.
Large-scaled? Wow, gorgeous.
It's all curled up right now so you can't see it very well but it's a beaut.
Where was it? Close-ish, high, low? It was so obvious, you guys going to buy you glasses You're putting it on a bit there! This large-scaled green pit viper is last but by no means least on the team's list.
A venom sample from this snake will go a long way towards helping by far the biggest group affected by India's snakebite epidemic - the snakebite survivors, who are left maimed and unable to work.
On this occasion, it all falls to Samir and he is rightly nervous.
Yes, oh, that's a good one.
OK, let's just do a quick measurement of this guy.
It's 39cm.
That's small.
Did you hear the barking in the background? Maybe there's a tiger on the prowl! Not bad, that's what I like about doing this sort of stuff out in the jungle.
Yeah, these are the best working conditions.
Hey, man, this is my first drop of extracting venom.
Samir holds in his hand snake venom never before tested by scientists.
This is the first sample of macrolepis venom possibly that's ever been collected for this kind of test.
Congrats, old boy! More than cool, my friend, more than cool.
Long-term, anti-venom is undoubtedly the answer but prevention is always going to be better than cure.
And there is one very simple thing Rom knows could greatly reduce the number of people bitten by snakes.
Whenever I see people walking on these roads at night without a flashlight, I'm thinking, they'll find a snake! Seriously, it's really dangerous.
There is a little lady walking a long there no light.
You know, we have established that most snakebites take place at night, and most snakebites are on the feet or legs.
In other words, carrying a light around a night is the main way of avoiding snakebite and this wind-up torch is just what we need.
As they head for home, there's one more stop that Rom wants to make.
Rom has returned to the Irula village, bearing gifts.
These torches will last for years, cost little, and need no batteries.
Something so simple could save the lives of tens of thousands of people.
It's been six months since Rajamal was bitten.
At least there's some flexion, it's not as if she's lost the use of her hand.
Although she is showing some improvement, her hand is far from right.
In many ways Rajamal was lucky, But it's now known, thanks to the statistics from the University of Toronto, that many Indians aren't so fortunate.
SIREN WAILS On the 17th April, 2010, Sister Greeshma, a nun from a town of Thrissur, was bitten by a cobra whilst out cutting grass.
It was a close-run thing and she was fortunate to survive.
Every year, 50,000 Indians won't be so lucky.
There is only one truly effective and reliable cure for a venomous snakebite anti-venom.
And yet, the drug produced in the South from Irula-sourced venom works, but only for some bites, some of the time.
Rom hopes his continuing research will eventually make it the wonder drug India so desperately needs.
In the meantime, avoidance will always be the best, first line of defence.
The results of the "Million Deaths Study" have revealed that close to 50,000 people die from snake bite every year in India, and that's out of perhaps, over a million snake bites.
There's no more denying that snake bite is a serious problem, it's reached almost epidemic proportions.
The venom samples we've collected will be sent to various labs in India, and through this venom research we're ultimately aiming to produce a polyvalent anti-venom serum that is effective throughout the country, no matter how the venoms may vary regionally.
Rom knows it will take more than just field work.
Science will have to play a big part.
Now it's up to the next generation, people like my son Samir.
These are the people who will lead us into the future and hopefully mitigate what is really a very serious problem.
I've always been a snake man, but I learned pretty early on that if I'm going to protect snakes, I've got to protect the people too.