VAVA SURESH CATCHES A KING COBRA

VAVA SURESH CATCHES A KING COBRA

                       Vava Suresh is a snake expert and wildlife conservationist from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, India. He is popularly known as 'Snake Man' and is known to have rescued and conserved more than 30000 straying snakes from various locations in and outside Trivandrum. Suresh attributes his snake handling skills to his instinctive passion for snakes from childhood and experience from longtime association with the reptiles from the age of twelve. He is widely known for his conservation activities like rescual & release of endangered species of snakes as well as preservation of collected eggs till hatching periods. He releases his reptile collections into natural habitats at regular intervals of time. Suresh was offered a government job in 2012 by Minister K.B Ganesh Kumar, at the snake park that would be set up at the Kottur forest area near Kattakada in Thiruvananthapuram. But Suresh denied it, saying that he would be unable to help the society the way he wants to if he was employed. Suresh was declared winner of 'Vocational Service Award 2011' instituted by the Rotary Club's Thiruvananthapurm division. He was selected for his service to the society for many years

He was bitten by the snake while he was trying to catch it. He was immediately taken to the medical college hospital and is undergoing treatment.He was bitten by a snake earlier also.A 15-foot-long, nine-kg king cobra fell to the guiles of the snake-catcher Vava Suresh at , near Seethathode, on Monday,8^th Octyober,2012.The snake had strayed into the village from the nearby forests, and after rescuing it, Mr. Suresh, along with forest officials, released it back into the wild.A schoolboy taking bath in the Kakkattar river first sighted the reptile crawling along the riverbank on Sunday afternoon. People soon gathered, and they made it abandon the attempt to cross the river. The snake but slithered into a hole on the riverbank and went missing.The matter was taken to Mr. Suresh and he reached the site at night. But his search went futile.However, on Monday afternoon, a bus driver sighted the king cobra lying on the roadside.Mr. Suresh and the forest officials rushed to the spot and continued their search, soon pulling out the snake from a wayside bush.The reptile was released into the Goodrickal forests in the evening.

Prof. John Kurakar