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Unhappy hunting for a lost cobra
Angella Nampewo
Thursday this week, a wildlife trafficker caused mayhem at the Uganda–Kenya border point in Busia District when he abandoned a bag containing a cobra, a highly venomous and deadly snake. Nobody, not even the most high ranking police official present, was prepared for this kind of eventuality and so everyone fled for some time. The result? A cobra is now on the loose and residents are in fear after it went missing.
Curiosity drove me to do some research on the snake trade to figure out why the snake courier took such a grave risk, lugging around a venomous reptile in a bag all the way to the border. What did they stand to gain? It turns out from a June 2020 report on revelator.org, an initiative of Center for Biological Diversity that nearly a million endangered and threatened snakes are legally sold on the international market each year. However, many more are sold illegally.
In a bid to quantify the threat that this trade poses to human health, researchers from the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva examined 44 years of snake trade records (1975 to 2018). Their results, published in the journal, Biological Conservation showed that 6.2 million live snakes listed by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered species) were traded in that period, along with 34.5 million snake skins but those figures barely scratched the surface. Thousands of snake bodies, heads, skulls and other body parts were being sold too.
I spent, a not-so-fun evening researching snakes. Since the one which was carried to the border has vanished, I couldn’t pin down the exact species but it was informative just knowing which species are documented in the country. While some may be terrified of the worst of them, the creatures inspire a weird fascination. One cannot help but be owed at the sheer dangerous beauty of the venomous reptiles. No wonder they are in such demand for the making of various luxury leather goods such as handbags, shoes and watch straps.
I can fully relate with the dilemma of the fleeing law enforcement officers. If you read the science or if you have access to the community knowledge bank, your first instinct might be to flee too when you come within spitting or biting distance of these reptiles.
Uganda Wildlife Authority maintains a team of wildlife officers in the proximity of conservation areas, who can respond to these kinds of animal sightings. It takes a lot of training to be able to deal with some of these animal species and now perhaps the Busia border police should add the telephone number of the Elgon conservation team to their speed dial contacts.
Living and working at the banks of the River Nile, my colleagues and I had our fair share of snake sightings. You just never knew whether you were going to run into one while planting trees on the river bank or whether you would find it slithering around in the workshop. We live in an area of rich biodiversity and for the border enforcement, a new reality of trafficking in animals. Retaining animal control experts in close proximity of the border points is, therefore, not a bad idea.
From a distance of less than five feet, I have seen a shiny black and gold banded cobra in its full standing glory. It must have been one of the rinkhals, the species that gives birth to an average of 20-30 live young. From what I was later told, this type of snake is also used in sorcery. For the Busia residents, this will be some unhappy hunting.
Ms Nampewo is a writer, editor and communications consultant
