Finding a baby cobra is a bad sign. A very bad sign. Cobras lay 60 or more eggs at a time. Discovering a single hatchling portended a much larger infestation than Lovic anticipated. And still, the mother snake is on the loose. It keeps getting worse.
These cobras are monocled cobras — the most venomous snake in Thailand. It’s also the most common snake in Thailand. Just one bite by a monocled cobra and death is quick yet painful. Lovic snagged one snake, secured it in the bag, and went off hunting for the rest. Time was of the essence; he needed to find the rest of the eggs, and it was vital to draw the mother out.
A Word from Your Local Thai Snake Expert, Vern Lovic
Vern Lovic shared his professional expertise regarding the problem in Thailand with snakes getting into people’s homes and hiding out in toilets on a segment of Coconuts TV YouTube channel. He says, referring to the Thai man who was attacked while going to the bathroom, “It’s quite a big issue when a python sneaks up a toilet and grabs a guy in the business.”
Lovic continues, “But it doesn’t happen very often, it happens a couple times a year, at the most.” But what if it happens? Here is his advice. Lovic says that if it doesn’t let go, “grab it at the neck and hold it as tight as you can,” adding, with a chuckle, “a python can hold its breath for 20 minutes.” So, in the worst case, it’ll take 20 minutes to free yourself from a python’s grip.
The Number One Favorite Place Thai Snakes Hide...
The toilet. Snakes are a huge problem in Thailand. In Bangkok, firemen respond to more snake rescues than fires. Quite a bit more! During the rainy season, firefighters receive up to 200 calls per day. Fires account for about five calls per day. The biggest problem is pythons. Seventy percent of all snake calls are for pythons. Yes, those, the 15-foot-long beasts that can kill a human with efficiency.
Lovic lifted the lid and looked in the toilet. Getting bit while using the toilet is a real fear in Thailand. One man nearly lost a very important body part due to sitting on a python-infested toilet. That’s when Lovic spotted it. The squiggly critter was not in the toilet, but it was squirming off the wall in the corner of the bathroom. But it was not a python and it was not good news.
A Bag of Snakes
There were 37,000 reports of snake invasions in Bangkok homes in 2018. Surprisingly, in all of Thailand, snake bite deaths are rare. There are only about a dozen venomous snake fatalities a year. An antidote for their venom is readily available in Thailand, and most people manage to get to the hospital in time.
The young snakes kept popping up and Lovic continued filling his bag with baby cobras. He was set on protecting his friend and his family. However, the baby monocled cobras just kept coming and coming — this was becoming a larger and larger problem every minute.
How Many Bags Would He Need?
Lovic searched the bathroom. In all, he captured twelve baby monocled cobras. All of these were found in one tiny room! Granted, this was a hotspot for the snakes, but these ones can lay over forty at a time. If there were no more in the bathroom, they had to be somewhere else in the house. What would he find in the rest of the house? He moved on with trepidation.
Maybe one bag was not going to be enough. Fearing what he was up against, Lovic reinforced his supplies and turned all of his attention to this one goal; finding all of the snakes in this house. Who knows where the mother was hiding...