Thoughts about killing snakes and gorillas
Last week’s news of a gorilla that was killed because of a 4 year old boy who fell into its hands, had me wondering on the right and wrong of it. Two nights ago, things finally became clear.
That was the night when my kid and I were walking towards our front door, and I saw a 2-fo0t long snake slither across our door. It quickly hid itself beside the drainage pipe that ran down the wall. We edged past it, and got into the house. I sent the child upstairs, picked up an aerosol can of pesticide and gingerly sprayed it where the snake was hiding. It immediately leapt out and dashed away from our door. I followed to make sure it went back into the dense vegetation of the plot of land next to where we live.
I didn’t particularly want to kill the snake, mostly because I am terrified of them. But also because it meant no harm, and probably was doing a good job of eating other pests that abound in our area.
Unfortunately, the snake didn’t go away. It crept into a crevice in the wall, right outside the front door of our neighbour, a doctor who lived in the other house in the premises. If I left it there, there was a distinct probability that he would come out of the house, scare the snake, and get bitten.
So I gave him a buzz. He cautiously stepped out of his front door, and focussed the beam of his torch on the snake. Having spent a couple of years working in rural India, he recognised it as a viper by its markings. He also said its venom is haemotoxic, as in, it stops your blood from clotting. The resulting internal bleeding can lead to death, if not quickly treated.
This put me a quandary. I didn’t want to kill the snake, as I have a ‘live and let live’ attitude towards them. They usually stay away from human beings as I believe the vibration of footsteps warns them of the proximity of humans, and they quickly get out of our way. I do know there are snakes in the area, as I had seen another dead one similar to this snake, as well as a live six foot long rat snake which I ignored.
But this snake was bit too bold for my liking. The ground around the house where we live is paved with tiles, and snakes usually stay from such areas. However I had a suspicion I was responsible for the snake’s boldness. We have a problem with cockroaches, and I usually whack them with a broom, and sweep them out of the back door, where they usually disappear by morning. I had assumed the birds were feasting on the cockroaches, but it seems more likely that I had been regularly feeding our nocturnal visitor.
This was very worrying as I step out at night to turn on the pump for our water tank. And my kid often runs across to her cousin’s place, a couple of doors away. She’s just thirteen, and not really at an observant age, and can often be caught walking with her eyes glued to her iPod’s screen. And what if I was not at home, and she accidentally steps on the snake and is bitten, and does not have the presence of mind to call for help.
Obviously, this snake’s fear of humans, has been outweighed by its desire for easy food, and it was likely to return. All this was flitting through the back of my mind, when my friend suggested we kill the snake. So I agreed, and he suggested I put on some thick shoes, and get a long stick. He kept an eye on the snake while I got ready, after which I kept the snake under watch as he too equipped himself for battle with a pipe.
I shone the torch on the snake, and my friend struck it a couple of blows with the pipe, and that was the end of the snake. We threw it in the drain, and went to bed. It was a bit of an anticlimax, but I had no complaints.
The next morning, the snake was gone, probably eaten up by some other creature. That night, I whacked another cockroach, and threw it out of the back door. It was still there this morning so it looks like I was right in my guess about who I had been feeding.
That’s the funny thing about life. If you prevent something, you can never be sure you were right, as the whole traumatic experience of being bitten by a snake never did happen. Maybe it would have never happened, and my killing of that creature of the wild was unwarranted.
So would I have killed the snake if I was given another chance?
Yes, it was a hard decision but I think I took the right one. If I had let the snake live, and it had come back, and bitten someone, the pain, and possibly grief and sadness would have been astronomically much more than any little satisfaction that I would have got by letting it escape.
I can definitely relate to the zookeeper who chose to kill the gorilla.
