Saving Snakes

Category: 6. Elapidae - COBRAS and MAMBAS, 7. Viperidae - VIPERS and ADDERS | Date: Dec 10 2007 | By: admin

This new Large Brown Spitting Cobra Naja ashei has really brought us a lot of attention. I must share with you the three most common questions that we are getting.

1. Really! how long is the largest specimen of this species on record?

2. Who was James Ashe and why did you name the snake after him?

3. What will you (Royjan Taylor) and Bio-Ken do with this money if we give it to you?

This is what I have told everyone.

1. The largest specimen on record of this Spitting Cobra Naja ashei is 9 feet and 2 inches ( works out at almost 2.8 meters). The specimen was caught in 1960 by James Ashe and C.J.P.Ionides,a great friend and mentor of Jim’s. It had killed and swallowed a house cat and got injured in the process but survived. They kept it for three weeks but it unfortunately escaped before they could get it back to the Nairobi Snake Park. Where did they catch it? I do not know as James said he could not remember exactly but it was somewhere along the Kenyan Coast. He said “I think it was somewhere in Kilifi” which is about 45km from where we are in Watamu, Kenya.

Picture from Jim’s stuff given to Royjan (scanned copy)

2. James Ashe made his name in East African herpetology in the 1960’s while he was Curator of Reptiles at the National Museum of Kenya (then The Croydon Museum) he helped start the Nairobi Snake park and during his time built it up to have a very good collection indeed. He discovered the Mt. Kenya Bush Viper Atheris desaixi, and named it after the collector who found the first specimen, a friend of his called Frank Desaix. James left Kenya, and ran Safari Parks in the USA, later moving on to Oxford University where he worked with insects. His passion still being snakes he came back to Kenya and with his wife Sanda founded Biological Kenya in 1980. This was later shortened to Bio-Ken and started as a collecting centre for reptiles. In 2000 after working with James on and off for many years he offered me the position of Director at Bio-Ken. At that time the Snake Farm was struggling with funds and in his words “I have one foot on a banana skin and the other in the grave. It is just a matter of time for me but what this place and the snakes of East Africa need is a chap with a fire in his belly and a heart in his snakes to make it work. I have chosen you to take on my life long work and I hope you will. I can’t pay you much but if you make it work it is yours”.

I had no choice! This was exactly what I had always dreamed of and Jim had picked me. I talked it over with my wife Clare and we agreed lets just do it. Time passed and I built Bio-Ken up to house one of the largest collections of African snakes in one place anywhere in the world. We at present house 260 snakes represented by 56 different species, all East African. I promised James on his death bed that during my time I would name an East African snake with significance after him. The Large Brown Spitting Cobra “takes the biscuit” as he would say. Naja ashei it is and only last Friday I said to my wife after a long day at work “I really wish I could send Jimmy an email about all this!”. She replied “I think he has already got it!”. I thought to my self what a nice thought to go to sleep on remembering him saying “I’m sure this brown thing is different!”

Picture from Jim’s stuff given to Royjan (scanned copy)

3. I think this question is obvious. Bio-Ken Snake Farm has been self funded for the entire 27 years it has been in existence. We make our own money through gate entry, Snake shows, filming, lectures, safari guide training and venom production. This brings in about Ksh125,000/=(US$ 2,000). We spend about Ksh 210,000/=(US$3,000) a month on keeping the place going. We all moonlight doing whatever we can to earn extra money to support our families and subsidies the snake farm.We rescue about 450 snakes a year and help treat about 50 snakebite patients a year. I think it is about time we get some funding for what we do. It does not matter how small the amount may be. Would you not agree.

Old picture of Royjan saving a large python in Kilifi that would have been shot. Snake now lives in the wild near Tsavo East National Park, Kenya - eating antelope and not retrievers. (scanned from Jim’s stuff)

Picture by Prof. Ralf Sauter of snakebite patient

Technorati : Large Brown Spitting Cobra, Naja Ashei

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Category: 6. Elapidae - COBRAS and MAMBAS | Date: Dec 10 2007 | By: admin

Yes! The world has decided to take notice about saving snakes with the discovery of the Large Brown Spitting Cobra Naja ashei at Bio-Ken Snake Farm in Watamu, Kenya. With the help of a press release that went out on Friday 7th November 2007, in the afternoon through Wildlife direct as a platform, the whole world has been in contact with us about the new Largest Spitting Cobra in the World. This is great news for our conservation work on this species and snakes in general for that matter.

National Geographic have covered the story in great detail on their web site and are sending a team here tomorrow, Tuesday, to take some film footage of this giant snake species. Yahoo carried the story and by Saturday morning I had friends living in as far away places USA, Australia, South Africa and England calling to say that they had just read the news. Last week if you typed Naja ashei in a google search engine you would have got 1-10 of 16 sites covering the species, by Friday night when I went to bed it was 1-10 of 183 by this morning it is a whopping 1-10 of 6,490. This is mind blowing.

I think in all the madness that ensued the best and most appropriate phone call was from an Italian lady that lives in Watamu itself. Tiziana Colis called at about 9:00pm and said I have a big snake in the chicken house eating one of my chickens, please come and save it as the cook wants to kill it and I think it may be one of your new cobras. I got Joseph out of bed and we raced down there to get it in time. Sure enough it was medium sized Large Brown Spitting Cobra Naja ashei. It had killed and started swallowing a half grown chicken. I caught it and Joseph took some pictures with the house owner Ms. Colis. I thanked here for calling us and took the snake to the snake farm. This is an excellent example of conservation working in our area! Pictures below.

I have decided to keep the snake for a few days to get some better pictures before we release it. I will be off to the bush this weekend again so will probably take it there for release.

As you can imagine doing all this takes up an enormous amount of time. I take on work as a building contractor as well as safari guiding as a living to support my family but also to subsidise the snake farm. An ideal scenario would be if, somehow, I could make the work I do with snakes my number one priority and dedicate all my time to that alone. If I was able to get funding to make this possible I feel that I could work wonders in conservation, research, lifesaving teachings and education in this field. We charge a small entrance fee to the farm for tourists, provide snakes and handlers for films and documentaries and do snake shows in the local hotels and this brings us in an income which just about covers the basic costs. Most of the extra structural work done at the farm I have paid for personally or was done by small donations. We need funding to be able to really improve all aspects of our modest establishment and I could dedicate myself wholly to the cause.

Bio-Ken Snake Farm has been running for 27 years so we have the know how, experience and status to warrant this. We have an incredibly dedicated, professional and passionate group of employees at Bio-Ken and I would like to tell them that their loyalty and patience through sometimes very hard times can now finally be rewarded. They are very excited by all this publicity and very proud of what they do.

So here is to Spitting Cobra Day. We have all put the 7th of November 2007 down on our calender as such, I do hope you will do the same!

Come on World……. help me and my team save the snakes.

Photos by Joseph Ojuja

Technorati : Ashe’s Spitting Cobra, Large Brown Spitting Cobra, Naja ashei

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