Two cobras rescued in Delhi, to be released in the wild

A five-foot-long cobra was rescued from the Delhi Race Course premises and another from the basement of a factory in Bawana Industrial Area late on Tuesday evening.

A five-foot-long cobra was rescued from the Delhi Race Course premises and another from the basement of a factory in Bawana Industrial Area late on Tuesday evening.

The snake skin at Bawana. (Wildlife SOS)

In the first incident, the snake was spotted by occupants of Race Course’s adjoining BR Camp.

It was nestled inside a hole in the wall.

“Panicked residents dialled the rescue helpline. Two snake rescuers rushed to the location. As there was very little space between the bricks, the team had to exercise caution while extricating the snake with utmost care,” said, Kartick Satyanarayan, Co-founder of Wildlife SOS, an NGO that caters to protection of wild animals.

Both reptiles are under observation and will be released back into the wild once deemed fit, he said.

After the Race Course alert, the NGO received a call about the presence of a snake inside a garment factory in the Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation’s (DSIIDC) Bawana industrial area.

A staff member in the factory had stumbled upon something rather unusual on the basement floor and it wasn’t long before he realised it was freshly moulted snake skin.

The rescue team scoured the room and found a cobra amid a pile of storage boxes.

“One of my employees found a snake skin on the floor, which only meant that there was an actual snake somewhere in the room. A friend directed us to the helpline,” said, Harvinder Singh, who made the distress call.

Satyanarayan said cobras seldom bite but will give out a warning sign by displaying their hood. They use their venom primarily to hunt prey such as rats, mice and frogs.

People get accidentally bitten only when they step on the snake or when an untrained person attempts to catch or handle these snakes.