The Irula Co-operative society is a self-help project recognised by the State government of Tamil Nadu.� The project taps the skills of the Irula tribe in venom production, rodent control and termite control.� The Irulas are expert snake catchers and this skill was earlier being exploited by smuggling cartels to procure snakeskins for the international market.� But following the ban of this trade for ecological reasons, the Irulas were deprived their means of living.� The Irula Snake Catcher’s Society now buys venomous snakes from the Irula members, extracts the venom and then the snakes are released back to the wild.� The venom is then sold to laboratories.The antidote is prepared by injecting a small and non lethal dose of venom ‘milked’ from the fangs of a live King Cobra, into a healthy horse.� Once the horse’s body has developed antibodies to the venom, blood is removed from the jugular vein of the horse.� The blood is then mixed with an anticoagulant and a preservative, and the antibodies are separated and stored as antivenin.
The snakes from which venom is extracted are known as the ‘Big Four’.� They are the most dangerous snakes in India - the Cobra, Krait, Russells Viper and Saw scaled Viper.� The venom is extracted at the Snake Venom Extraction Centre located in the precincts of the Madras Crocodile Bank (MCB) on East Coast Road.�
Uses of Snake Venom
The Madras Crocodile Bank or Centre for Herpetology successfully bred King Cobras in 1996.� 29 hatchlings resulted from the eggs of three females.� Although King Cobras are primarily snake-eaters in nature, the hatchlings and the adults that produced them have become accustomed to feeding on rats.� The largest of the hatchlings is now 2.45 meters and the others average 1.2 – 1.4 meters.
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