Urban Snakes
When the latest distress call came into Phinyo Pukphinyo’s fire station in Bangkok, it was not about a burning home or office building. Instead, the caller needed urgent help with a far more common problem facing the capital: snakes.
A 2-meter-long (10-foot-long) python was dangling from the caller’s garage roof, and after rushing to the scene, it took Phinyo less than a minute to remove the slithering reptile.
The number of snakes ending up in urban homes is on the rise in Bangkok, apparently in part because of development pains in the vast metropolis of about 10 million people.
Tara Buakamsri, country director for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said the city is seeing more snakes because it sits on a “flood plain with a wetland ecosystem which is a habitat for amphibians, including snakes,” and housing expansions in recent years have curtailed their land.
Bangkok’s snake invasion is sustained by the city’s growing piles of trash, which subsequently leads to more rats and birds – favored prey for serpents.