The Better India · 6 hours ago

How India’s ‘Snakeman’ Turned Fear Into Conservation

For most people, a snake in the house is a reason to run. For Romulus Whitaker, it was a reason to look closer. Growing up catching milk snakes and ribbon snakes, he noticed early that fear and fascination are closer together than people think - and spent a lifetime using that gap as a doorway. He founded India's first snake park in 1969 for just 25 paise entry, helped establish the Irula Snake Catchers' Co-operative to preserve an indigenous community's ancient knowledge, and in doing so helped build a supply chain that today provides roughly 80 percent of India's lifesaving antivenom. His quiet conviction, that "conservation begins when people learn to see value where they once saw fear," turned out to be not just a philosophy about snakes, but a blueprint for how minds - and then ecosystems - can be restored.