Bangkok firefighters catch more snakes than put out fires – and city’s trash is partly to blame
Bangkok’s low-lying landscape makes it prone to floods during the rainy season, which also invites snakes and other reptiles such as monitor lizards
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 Thailand’s capital: snakes.
A 2-metre-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.
Thailand’s has 300 species of snakes and 10 per cent are venomous – including king cobras, kraits and pit vipers – making many city dwellers fearful of dealing with the creatures themselves.
Tara Buakamsri, Thailand 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.