Last week I described the initial part of an expedition to Kamlang Wildlife Sanctuary in eastern Arunachal Pradesh.
Having spent the night in the dingy little bamboo hut at Kalai basti, the next morning, after a simple meal of rice and dal, we began our walk to the Glow lake. This part of the trek was easier than the previous day. We trudged for about six kilometres through dense tropical rain forest. In some areas, the forest was so dense that it became dark as we walked because the sunlight did not reach the forest track!
During the trek, Abhijit decided to release a snake that he had caught the previous night. In order to identify snakes you need to count the scales on their body. Hence we needed to hold the snake. Abhijit told our guide and porters that he was going to take the snake out of the bag and all of them gathered around us. One look at the snake and the four of them scattered. One moment they were next to us, the next moment they were running in different directions!
The snake was identified as the medo pit viper (Viridovipera medoensis). The pit viper, a nocturnal snake, is a beautiful green snake with red and white spots along its body. It is venomous but it is not known whether its bite is fatal.
Most snakes use their primary sensory organs — eyes for sight and tongue for smell. The pit vipers have thermal sensors in ‘pits’ on their heads, which are an additional sensory organ. With these sensors they sense temperature changes in their surroundings — a very useful tool in sensing the presence of warm-blooded animals around them. The snakes use this to hunt for food.
The medo pit viper is a rare snake found only in the jungles of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, so we were quite lucky to have spotted this creature. After taking photographs of the snake we released it back into the wild, but not before the local team came back to take a good look at the pit viper.
Watching us take photos of the snake from up close made them shed some of their fear of snakes!
Situated at an altitude of 1,900 metres the Glow Lake is surrounded by rolling forested hills, mostly covered with mist. The local team constructed rafts for us to row out into the lake.
The ‘raft’ consisted of six long bamboo branches tied together. When we sat on it, most of the raft was under water! Rowing out into the centre of the lake we got a marvellous view of the forest and the hills. We spent two nights at Glow Lake searching for butterflies, snakes, frogs and lizards. During our stay, a peculiar dilemma cropped up.
The locals had caught fish from the lake, and cooked it. I refused to eat it, to their surprise. “We are in a wildlife sanctuary and catching and eating wild animals is illegal,” I said. The locals, being tribals, hunt all the time. By declining the offer to eat animals caught in the sanctuary I had delivered a subtle message to them. Wild animals have their place in protected areas, and it’s best we let them be.