13 January 2019
Railway Police Force officials arrested Mr. Chandrabhan Rankamani Naik (Bargad, Odisha) while illegaly transporting snakes from Pune-Hatia express. 6 live specimen of snakes , 1 green iguana were found in his bag.
Name of the snakes seized:
1. Red Sand Boa
2. Slender Coral
3. Gunthers Racer
4. Common Trinket
5. Yellow spotted wolf snake
6. Common wolf snake (Partial Albino)
He was later handed over to Ahmednagar Forest Department for further legal action. Preliminary Offence report no 13/2018-19 was filed at forest department. He was later produced before magistrate court and given 11 days forest custody. During his interrogation and after checking his camera & laptop few names popped up. FD came to know that there is King Cobra in Maharashtra which is a non-native species to the state.
18 January 2019
4 snake rescuers from Maharashtra on whom department had doubt were called for inquiry at the office. During their interrogation they admitted that they brought king cobra from Odisha when they visited the Chandra Bhanu on 23-24 November 2018. 6 snake rescuers from Maharashtra went there. While going there they took Malbar Pit viper , Hump nosed pit viper and Albino common krait and handed it over to Chandra Bhanu in exchange of King Cobra.
Next day case was registered against them and court gave them 6 days forest custody.
Name of arrested persons/;
1. Avinash Shah , Sangamner
2. Prashant aka Sopan Thorat , Sangamner
3. Akshay Ghodke , Barshi
4. Jagdish Rewatkar , Chandrapur
Two people were absconding named Amar Godambe and Altaf Shaikh both from Pune.
19 January 2019
During the investigation they told after bringing king cobra to Maharashtra it was kept at Amar’s house for almost 2 months. In this time many people visited his house and free handled king cobra and clicked photos of it. After Chandra Bhanu was arrested he sent king Cobra to Avinash Shah at Sangamner. From there Avinash and Sopan handed over this King Cobra to Tanmay Kolate from Mumbai on 15 January. They told Tanmay that it’s a exotic species named Malysian King Cobra and told him to sell it and give him commission. After realizing that it’s an Indian species he tried to call back Avinash. But he refused to answer his call and later told him to release it somewhere otherwise I will commit suicide or something bad to myself. After this Tanmay was frightened and he got to know that Mr. Aditya Patil from Wildlife Welfare Association is working on this case. He immediately contacted Aditya and he assured him that nothing will happen if he submits species to Ahmednagar forest office. Meanwhile Aditya also informed this to investigating officer . finally , on 19th January 2019 around 4 pm Tanmay arrived at Forest department office with the specimen. King cobra recovered was very weak and dehydrated. Its length was 10 ft 10 inch and weight 5.6 kg.
21 January 2019
After all the paper work and transfer permit documents were made King Cobra was shifted to Thane DCF office for further treatment. It was there till 31 January and undergone medical treatment. Our volunteers helped forest department to complete the paperwork to send king back to odisha. We got necessary permission from Air India and Odisha Forest department to send him back there. On 31 January it was sent to Bhuvaneshwar by Air India flight.
1 February 2019
After completing the medical examination by Wildlife trust of India Vet it was declared fit to release. There after , in the presence of Forest officials it was released back to its natural habitat.
Special Thanks to:
Office of PCCF Wildlife Maharashtra and Odisha
Ahmednagar Forest Department
DCF Adarsh Reddy
ACF Ramesh Deokhile
RFO Sunil Thete
Thane Forest Department
DCF Jitendra Ramgaonkar
ACF Girija Desai
RFO Santosh Kank
Kedar Bhide , Nature Works
Pawan Sharma, Honarary Wildlife Warden Thane
Veterinary Team:
Dr Kiran Shelar
Dr Kshama Shirodkar
Dr Satish Patil
Dr Khanin Changmai
Wildlife Trust Of India
Jose Louise
Rudra Mahapatra
Ganesh Mehendale , President , OWLS
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