Is Eating Venomous Sea Snakes a Bad Thing?
Jan. 8, 2015 - The growing consumption of venomous sea snakes in Southeast
Asia has resulted in the massive harvesting of these marine animals in
the Gulf of Thailand. Fishermen and traders face a high risk of
snakebites and even death as 80 tons of sea snakes are captured annually.
Herpetologist and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Zoltan Takacs
documents this phenomenon while questioning the ecological and medical
impact of this escalating wildlife trade.
Click here to see more photos of the sea snake harvest in the Gulf of Thailand.
Voice of ZOLTAN TAKACS, HERPETOLOGIST AND NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC EMERGING EXPLORER:
We are in Vietnam and we are witnessing one of the largest
marine reptile exploitation in the world.
80 tons of sea snakes are removed from the Gulf of Thailand and shipped domestically
and internationally to be eaten. These
are highly venomous snakes and they end up on soups, in drinks or they can end
up as a traditional medicine.
The story on how the sea snakes are caught is actually
fascinating. Squid fishermen, during a twenty-day dark night hunting, go out to
look for squid. But at the same time,
sea snakes are also come to surface and those are caught as a valuable
by-catch. The sea snakes trade up to
twenty dollars per pound.
The sea snakes are taken to a sorting facility where they
are sorted based on their weight. It’s
shocking to see that the sea snake traders actually step into a pool of highly
venomous snakes barefooted and barehanded.
In the course of our study, there were two deaths from sea snakes bites.
Sea snake venom affects the nerves, and they muscles and the
kidneys. There is no anti-venom for sea
snake bites in Vietnam. So here, people bitten by sea snakes are relying on
garlic and rhinoceros horns. So imaging,
the sea snake harvest in Asia is contributing to rhinoceros poaching in Africa.
The traders can just hope for the best because the rhinoceros horn will not
save their lives.
Sea snakes are not protected in Vietnam or by international
treaties. A quarter-million snakes are
eaten up every year for more than an decade without any notice from the outside
world. And we do not know actually what’s the true effect and magnitude of the
damage that the sea snake harvest may have on the ecosystem of the Gulf of
Thailand.
Snake venoms are one of the most successful source of
medications—for heart attacks, for high blood pressure, for heart failure. We know practically nothing on the venom of
the sea snakes. It’s safe to say we do
not know what we are eating away.
