Bhubaneswar: Death of a pet dog due to snakebite in Koraput district has raised concern over lack of a policy of Central or state government for protection of the animals in this regard.
According to sources, a cobra entered Sunabeda Public School and the school authorities called Snake Helpline to rescue the snake. Sujit Mohanty, a Snake Helpline volunteer, reached the spot and rescued the cobra. Later, he released it in natural habitat.
However, Sujit was saw blood stain on the ground and 4 dogs belonging to the Boxer breed there. One of the dogs, named Tyson, was found making abnormal movement. Though the school authorities had not inform about any fight between the dog and cobra, Sujit checked all 4 dogs and the snake.
While he did not find any injury on the cobra, there was blood stain on Tyson’s face with a visible swelling. Sujit then sent the videos of dog’s injury to Subhendu Mallik, general secretary of Snake Helpline who advised them to take the dog to a veterinarian for immediate treatment. But the 2.5-year-old dog died within 5-6 minutes before they could do anything.
“This is not a stray incident as domestic animals regularly die of snake envenomation not only in Odisha, but also elsewhere in the country. The painful death of Tyson has once again exposed the dismal animal health scenario particularly in snakebite cases,” said Subhendu Mallik, general secretary of Snake Helpline said.
He further said there is a proper policy for human consumption of the anti-venom and its distribution in government hospitals free of cost. But there is no such policy for domestic animals either by the state or the Central government. As a result, domestic animals continue to die untreated of snakebite. There is also no data available on how many domestic animals die each year due to snakebite, he added.
Stating that the scenario of snakebite among domestic animal is very dismal in the country including Odisha, he called for a strong policy in this regard to prevent their death due to lethal envenomation in tremendous pain and agony.
