World Snake Day, held every year on July 16, aims to raise awareness about preservation and respect towards snakes and increase people’s recognition of them. It’s an opportunity for people to eliminate negative impressions of snakes, and to remind people the importance of them in the ecosystem.
Snakes usually play important roles in different cultures around the world, they are worshiped as gods in some of the cultures, but more often, they are described as ominous, and in addition, some of the snakes are poisonous or with unpleasant looks, all these have made preservation of snakes facing more obstacles or ignorances comparing to other wildlives. Snakes are classified as tertiary consumers in nature ecosystems, feeding on small insects, frogs, birds and rats. When catching sight of snakes, it shows that this ecosystem is healthy. Also, snakes can be useful in controlling rat populations which help reduce loss of grains and foods, and thus lower the risk of transmission of diseases. Moreover, snake venoms can be used to create medicines and drugs that have crucial effects on specific diseases. Snakes play key roles in both maintaining the balance of agricultural ecosystems and medical research.

People’s misunderstanding and prejudice toward snakes make snakes being hunted or killed for no good reasons. There are over 3000 species of snake around the world, among them about 600 are venomous, and only about 200 of them pose a significant risk to human life. In Taiwan, there are around 50 species of snake, about a dozen of them are endemic species of Taiwan and should be cherished at all cost. On this World Snake Day on July 16, you can try to understand more about this unfamiliar species through observing them in the zoo or searching for their interesting behaviors on the internet and so on and get charmed by them!

Note: The picture is a Maki's Keelback, taken from Snakes of Taiwan, photographed by Chong-Wei You