Rom Whitaker founded India’s first snake park in Madras in 1972. The park received early support from the World Wildlife Fund and other international organizations for its pioneering research and work in conservation. In 1976, Rom co-founded the Madras Crocodile Bank, after realizing that three Indian species of crocodiles were on the verge of extinction. The Crocodile Bank is now home to 3,000 crocodiles of 15 different species, and is also the base of a major freshwater turtle project supported by the Turtle Survival Alliance (USA), and a gharial conservation project, supported by the Gharial Conservation Alliance.

Whitaker has published widely and made dozens of films. Most recently, he set up India’s first rainforest research station in Agumbe, for which he was rewarded the Whitley Fund for Nature award in 2005, and a Rolex Award for Enterprise in November 2008.

Q: How did you become interested in reptiles?

A: I spent my childhood in northern New York State and like many kids, bugs and other critters fascinated me. My first encounter with a snake was one that was battered to death by my little friends. I took it home in a jar and remember how horrified my sister and mother were that the poor little guy was smashed. The next time I found a snake I brought it home alive, and my mother helped me fix up an old aquarium as my first terrarium — I was hooked. Luckily there were no venomous snakes around Hoosick, NY so I amassed quite a collection of milk snakes, garters, ribbons and ring-necked snakes. My mother bought me The Boy’s Book of Snakes and later Snakes of the World by Raymond Ditmars, took me to the NY Natural History Museum and in general, fostered an interest that grew into an obsession and, of course, eventually my occupation.

Could you describe your creation of Madras Snake Park in India?

When I returned to India in 1967 after two years in the US Army, my goal was to set up a snake park like the one I worked at in Miami: the Miami Serpentarium run by the famous, most snake-bitten man in the world, Bill Haast. I started out by producing and selling snake venom, the idea being to build up capital for the project. I was sourcing snakes, particularly kraits, all over India and came to know of this fantastic tribe of snake catchers, the Irulas, living near Madras in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. After seeing their artistry I just wanted to work with them, learn from them, and involve them in my developing ideas.

I moved to Madras and rented a piece of land with an old house on it quite far from the city. My brother Neel, sister Nina, and my Irula friends helped me make the first snake enclosures, put up a board and get some newspaper publicity. Thus was born India’s first snake park. This was in 1970, and two years later the Tamil Nadu Forest Department gave me a 25-year lease of a piece of lovely scrub jungle right in the heart of the city. The new Madras Snake Park was an overnight success and soon we were getting a million visitors a year!

Is it true that you used to wear a sand boa coiled through your hair in those days?

Yes, I guess I was a pretty strange sight, a wild-haired hippy snake man with a three-foot-long sand boa tangled in my hair as I rode around on my motorcycle; it was all good for publicity though, and there were a lot of good spin-offs, including early support from the World Wildlife Fund and a couple of local and international awards and recognition for pioneering work in the subject.

Could you describe your creation of the Madras Crocodile Bank and the work it does now?

In the early days of the Snake Park we collected a few crocodiles and, lo and behold, they started breeding in the small enclosures we had for them. By then we were doing herpetology surveys in different parts of the country and it became obvious that the three Indian species of crocs were going extinct. I was then married to Zai Whitaker, the daughter of one of India’s best-known conservationists Zafar Futehally, and together we started the Madras Crocodile Bank in 1976. Located on the main tourist route outside of Madras (now Chennai), it got a lot of publicity and visitors from the start. We had 14 mugger crocodiles, five saltwater crocodiles and two gharials, plus an American alligator at the start. Now, 30 years later we have 3,000 crocodiles of 15 different species. This was the only private crocodile-breeding center in the country, and the largest.

What was it like to swim in the cave, searching for the olm?

Swimming in that water, a mile beneath the earth’s surface was a bit unnerving, but I was more worried about freezing to death. I may have Viking genes, but I’m totally tropicalized and stripping down to put that wet suit on and slipping into that frigid water was not my idea of fun. The only thing that made it worth it was finding those olms. It didn’t take long to spot one, but the water kept getting murky from my clumsy movements so it took a very long time to finally bring one up in the hand net, and each minute I thought I would freeze to death. Just for fun we turned off all the lights for a while down there and that was a strange, unbalancing experience; we could just imagine how it might be to be early cave explorers with unreliable lights that might fail!

You have survived several venomous snakebites. How?

First, I’d like to make it very clear that getting bitten by a venomous snake is dumb, clumsy and nothing to be proud of. Each of my bites has been because I did something stupid, like the first, a water moccasin that I was pinning on a log in the Everglades; the log went under as I was reaching for the snake’s neck and it turned at the last moment and nailed me nicely. This one and the subsequent two rattlesnake bites out in Texas (during my US Army days) were painful and in the case of one, debilitating: my right forefinger is permanently stiffened and numb.

How did you discover you were allergic to modern antivenom?

When I received antivenom for my second bite I reacted very badly with itchy hives all over my body and spent a very uncomfortable two days recovering just from the treatment. If I get bitten now I can’t take the antivenom without a ‘cover’ of antihistamines. In 2006, on a film shoot involving crocodiles, I stupidly tried to help a snake get across a road full of traffic and in the melee got nailed on my thumb. Well, I had to chase the snake to figure out what it was and it turned out to be a black whip snake, venomous but not fatally so. A big swollen hand resulted, which is very embarrassing when you’re supposed to be catching crocs and presenting a film. I had to keep my hand hidden for a few days till the swelling subsided.

Had you been whipped by a water monitor tail before?

I’ve had lots of encounters with water monitors and lots of whips, that’s just par for the course when you work with these critters. You do have to be careful not to get whipped in the face; I reckon it could put an eye out if you’re unlucky.

Were you surprised when the Komodo dragon started chasing you?

I really had no idea that Komodos would actually chase a human, but then again, why not; we must be as tasty as a deer. This was truly a surprise, and I’m glad the local guides insisted that we carry a forked stick with us and that we shouldn’t walk around alone on the island.

Did you have a favorite or unexpected moment while shooting The Dragon Chronicles?

I think the most unexpected moment was being chased by the Komodo dragon. The other startling revelation was the dragon’s immense power and stamina. I’m used to crocodiles: they’re very powerful but they run out of steam very quickly when you are capturing and handling them. The dragon we caught for our saliva tests just didn’t tire and his recovery time after we released him was just seconds!

What was the most exciting location for you and why?

Each location had its excitement and uniqueness. Certainly the Komodo dragon experiences were the most action-packed, but being down in those beautiful caves of Slovenia, slopping through the mangroves of Sri Lanka, getting within touching distance of wild Nile crocodiles in Ethiopia, climbing the Indian rain forest canopy looking for flying lizards, and watching the marvelous spitting cobra do its thing—I loved all of it!

Describe some of the more difficult or frustrating moments of shooting.

Typically, the most frustrating times were waiting for permissions from local authorities to allow us to get on with our work. But by and large both people and creatures were remarkably cooperative on this entire film shoot.

What are some of your favorite moments of handling snakes and crocodiles throughout your career?

I could be described as a very lucky puppy, having spent much of my life in this beautiful and sometimes surreal country of India, almost three years on the island of New Guinea, months in the depths of Borneo, Mozambique, Costa Rica, the American southeast and southwest, and always in pursuit of fantastic reptiles.

One of the most decisive moments in my life was finding my first king cobra at Agumbe, where we’ve just set up India’s first rainforest research station. I’ll never forget the feeling of facing that magnificent 12-foot-long snake all by my lonesome and the somewhat crazy maneuvers that it took to get it into a bag. Similarly, there are hundreds of fond and exciting memories of hunting rattlers in the hills of Arizona, moccasins in the Florida swamps, and saw-scaled vipers in the Rajasthan desert. I’m 65 years old and instincts (and some well-meaning friends) say I should slow down and maybe take it a little easier, but how can I?

What can humans learn from the “dragons” featured in the film?

Years ago it was pretty hard to get people to empathize even a little bit with scaly, cold-blooded critters; now, thanks a lot to good PR from television, it is easier to get the message of reptile conservation and tolerance across. We have a lot to be thankful to reptiles for, not the least of which is their control of rodents.

But besides their utility on the planet, our remaining dragons are needed to excite our senses, to fill every generation with renewed wonder, and to keep us alert for that predator lurking just around the corner!

Photo © saravanakumar/Icon Films Ltd.

In Supersize Crocs, Rom takes viewers along as he sets off on his own hunt to find the last of the leviathans. Venturing to Ethiopia’s Lake Chamo, the riverbanks of India’s northern border with Nepal, and to the Adelaide River of Australian outback, Rom hits the hotspots of supersize croc habitats as he searches for signs of life among the brackish waters. Rom will share with viewers his insight and fascination with the cryptic world of crocs. Along the way, viewers will learn about ancient croc survival skills as well as how crocs are ideally designed to be the most successful freshwater predator.

Will he find his supersize croc among the three titans of the croc world: the Nile crocodiles, saltwater crocodiles and gharials? Tune in to find out.

To order a copy of Supersize Crocs, please visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Supersize Crocs was originally posted February 2007.

Beautiful, elegant, and intelligent, parrots have long been coveted and caged by humans. With over 340 species living in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Oceana tropic zones, our world should be brimming with parrots. But today, parrots are one of the most threatened families of birds. Nearly a third of parrots worldwide are threatened — a statistic three times greater than the threat to all bird species.

Several factors are responsible for such grim statistics about these colorful birds. Poaching for the pet trade may be the biggest. The stress and damage from the capture, transit, and quarantine of parrots take a serious toll on the fragile birds. It is estimated that for every parrot in a pet store, three have died in transit. Ever since the Wild Bird Conservation Act made it illegal to commercially import parrots into the United States from countries without conservation strategies, most pet shop parrots are captive-bred. However international trade in wild-caught parrots remains a concern. It is estimated that 88 percent of parrots, parakeets, and lovebirds imported into Britain between 1995 and 2000 were caught in the wild.

Destruction of their natural habitats due to clearing of tropical rainforest and to agricultural development has also taken its toll. To make matters worse, as seen in “Parrots in the Land of Oz,” parrots are grain eaters and so are treated as pests by farmers.

The biggest parrot victims appear to be the larger, more colorful parrots like macaws and cockatoos. Not only are they more sought after but they have smaller broods; hence, it takes them longer recover and repopulate. The largest flying parrot, and possibly the noisiest, the macaw has paid a price for its willingness to be tamed and trained as a human pet. Over half of all macaw species are on the endangered list. The Spix’s macaw, a delicate, pale blue bird, was considered one of the world’s most endangered species. For ten years, only one lone male was known to exist in the wild in a small arid region of savanna scrubland in northeastern Brazil known as the “caatinga.” Then, in 2000, this last wild bird disappeared. There is currently an international captive breeding program for the bird, and the hope is to re-introduce the macaw to the wild — eventually.

One species of macaw that scientists hope to save before it suffers a fate similar to Spix’s macaw is the red, yellow and blue-plumed scarlet macaw. With only 300 macaws left in Guatemala’s nature reserve, the primary-colored creatures are in danger of being wiped out in that country. At fault are poachers, drug traffickers and land invaders, who slash and burn the bird’s jungle habitat. Thousands of acres of forest are cut down to make way for settlers and clandestine airstrips for drug traffickers moving cocaine from Colombia up into the United States. To keep an eye on their numbers, researchers recently fit two scarlets with satellite collars to track them in northern Guatemala and southern Mexico. With hope, the watchful eye of science will help protect these beautiful birds from further danger.

While over one million may have roamed at the time of Columbus’ arrival, today less than forty Puerto Rican Parrots remain in the wild. Their decimation has been so relentless that the gregarious Puerto Rican Amazon, or the Puerto Rican Parrot, is one of the ten most endangered species of birds in the world. Habitat destruction throughout the 19th and 20th centuries drastically reduced the bird’s numbers. As early as 1968, conservation efforts began to protect this species with the goal of saving it from extinction. A recovery program sought to establish a wild population and hopefully down-list the species from endangered to threatened.

A diminutive, yet plump parrot with a small, fragmented range in New South Wales and Queensland, the Coxen’s fig parrot has virtually vanished from the wild. Sadly, recent surveys have come up with only a few fleeting sightings, and no active nests have been discovered. The Australian native’s original habitat included lowland coastal rainforests, but these have mostly been cleared.

If humanity is to reverse the trend and save these magnificent creatures from extinction, it is essential that we immediately begin to conserve the habitats of threatened parrots and to be aware of politics of the pet parrot trade. As smart as parrots are, only humans can stop the devastation that some of the most vulnerable species have experienced at our hands.

Four years before the bald eagle was listed as an endangered species in 1967 there were fewer than 500 breeding pairs in the lower forty-eight.

Click around the following maps to find out how many bald eagle breeding pairs there were in each of the lower forty-eight states from 1990 to 2000.

Like Africa’s other large carnivore species, populations of the lion, Panthera leo, have decreased significantly over the past half century, and precipitously over just the past ten years, from around 100,000 in the early 1990s to fewer than 30,000 today.

This decline is caused by a combination of habitat fragmentation, loss of prey, and deadly conflict with human settlers. It represents not just the potential loss of a single important and unique species, but could also have devastating effects throughout African ecosystems.

Ecologists once believed that ecosystems were largely influenced from the bottom up, with the numbers of prey species affecting the predators above them in the food chain. Over the past few decades, however, scientists have come to recognize that predators can also be the drivers of the system. A single predator can control factors such as the abundance, distribution, species diversity, and even the body shape of its prey — and, through a trickle-down effect — of all of the other species in the system. This effect was seen in Yellowstone National Park, when gray wolves, a “keystone” predator species, were eliminated from the park and the western United States in the early part of the 19th century. The lack of wolves caused population changes in prey species, like elk and beavers, and altered vegetation patterns, such as in the aspen trees and willows that grow along stream beds. With their recent return, the ecosystem quickly began to return to its former state. (See NATURE’s In the Valley of the Wolves.)

In a similar way, the loss of a top predator such as the lion can cause ecological changes. And without them, scientists lose any chance of understanding how all of the species in the ecosystem might normally interact.

Beyond its ecological significance, the lion is an important symbol in traditional African cultures, and is a key species in the growing eco-tourism industry, particularly in the northern Namib Desert, home to the animals featured in NATURE’s The Desert Lions. There is a delicate balance here — lions often prey on domestic livestock. Dr. Stander is working with local communities to prevent conflict between the lions and their human neighbors. If these communities can benefit financially from the lions, through eco-tourism activities such as “lion-photographic safaris,” they will have an economic incentive to tolerate the occasional loss of their livestock, and to help conserve the lions.

The olm, a troglobite

To see life on another planet, most would suggest a radio telescope or a NASA explorer vehicle. Yet immediately below the earth’s surface there exists an otherworldly ecosystem populated by creatures that never see the light of day. These animals are the troglobites — crustaceans, amphibians, insects and more — built to survive in the dark, limestone labyrinths that form most of the world’s cave systems.

A pseudoscorpion that doesn’t have a stinging tail and instead injects venom with its claws. A Nelson cave spider with claws on two of its super-long legs that measure just shy of six inches. A whitish, almost transparent cave crayfish that can live over 150 years. These are just some of the troglobites, many of which possess similar evolutionary adaptations: blindness, long limbs and spiky feet to better navigate rocky terrain, and lack of pigmentation as there is no need for camouflage in the dark.

Of all the troglobites, it is perhaps the proteus anguinus, or the olm, that is the star. In Slovenia, a tourism industry exists for those who desire a glimpse of the ghostly salamander that’s beguiled humans for hundreds of years. The first written account of the olm dates back to 1689, in which scholar Janez Vajkard Valvasor disputed the belief that olms were baby dragons. Found in the Dinaric Karst of Europe, it’s easy to see why olms could be fodder for myth. They are blind, yet have barely visible, regressed eyes covered by skin. Their serpentine body can grow over a foot in length, and is covered by whitish, translucent skin that’s artfully highlighted by two frilly pink gills at the back of its head. And, unlike other amphibians that metamorphose into an adult form, the olm retains its larval features, a phenomenon known as neotony. Olms spend their whole lives in water, and so there is no need for them to develop terrestrial characteristics.

In keeping with this fairytale-like appearance, olms are said to be able to live up to 100 years and can go without eating for several. Yes, several years. They, like many troglobites, have exceptionally slow metabolism in large part because of the dearth, or erratic availability, of food. Like other troglobites, the olm compensates for lack of vision by using other, specialized senses. Olms’ ears are capable of receiving sound waves in water and vibrations from the ground, their sense of smell is keener than that of most amphibians, and they possess sensors in their heads called “ampullary organs” that enable them to detect weak electric fields.

Despite such specialized capabilities, troglobites are critically connected to what’s going on above earth’s surface. For a nutritious banquet, some troglobites feast on piles of bat guano found on cave grounds. Tree roots that grow through cracks in a cave’s ceiling and leaves that flow in with water can also provide nutrition. But this water can also bring destruction. Human waste — such as sewer leaks, runoffs, and pesticides — can flow into caves disrupting an ecosystem so sensitive it is said that even human dandruff can upset its balance.

Excavations and the building of roads can also threaten cave life directly. It’s important to note that most of the world’s caves have yet to be fully explored or discovered. The limestone labyrinths beneath us are indeed the earth’s last frontier. It’s a fascinating notion –- some of us may be living above an ecosystem populated by strange species, some millions of years old, and not even know it. In 2007, environmental protection officials in Australia halted a multi-billion dollar iron ore mining proposal when 11 species of troglobite were discovered in the area to be mined. Unfortunately, the ruling was overruled several months later. The battle between moneyed interests and our wildlife continues, unfortunately with greater frequency and scope.

Troglobites are at great risk. This includes the beloved olm which is presently listed by the IUCN as threatened, a circumstance that should be taken very seriously, not only because we should be stewards of our planet (above its surface and below) or because the olm is a fascinating, wonderful species, but also because it is the olm’s very sensitivity to such things as pollution that portends what affects humans as well.

Photo © WNET.ORG/Icon Films