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A naturalist with a penchant for snakes, Dilan Peiris is helping to protect them through awareness programmes for villagers, students and hotel staff

One minute he’s walking beside us in the wilds of Habarana, showing us the scenic beauty all around, the next thing we know he’s picked something out of a nearby bush. And that little “something” is a green vine snake, better known as an Ahaetulla.

Once we get over the initial shock, we assume that he has put his ‘green pal’ back where he had found it, only to discover the next morning that it had in fact travelled with us all the way back to the hotel, snug in his pocket!

You may be a ‘dog person’, ‘cat person’, ‘bird person’ and even a ‘fish person’, but how often do many of us cross paths with (I shudder at the very thought…) a ‘Snake Man’?

Meet Dilan Peiris, a naturalist working for Nature Odyssey (a sister company of Walkers Tours of the John Keells Group), the man with a passion for reptiles, particularly snakes. As such, he is an integral part of Nature Odyssey’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes, conducting numerous workshops around the country to build awareness about snakes. The aim of these workshops is to replace people’s age-old fear of snakes with a better understanding, ensuring that killings are minimised.

The workshops are conducted for villagers, students, farmers and even hotel staff in areas where snakes are frequently found, such as Habarana, Yala, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Kirinda.

“It’s very important to conduct such programmes, particularly because of the 96 varieties of snakes found in Sri Lanka, 50 are endemic to Sri Lanka, and are faced with the serious threat of extinction, mainly due to excessive pesticide usage, villagers destroying their breeding habitats and killing them out of fear,” Dilan explains. “Therefore, it is paramount that people are better educated on snakes, and how they too have a right to exist just like any other living creature,” he says emphatically.

This, coming from a man who was bitten by a hump-nose viper (Kunakatuwa) just four months ago, and had to undergo a lot of discomfort and pain for about a week as a result, should give you an idea of how deep his passion for snakes is.

The programmes have proved quite successful. In many areas where killing snakes on the spot was usually the first and only option at their disposal, the villagers now don’t even kill one snake, he said proudly. Villagers can now identify poisonous snakes from non-poisonous snakes to a great extent, and are also educated on how best to move the snakes away or catch them, so that they can be set free in the jungle away from their homes.

Along with the preventive measures, they are also told how best to treat a snake bite prior to taking the victim to the nearest hospital, he added.

The Nature Odyssey team also treat wounded snakes they find while on the job, and then release them back into suitable environments in the wild. Villagers are also now handing over many snakes, which they’ve caught in their back gardens, to one of the team to set free in the jungle, he said.

Having entered the ‘natural’ field in 1992 while he was still in school, the environment and wildlife have always been very close to his heart, says Dilan. He remembers going to the Yala National Park with some friends from school in 1992, where he first met veteran tracker and the man who was to become his ‘guru’ on elephants, Ranjith Samaranayake.

Soon after (also while in school), the Young Zoologists’ Association (YZA) had held an exhibition at his alma mater, Wesley College, where they had also had a snake stall, he said. Dilan went on to join the association and having started off in the ‘Mammal Research Group’, later switched to the ‘Reptiles Group’, as his interest in reptiles grew.

He has done studies on crocodiles in Yala and Sri Lankan elephants, and also compiled a report on the reptiles within the Maimbul Kanda sanctuary, off Nittambuwa.

After leaving school, Dilan went to the ‘Crocodile Bank’ in Madras, India to follow a course on reptile study, where he learnt the basics on snake handling etc., and also acquired the nickname ‘Snake Man’, he adds laughing. He has studied Marine Biology in the Maldives and has a diploma in Wildlife Management and Conservation from the Open University of Sri Lanka.

And how comfortable is his wife with his constant dealings with snakes? No problem, he says, confidently as they met at the YZA, and she too is an ardent animal cum reptile lover, even though she had belonged to the ‘Bird Group’!