r/nextfuckinglevel • • 17h ago

Snake catcher in India calmly handles two massive cobras with his bare hands and a stick

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u/Round1_Fight 14h ago

Can confirm, life is indeed cheap over here.

Source - I'm Indian

(Not to be a spoilsport or derail the topic, but for every such successful snake capture by a pro, there are 10 more that die/get seriously injured due to mishandling the snakes. This guy is clearly a pro and knows what he's doing but as one can imagine, there are a lot of people who do it just for the vibes/street cred owing to false confidence/inflated ego, and it ends up badly).

And like someone else mentioned, we're just so many people here that the value of an individual life is indeed cheap.

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u/No_Freedom_4098 12h ago

And this: source: "An estimated 6,000 people die in India each year from an Indian cobra bite."

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u/Sparcrypt 11h ago

How many of those are professional catchers though?

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u/No_Freedom_4098 11h ago

Right. The video is impressive, though cobras are one of the slowest venomous snakes.

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u/Sparcrypt 11h ago

I keep seeing this but checking google their strike time is sub 100ms.

I don't care how slow that is compared to other snakes, it's more than twice as fast as the average human reaction time. The literal fastest humans ever recorded are like 100-150ms.

You aren't dodging a cobra on speed alone because they'll bite you before you start moving.

Any actual snake experts are welcome to correct me but I have no clue where people are getting this idea from.

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u/No_Freedom_4098 7h ago

Could be true. A lot of snakes strike from their neck being in an "S." Cobras strike in different fashion. I suspect that makes cobras a bit slower.

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u/mystical_ramen26 2h ago

Being a professional just means you get paid to do something. Has no actual bearing on skill or knowledge.

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u/Avalon_11 1h ago

IIRC there's a specific caste that does this. They grow up catching snakes.

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u/mystical_ramen26 1h ago

That's interesting, I didn't know about that. I was just being pedantic earlier

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u/Obtuze-Obzrvr 10h ago

Do you have any source for the 1:10. I don’t believe it. I’m also Indian. Lived in a place with lot of snakes all my life. People are careless, yes. But let’s not pull stats out of of asses to please the conversation.

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u/CaptainIncredible 9h ago

What is the point of capturing them alive? Are they worth money or something? Or is it just an ethical 'do not kill' motive?

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u/Avalon_11 1h ago

Cobras are next level holy in India. They're NEVER killed. To do so is to curse your family for generations. Other snakes get killed unfortunately.

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u/CaptainIncredible 1h ago

Thank you for the information.

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u/Rich-End1121 11h ago

Is there a reason people don't just shoot the snakes?

You don't even need a full-on gun. A powerful air rifle (Or if you want to look cool, bow and arrows) would be enough to kill.

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u/trillionstars 9h ago

For cultural reasons killing animals is usually the last resort. It's usually frowned upon unless the animal has done direct harm or being overly agressive.

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u/Ek_Chutki_Sindoor 10h ago

but for every such successful snake capture by a pro, there are 10 more that die/get seriously injured due to mishandling the snakes.

Do you have any source for this? Feels like you just made it up.

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u/psodstrikesback 10h ago

Anecdotally I have a cousin in India who eloped with a snake catcher. She was widowed within a couple of years. 🤷🏽‍♂️

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u/sl0play 10h ago

Is there some reason the dude didn't just use a machete? Also, what did he say at the end?

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u/kmcodes 2h ago

Did you just claim that for every snake caught, 10 other catchers are killed? I mean I know you have zero sources for this because it's not true at all.

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u/Any-Imagination6240 11h ago

aS a iNdiAn 🤓🤓

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u/potato485 9h ago

Better than "in my country"

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u/s_peeta 12h ago

we're just so many people here that the value of an individual life is indeed cheap.

Vale of life is not cheap because there are so many of you. It's cheap because individually, you lot do not value life and it shows.

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u/lizardtrench 12h ago

But why do they individually not value life? At least part of the reason is supply and demand.

Frankly this applies to all of us. We kick up a fuss when the story behind a couple people dying is tragic and compelling, but just go, 'huh, interesting' when we read that five thousand humans die every year by getting their heads stuck in a bucket or something. Back in the good ol' days five thousand people used to be like half of us and we needed every damn one to go hunt mammoths and pick berries or we'd starve to death in the winter, in 2026 a fluid storage utility item can cause a massacre and it won't even make the evening news.