[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-sankar-ananthanarayanan-herpetological-society-singapore\/#NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-sankar-ananthanarayanan-herpetological-society-singapore\/","headline":"In Conversation With: A Sankar, Founder of Herpetological Society Singapore","name":"In Conversation With: A Sankar, Founder of Herpetological Society Singapore","description":"From The Jungle Book\u2019s Kaa to Harry Potter\u2019s Nagini, snakes have not enjoyed the best image in human literature and media. But Sankar Ananthanarayanan is seeking to repeal their undeserved bad name in Singapore \u2014 which, in fact, is home to an incredible diversity of reptiles and amphibians.\u00a0 \u201cHerpetology is the study of reptiles and […]","datePublished":"2022-03-31","dateModified":"2022-04-15","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/rachel-teng\/#Person","name":"Rachel Teng","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/rachel-teng\/","identifier":367,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rachel_Teng-100x100.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rachel_Teng-100x100.jpg","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TheHomeGround Asia","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","width":640,"height":640}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/20220225_InConversationWithSankar_1920x1080_Clean.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/20220225_InConversationWithSankar_1920x1080_Clean.jpg","height":900,"width":1600},"url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-sankar-ananthanarayanan-herpetological-society-singapore\/","about":["Community","Environment","Features","In Conversation With","Local","Singapore"],"wordCount":1437,"keywords":["amphibians","herpetofauna","herpetological society singapore","herpetology","herpetophobia","in conversation with","kinetic sg","reptiles","Sankar Ananthanarayanan","science communication","Singapore","snakes"],"articleBody":"From The Jungle Book\u2019s Kaa to Harry Potter\u2019s Nagini, snakes have not enjoyed the best image in human literature and media. But Sankar Ananthanarayanan is seeking to repeal their undeserved bad name in Singapore \u2014 which, in fact, is home to an incredible diversity of reptiles and amphibians.\u00a0\u201cHerpetology is the study of reptiles and amphibians,\u201d says Mr Sankar, whose passion for herpetology began during his National Service (NS) days.\u00a0Shortly after, he and a few friends founded the volunteer-run society, which is dedicated to the conservation of these creatures, the education of the public, and the research of reptiles and amphibians \u2014 \u201ca very misunderstood group of animals\u201d, he says.\u201cGenerally, people tend to think that they are scary and unnecessary in our daily lives, but actually, it\u2019s a very good thing that we have so many of them here in Singapore because they are a form of biological pest control \u2014 something we hope more people in Singapore can appreciate,\u201d adds Mr Sankar, who is now a full-time teaching assistant at the National University of Singapore\u2019s College of Humanities and Sciences.\u00a0Being a tropical island, Singapore is a biodiversity hotspot \u2014\u00a0something that few Singaporeans are even aware of.\u00a0\u201cPasir Ris park is a place that is very important to me because that\u2019s where I fell in love with reptiles and amphibians,\u201d says Mr Sankar. \u201cThis kind of quiet beauty is something that people don\u2019t really pay attention to, because it exists underneath the boardwalk inside the mud. But when you slow down and look at it, like what Kinetic was able to do, there are some really beautiful moments [to capture] there.\u201d\u00a0Join TheHomeGround Asia on a stroll down Old Upper Thomson Road with our local reptile hobbyist and find out more about where our fear of these creatures stems from, the human-wildlife conflict that arises because of it, and what we can do to ease these conflicts.\u00a0TheHomeGround Asia (THG): How did you start getting into \u201cherping\u201d?\u00a0Sankar Ananthanarayanan (SA): I first started herping when I was about 20 years old, when I was serving my National Service (NS). At that time, I was very bored and had a lot of free time, so I signed up for this project that a friend\u2019s friend was working on \u2014 he was studying the mud snakes of Pasir Ris Park. They actually brought me here, to Old Upper Thomson Road where we walked along looking for snakes. This was in 2014. It was a very fun experience and that\u2019s how I got hooked.\u00a0THG: What is your favourite reptile or amphibian, and why?\u00a0SA:\u00a0 My favourite reptile in Singapore is probably the reticulated python. This is the longest species of snake in the entire world, and I studied it for my final year project when I was at the National University of Singapore (NUS).Reticulated python. Photo courtesy of Sankar Ananthanarayanan.The cool thing about them is that they are found all over Singapore, even in urban places. So, they actually are a form of biological pest control, helping to get rid of disease-spreading rats in our urban spaces.\u00a0But when people encounter them, they scream or run, usually a result of this culture of fear.\u00a0THG: Where do you think this culture of fear comes from?\u00a0SA: I guess the fear of snakes is a well-established fear in humanity. So, to overcome that is very hard, especially when there\u2019s no education around it growing up. We do intrinsically have some wariness of things we think can hurt us. But I also think a lot of this fear is learnt from our parents, our friends, the people around us, the community that we grow up in.\u00a0There are entire communities that have a relationship with snakes that differ from our relationship with them. A good example would be the Irulas in Tamil Nadu. I think they are a group of people who are very closely linked to snakes. In fact, they were very heavily engaged when a herpetological community in South India was being built. So not all communities are afraid of these animals. But we are afraid of them because we aren\u2019t exposed to them.\u00a0When we do outreach and we bring families to see, for example, a giant monitor lizard, the kids are never the ones afraid of these animals. It\u2019s always the parents who are holding their kids back. That\u2019s smart, I guess, but at the same time, you can also see where we get our apprehension of these animals from. It comes from the communities that we grew up in.\u00a0THG: Is there a reason to actually fear snakes? Are they actually dangerous to humans?\u00a0SA: I think any wild animal can be dangerous, just like any person could be dangerous if they are put under the right \u2014 or should I say, wrong \u2014 situations. But a snake doesn\u2019t want to hurt you. There\u2019s no species of snake that actively wants to hunt humans. They are just trying to live their lives.\u00a0It\u2019s usually because they are being persecuted in some way \u2014\u00a0 chased, or they are forced into a corner, that they feel the need to defend themselves. That\u2019s when you have cases of human-wildlife conflict.\u00a0THG: Human-wildlife conflicts seem to be an increasingly frequent problem in Singapore. Is there a reason for this?\u00a0SA: Singapore was not built with biodiversity in mind. It has historically been very wildlife-unfriendly by design. And you can see that because there are many cases of people and animals alike being negatively affected by urban planning.For example, we have a road that is in between two forest patches and this is not something that the animals are prepared for, and as a result, we see a lot of roadkills. Sometimes, it\u2019s not very easy to quantify that impact, especially for reptiles and amphibians. Many of them get run down by cars, but we don\u2019t really know how often that happens.\u00a0People don\u2019t report when a snake or frog gets run over, because people don\u2019t really care for these animals as much as they do a monkey or a wild boar. Those mammals are big and furry, and we feel a sense of connection to them because we are also mammals. It would be almost like seeing a person lying on the road. We don\u2019t have that same sense of kinship with reptiles and amphibians. So, very often, if the roadkill is a reptile or amphibian, it is completely underreported and we have no idea what impact these kinds of developments could have on them.\u00a0THG: What, then, can the public do to help?\u00a0SA: The HSS is actually running a citizen science project where we invite members of the public to submit records of reptile and amphibian roadkill. If you see a dead snake on the road that has been run over by a car, you can just take a photo, grab your GPS location and submit it to a publicly available link that we have.It also helps to know what species are especially prone to this. Some species may like to busk on the road because the concrete is warm. What reptiles are more prone to this? We don’t know. What spaces are these more likely to happen in? We don’t really know either. In order to answer those questions, we need people to submit data.\u00a0THG: Finally, what message would you like to leave our readers \u2014 particularly budding herpetologists out there?\u00a0SA: I definitely didn\u2019t know a lot when I first started out, and I definitely still have a lot more to learn. And I think this is true, pretty much of the whole of our society \u2014 we are all on various parts of our learning journeys. So it\u2019s very nice to see that everyone is passionate about sharing with one another and the wider public about these really interesting animals.\u00a0Ultimately, you are in charge of your own learning journey, so you can take efforts to actually make your own knowledge of biodiversity better. You can go for walks, or join us for a free guided walk if slots are available \u2014 they fill up very quickly!\u00a0In fact, once you have gained this knowledge, you are in a unique position of educating other people around you, and that’s a very valuable gift to give.\u00a0Click here to report roadkill of amphibians and reptiles in Singapore.\u00a0Join the conversations on TheHomeGround Asia’s Facebook and Instagram, and get the latest updates via Telegram."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Destinations","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/\/singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"In Conversation With: A Sankar, Founder of Herpetological Society Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-sankar-ananthanarayanan-herpetological-society-singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]