IWN Report — Tuesday, 17 June 2026
Every monsoon, a quiet industry stirs across the Western Ghats. Photographers from across India make their way to Agumbe, Kodagu, Chikkamagaluru, Ankola and a dozen other forest towns in Karnataka and Kerala, guided by self-proclaimed handlers who know where the Malabar pit vipers congregate, where the hump-nosed pit vipers shelter under rocks, and which logs are most likely to hide a bamboo pit viper at night. The price of access ranges from ₹500 for a short walk to ₹28,000 per person for a two-day guided expedition with accommodation. What it can cost the animals is harder to put a number on.
Herping — the observation and documentation of reptiles and amphibians in their natural habitats — began as a research practice. In India’s Western Ghats, one of the world’s most biodiverse regions for herpetofauna, it has become a tourism business, and the line between enthusiast and exploiter has become increasingly difficult to draw.
A Schedule I arrest
The concern is not hypothetical. The Forest Mobile Squad of Kodagu arrested two persons from Maharashtra for illegally capturing a King Cobra — a Schedule I species under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 — and attempting to traffic it to Maharashtra. According to forest officials, the animal was being moved for stage photography: to be placed in a controlled setting and photographed.
The King Cobra, India’s longest venomous snake and a species of significant conservation concern, cannot legally be captured, handled, transported or possessed without explicit government authorisation. Taking one from a protected area for any purpose — including photography — is a criminal offence punishable under the WPA. The Kodagu arrest was unusual in that it resulted in a prosecution. Most incidents don’t.
When the photograph replaces the animal
In December 2025, a peer-reviewed study published in Herpetology Notes by researchers from ZSL documented something more difficult to prosecute: the complete disappearance of seven galaxy frogs (Melanobatrachus indicus) from a research site in the Western Ghats in Kerala, attributed directly to photography tourism. Photographers visiting the site had overturned logs, trampled the forest floor vegetation, and handled animals improperly. The seven frogs that had been present at the research site were gone.
The galaxy frog — named for the pale blue speckles and bright orange patterning that make it one of India’s most visually striking amphibians — is the only member of its genus on the evolutionary tree of life. The study called for restricting animal capture and handling, limiting high-intensity lights, training licensed guides in ethical practice, and imposing penalties for violations.
The galaxy frog is not a snake. But it shares its habitat with the same pit vipers and tree snakes that draw herping tourists to the same forests, and the mechanisms of harm are identical: nocturnal animals disturbed during critical periods, microhabitats destroyed for access, species handled for positioning in front of a lens.
India’s snakes and the law
India’s snake fauna is extraordinary by any measure — over 300 documented species, with endemism rates particularly high in the Western Ghats and the Northeast. Of the species most frequently associated with herping tourism, the King Cobra and the Indian Rock Python hold Schedule I status under the Wildlife Protection Act — the highest level of legal protection, equivalent to that afforded to tigers and elephants. Handling, capturing, or disturbing them requires explicit authorisation that recreational photographers and commercial herping guides do not hold.
A Mysuru-based herpetologist told Deccan Herald: “There is a growing craze among wildlife photographers to capture rare species of animals. Herp walks, initially meant for research, have now turned into businesses that exploit this craze.” Forest officials in Karnataka have acknowledged the proliferation of illegal herping tourism but noted the difficulty of enforcement across vast, remote forest terrain where night-time expeditions are common.
The photograph and the animal
There is a version of reptile photography that causes no harm: patient, distance-respectful observation, no handling, no flash in close proximity, no log-overturning. Researchers and conservation photographers have documented India’s herpetofauna responsibly for decades, producing records that inform species assessments and distribution maps.
The issue is not photography. It is what demand for a particular kind of photograph — close, dramatic, positioned — does when it meets an industry willing to supply that access without asking what it costs the animal.
The Malabar pit viper, unfurled on a leaf in the rain, is among the most photographed snakes in India. It is also a slow-moving, sedentary species that relies on stillness and camouflage for survival. Every time it is picked up, repositioned, and subjected to flash photography, it is spending energy it cannot easily replace in the middle of its most metabolically demanding season. Multiplied across hundreds of expeditions a season, across dozens of locations, over years — the arithmetic is not difficult.
Sources: Deccan Herald · Mongabay India · Conservation Magazine · The Hans India · Udayavani