According to a new study, every degree Celsius increase of temperatures corresponds to a six per cent increase in snake bits in Georgia, USA. Snakes are cold-blooded creatures, which naturally become more active during higher temperatures.
The findings are likely to be applicable worldwide, where 138,000 people die every year, with around five million people being bitten.
A paper describing the findings has been published in GeoHealth. Lead author of the study Noah Scovronicksays, “Venomous snake bites are classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a high-priority neglected tropical disease. We don’t know much about how weather – meaning short term changes in meteorology – drive human-snake interactions, partly because a lot of dangerous snake bites occur in places that lack good data on causes of morbidity and mortality.”
Georgia in the United States is a hotspot for diversity and density of snakes, with 17 venomous species, seven of which are considered to be sufficiently dangerous to be a medical concern. The researchers analysed 3,908 hospital visits caused by venemous snake bits between 2014 and 2020. A comparison to daily weather records revealed a statistically significant bump in the number of snake bits with a day on day temperature rise. While the highest number of snake bits were recorded in summer, the strongest association between elevated temperatures and snake bits was during spring.
The researchers believe that the snakes ‘wake up’ from the winters in spring, and are particularly active during the season. The snakes also bear young in the spring. Later on, in the peak of the summers, the temperatures can get hot enough to actually slow the snakes down. The researchers highlight the need to conduct similar studies in other places around the world, particularly in regions where venomous snake bites and associated deaths are common.
Source: News9 Live
