Snake Holidays This Month Nurture Understanding, Quell Fears

The San Francisco garter snake is listed as endangered due to habitat loss, poaching, and competition from invasive species.

This is the Year of the Snake, and today, July 16, is World Snake Day. July 29 brings another snake holiday, Nag Panchami. I'm going to tell you a little bit about both of them, but first let me tell you why I'm calling attention to these particular holidays.

As some of you already know, I make a calendar I call the Useful Calendar because it has all the major holidays, and additional information of a seasonal or topical nature. To give it a bit of thematic cohesion, I feature the animal of the year from the Chinese/Lunar zodiac on each month, along with some pithy tidbit of illumination about them.

I have to admit that as I considered my approach to creating the 2025 Useful Calendar, I was not thrilled that it was the Year of the Snake. I considered choosing a different theme, to stay as far away from snakes as I could. But my husband urged me to reconsider. Then I spotted a book at my local independent bookstore that I thought might help me change my attitude: Saving Snakes, by Nicolette L. Cagle. Subtitled "Snakes and the evolution of a field naturalist," it's a memoir, a collection of personal essays about her experiences with, and affection for snakes.

Reading Cagle's stories about snakes, especially the too-common acts of cruelty and destruction directed at the hapless reptiles by people acting out of fear and revulsion, I too came to feel, if not affection, at least sympathy for these humble fellow creatures.

Timber rattlesnakes are listed as threatened or endangered in 12 states and extinct in Canada. They are still wantonly slaughtered in many states during festive events called “rattlesnake roundups.”

Harnessing the power of story to counter fear and promote understanding is the idea behind World Snake Day (July 16). The international observance is a cooperative effort of multiple conservation groups, including US-based Save the Snakes, and Advocates for Snake Preservation (ASP). Although there is no central organization behind it, many zoos, natural history museums, and nature centers offer programming on the day or during the week.

Nag Panchami is a Hindu holiday of snake worship. The date floats on the common calendar, occurring this year on July 29. It has traditionally featured customs such as snake charming, which have been outlawed in India since 1972 because of animal cruelty and conservation concerns. Captured cobras are subjected to horrific procedures to render them harmless, and when people pour milk over the snake's head as an offering, the snake drinks it only because it is starving and dehydrated; it cannot digest milk and is sickened by it.

Although it appears (to this calendar maker) that in some parts of India, at least, people continue these harmful customs, the festival is evolving in many places to feature images and models of snakes instead of live snakes. In Nepal, a group of wildlife conservationists holds the Nepal Snake Festival on Nag Panchami to educate the public about snake conservation and safe coexistence.