Staff at the 199 emergency hotline say they get a call for help with snakes every 15 minutes on average, with about 60,000 snake removals taking place each year.

Rescuers at the emergency hotline said on Saturday that some 200 calls are made daily in Bangkok requesting help with pests such as snakes, water monitors and wasps. Snakes make up about half of the calls, according to the operators.

“On average, a report is made every 15 minutes throughout every 24-hour period” said an operator.

The hotline reports a success rate of over 90% when capturing snakes, saying that the animals are turned over to the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation so that they may be released in appropriate natural settings.

Alongkorn Mahanop of the Zoological Park Organization says no official survey of the snake population has been conducted in Bangkok, so no definite statistics are available. However, he estimated that there are likely close to a thousand snakes in each district in the city.

“The high population of snakes in Bangkok is due to its citizens not consuming snakes, meaning the reptiles have no direct predators in the city while having an abundance of prey such as dogs, cats and chickens,” Dr Alongkorn said.