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http://twitter.com/goanet --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Samir Umarye BICHOLIM, FEB 16: Amrut Shabilal Singh, who has caught and tamed 14 deadly king cobras with ease, found himself bitten by a venomous Russell viper when he was on a call to rescue the reptile at Matme-Dodamarg bordering Goa on Saturday morning. Amrut, a die-hard wildlife campaigner and founder of the Animal Rescue Squad in Bicholim, who spoke to this reporter on phone from his hospital bed in the evening today, said he was out of danger and there was nothing to worry. “I was bitten on the right thumb while rescuing the snake. But even after that I managed to rescue it,” he stated. The founder of ARS said after the snake bit him he tied a crap bandage and rode 13 kilometres upto the Primary Health Centre in Bicholim. He was later admitted in the Intensive Care Unit at the Goa Medical College and Hospital in Bambolim. In 2007, Amrut was bitten by a common cobra after which his condition had turned serious and he had to be admitted at the GMC for four days and later to the Manipal Hospital in Dona Paula. Amrut, who runs ARS without any government help, has trained around 75 volunteers in snake catching. Presently, we are training 35 more, he said and added, “I have personally rescued 14 cobras and two by ARS volunteers so that makes 16 in all.” Snakes apart, the nature lover’s interests expand to all forms of wildlife and he has rescued a leopard, wild boars, bison, a rare pangolin, etc. Amrut has been instrumental in nabbing a gang selling tiger skin in 2009 and helped to seize around 700 monitor lizards used in making local drums in 2001.