Rom Whitaker

Born in New York City, Rom migrated to Bombay with his mother Doris Norden and step-father Rama Chattopadhyaya in 1951, age seven. He was already fascinated by snakes and his first Bombay buddies were snake charmers.

Rom tried college in the USA but the lure of working for the legendary William Haast at the Miami Serpentarium, was much stronger. He spent the two years there, learning snake care and venom extraction from the master, skills that would be mighty handy back in India. It was too good to last and that was when the Vietnam War caught up with him. After his mandatory two years, he sailed straight back to India aboard a Greek freighter.

Returning to India in 1967, with the help of family and friends he set up the Madras Snake Park and then in 1975 the Madras Crocodile Bank, now India’s premier research centre for herpetology. He has two sons, Nikhil and Samir, both now wildlife professionals. Rom helped his tribal snake-catcher friends set up the Irula Snake-catchers Cooperative Society to milk snakes for venom to produce antivenom serum saving thousands of snakebite victims all over India.

Rom was then contracted by the UN to help set up a network of village crocodile farms across New Guinea. Subsequent years saw him travel to Bangladesh, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Borneo to survey the wilds for crocs. Knowing he could reach millions of people via TV Rom teamed up with old friends to make movies on snakes, snakebite, rainforests. With his wife Janaki he started producing and presenting films for Nat Geo including ‘King Cobra’ – which even won them an Emmy Award! In 1989

Rom set up a base in the Andaman Islands (ANET) and in 2005 he established the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station in India’s Western Ghats for which he received the Whitley Fund for Nature Award (UK) and the Rolex Award for Enterprise. Studying king cobras has become a driving force ostensibly to understand the snake’s conservation status but equally to indulge in what he likes doing the most – wandering in the forest. The insights he unravels about this icon of the rainforest are contributing to securing the animal’s habitat and its future.

Rom divides his time between king cobra research, gharial conservation and solving India’s snakebite problem, all of which keeps life pretty full. Rom lives on a farm with his wife Janaki Lenin, a writer, plus four dogs, an emu and a wild pig.