Meet the snake-savers: How two men have spent decades rescuing reptiles in Hong Kong

Last summer Carmel Huber, director of Elephant Asia Rescue and Survival foundation, was walking home along a dark, branch-strewn path on Lamma Island, when she felt a sudden searing pain. "It was like a red hot poker had been jabbed into my ankle," she says. Her ankle began to swell, and an ugly bruise started to spread up her leg. The stick she stepped on turned out to be a baby cobra.

Watch: Meet Hong Kong's snake-savers

Encounters such as Huber's, while uncommon, happen more frequently than most people imagine. According to the Hospital Authority, public hospitals treated 67 snakebite cases in 2013, including three involving cobras.

The typical public reaction to statistics like these is fear, but they also point to a rare conservation success for Hong Kong. According to Dr Michael Lau, the city's leading snake expert, and senior programme head for biodiversity at the World Wildlife Fund in Hong Kong, the city is "very lucky" when it comes to these reptiles.

It is home to 57 indigenous snake species and two species believed to be introduced from elsewhere. With rare exceptions, land snake populations here are thriving.

Stories of encounters with snakes on hiking trails, or of the creatures slithering into people's homes on outlying islands, are commonly heard at parties.