Patna: Indian snake charmers taking part in a week-long carnival in Patna are urging people to re-think their venomous attitudes towards deadly snakes including king cobras and pit vipers, insisting the reptiles are "great friends".

More than 300 men, women, and children belonging to the country's traditional snake charming "Karori" community sang and danced before large crowds, along with their pet pythons and cobras, for nominal fees.

"We even performed free on one of the days of the week-long carnival in return for an assurance from our audience that they would not kill snakes," said Kamal Raut, president of the Indian Karori Union.

He said that "blind fear" and pressure from India's billion-plus population had put several species of snake at risk of extinction due to excessive hunting.

"We and our snakes are a doomed lot. With the human population growing so rapidly the natural habitat for snakes is being usurped by men who are killing them out of sheer ignorance and out of blind fear," said Raut.

Raut added that India's 50,000-strong Karori community was worried about their future, as snake charming was a vanishing trade.

"We have asked the government to rehabilitate our children and give them an education. We want our children to avoid our gypsy lifestyle in chase of snakes," said Raut.

"We do not want our young people to waste their lives. People do not seem to love snakes any more or respect snake charmers," he added.

Despite Raut's gloom, hundreds of children from his community showed off their love of snakes at the Patna fair, which ends on August 30.

"He loves milk," said seven-year-old Birju Karori as he danced with a 1.8-metre Indian dhaman snake around his neck.

"Dhamans are not poisonous and they live in burrows in rice fields, but this king cobra is another story," Birju told the awestruck audience.

He said that the cobra's venom duct had been pierced with a hot needle to neutralise the poison.

Binda Karori, another 14-year-old lad said that he had named his pet snake "Lajwanti" (Bashful) as she is painfully shy.

"She is from Nepal and curls up into a ball when there are too many people staring at her," said the boy protectively.

Under the Wildlife Protection Act of India, it is illegal to injure, catch or own snakes, even for the country's traditional snake charmers.

India's wildlife protection laws forbid the killing of snakes and the trading of snake skins, for which there is a thriving black market in South Asia.