Tears for the crocodile
In 1970, a paper in
Indian Forester by a group of scientists of the Zoological Survey of India, led by its resident reptile specialist, S Biswas, rang alarm bells. The scientists had surveyed the Kosi river in Bihar - among the gharial's habitats in the country -- and found that the crocodiles were poached rampantly, killed for their skin or even trapped inadvertently in fishing nets. Shifting of the Kosi's course and artificial embankments also contributed to the decline in the reptile's population. Besides, monsoon waters kept flushing gharials down to uninhabitable places every year.
In 1974, another survey by Whitaker, confirmed all the worst years. That year the gharials numbered less than 200 in the wild. Exact figures aren't available, but conservationists estimate that in the 1940s, the Indian subcontintent had between 5,000 and 10,000 gharials. The sharp fall called for desparate measures.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species had come into effect by then. It recommended a ban on the killing of all crocodile species, and their translocation to protected areas (
pas).
The Indian government took up this recommendation in good earnest. The gharial was accorded protection under the Wildlife Protection Act (
wpa), 1972. Project Crocodile was started in 1975 with the aid of the United Nations Development Programme and
fao. Stretches of the Mahanadi, Ganga, Girwa and other rivers inhabited by gharials were declared
pas. The project included an intensive captive breeding and rearing programme (see box
Life in captivity) to create a large crocodile population that would be ultimately translocated to these
pas. An acute shortage of gharial eggs was overcome by their purchase from Nepal, each egg costing Rs 200. A male gharial was flown in from a zoo in Frankfurt, West Germany, to get the breeding programme going.
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 Life in captivity
Deory in Morena, Madhya Pradesh, is among the 16 gharial breeding/rehabilitation centres in the country. Here in March and April, eggs are collected in the same position as they are laid in the wild. This is necessary for foetuses may suffocate if put upside down. The eggs are fertilised at a temperature of 32C. The Centre rears gharials until they are 120 cm long—about three years old. They are released into the Chambal river in November when the threat of flooding is the least. The centre collects 200 eggs annually, and on average manages to release 100 young gharials. |
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Sixteen crocodile rehabilitation centres and five crocodile sanctuaries -- National Chambal Sanctuary (
ncs), Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary (
kws), Satkosia Gorge Wildlife Sanctuary, Son Gharial Sanctuary and Ken Gharial Sanctuary -- were established between 1975 and 1982.
Eight hundred and seventy-nine gharials, 190 estuarine crocodiles, and 493 muggers were released in the wild in that period. A Crocodile Breeding and Management Training Institute was set up in Madras in 1980 to train managers of crocodile stations. By 1991, 12,000 gharial eggs were collected from wild and captive breeding nests, and over 5,000 gharial reared to about a metre or more in length and released in the wild. Over 3,500 of these were released in
ncs, the biggest gharial reserve in the country sprawling across 425 km in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The programme was hailed the world over as a conservation model and that sealed the fate of the gharial.
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