NEW IND PRESS (Chennai, India) 25 September 06 Two gharials killed in fighting
Bhubaneswar: Two gharials of the Nandankanan Zoo were killed after a fierce infighting in their pen on Saturday.
Both of them were adult males. While one crocodile died on Saturday itself, the second one had crawled back to the pool and was found dead this morning, Zoo sources said.
The premier zoo, which had undertaken gharial research and captive breeding in the 1980s now faces a peculiar situation as the number of the fresh-water crocodiles has shown a steep rise over the past years and accommodating them has emerged as a big a problem.
There are 56 gharials in Nandankanan 36 of which are adults, while the rest are sub-adults. The male female ratio is generally 1:3. While about 40 are in the pool, the rest are in the reptile parks of the Zoo.
“In the breeding season, the gharials indulge in infighting. Saturday was no different. It was fierce and hence difficult to contain them,” Director, Ajit Kumar Patnaik told this paper.
The two gharials were apparently fatally injured because of the infighting.
Of late, the Zoo authorities have been planning to shift a sizeable chunk of the gharials to a better habitat as their management is becoming a headache.
A proposal to this effect has been submitted to Chief Wildlife Warden Suresh Chandra Mohanty.
Patnaik said the Zoo plans to release 30 of the gharials at Satkosia which is a major natural habitat for them.
“However, the plan has not been put into action because of the floods. If crocodiles are released at Satkosia during flood, they might lose way and not define their territory,” he said.
Gharial captive breeding programme of Nandankanan dates back to 1975, one of the first and successful crocodilian conservation initiatives in the India.
A breeding enclosure spread over 7600 sq metre was set up in the Zoo where a male and two females were introduced in 1976.
The programme was successful and hundreds of the fresh water crocodiles were bred and then released into the wild by the Zoo authorities. The Government of India, which sponsored the breeding programme, however, terminated support in 1995-96 bringing an end to it.
Two gharials killed in fighting