The Gharial in West Bengal

A Male Gharial. Photo Credit Justin Griffiths
The Hooghly River is about 260 km (160 mi) long and a tributary of the Ganges flowing through West Bengal (India). The river's average depth is 200 feet, excellent habitat for the deep-water loving Gharial, Gavialis gangeticus. Gharials once inhabited about 20,000 square kilometres of riparian habitats in the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Irrawady river systems. Today their distribution is estimated to be 2% of their former range. Two Times of India stories follow.

November 29, 2010. Times of India: Wildlife experts cheer gharial's return to Hooghly

 KOLKATA: It's being termed a miraculous revival that has taken wildlife experts and conservationists by surprise. And raised hopes about the survival of species that is now seriously threatened. The gharial the long-snouted fresh-water crocodile is back in the Hooghly.

They have been spotted in numbers that are larger than had been expected when the reptiles were spotted after a gap of 60 years in downstream Hooghly two years ago. Now, a team of researchers has identified a breeding group at Purbasthali in Burdwan which signals that the gharials are finally multiplying.

A young gharial, about three feet in length, was trapped in a fishing net at Purbasthali on Saturday. About a half-a-dozen more followed it into the net. They were all pulled up, examined and released back into the river. "By last count, the number of gharials had shot up to around 180. Now, it seems the number is actually more than 250 since they are breeding. We have spotted even smaller ones, new-born gharials merely six inches long. This is great news for conservation since the reptile was taken to be extinct in eastern India for six decades," said Tanmoy Ghosh, president of iRebel an NGO that has been researching on gharials with support from the West Bengal Bio-Diversity Board and the Hooghly Zilla Parishad.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCNNR), less than 200 breeding gharials now survive in the wild. They started disappearing from their original habitat the Ganges and the rivers of Bangladesh in the first half of the last century. Unrestricted fishing is held to be one of the major reasons behind this. Cultivation along the banks where they lay their eggs destroyed their breeding habitat.

A study carried out in two phases since 2008 suggests that the reptiles are flocking back to Hooghly. It was carried out over an area of 500 km along the Hooghly from Farakka to Tribeni. "We have been spotting them off and on but not in large numbers. Now that bigger groups have been seen, it is clear that they are returning to the Hooghly. Perhaps even more encouraging is the fact that they are breeding here," said Pranabesh Sanyal, conservationist and former field director of the Sunderban Tiger Reserve.

The iRebel team has now stationed itself at Purbasthali. Fishermen and locals have been involved in the study.

A more recent story from the Times of India: Gharial death remains a mystery

December 3, 2010 KANPUR: The recovery of a dead gharial on November 22 in the upstream of Chambal river in Etawah district has left perturbed the UP forest department officials.

The dead gharial, which had attained 3-4 years of age, was about 5 ft in size, was found at Chambal Nada near Mitati village of Chakkarnagar Sahson area of Etawah district.

"It is difficult to ascertain the exact cause of death at this point of time," a senior forest department official told TOI. But, post-mortem report lists swelling in lungs and liver damage as the immediate cause. Sources, however, informed that an iron hook was also found entangled in the body of gharial.

"The recovery of a hook suggested that the fishermen might have killed the reptile when it apparently got entangled in fishing nets. A Delhi based organization has hired untrained fishermen to fix radio chips in the nails of the gharials to monitor their movement and this could be another reason behind its death," said Dr Rajiv Chauhan, secretary general, Society for Conservation of Nature.

The team, along with forest department officials, is now using radio transmitters to monitor the movements of the gharials for which chips are being put in their tails, he elaborated.

Currently, besides Chambal, gharials are found only in the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the Mahanadi river systems in India and Nepal.

From November, 2007 till March, 2008, more than 112 gharials have died in the Chambal river from an unknown disease with gout-like symptoms. This recent death toll is expected to have decreased the number of breeding pairs to less than 400. Tests of the carcasses conducted at the IVRI suggested the possibility of poisoning by metal pollutants.

Most of the gharials were found dead over a stretch of about 12 km near the Sahson Ghat, the same spot where a female gharial was found dead on November 22.

Considered as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, just 200-300 gharials were believed to be left in the Chambal river and Katarniaghat, besides 2,000-3,000 across India.

A huge sized gharial was last rescued in the Kandhesi minor in Etawah district in 2009. In 2008, above 100 gharials were released in the Ganga in UP.

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