The Gharial is one of the world’s most magnificent reptiles. This 20 foot 2000lb fish-eating crocodile evolved with the dinosaurs, and its 150 million year reign in rivers throughout the world, from Spain to Japan, has made it one of the most successful species the planet has ever seen.

Today its future hangs by a thread. In September 2007 the Gharial was officially recognized as “Critically Endangered” by the IUCN , meaning it was one small step away from extinction in the wild. Its numbers had decreased to around 200 breeding adults in only a handful of rivers in India and Nepal.

Then in December 2007 on the Chambal River Sanctuary in northern India Gharial began dying in mysterious circumstances. The following five months saw the death of over 100 animals, or nearly 10% of the entire wild population but no one had any idea of the cause.

Gharial Blues - Presented by Icon Films

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 6, Dated Feb 14, 2009

Gharials have finally returned to their Ganga. But rejoicing would be premature, writes PRERNA SINGH BINDRA

NUMBER 09054 lay on the sand, its body glistening in the pale moonlight. There are traces of blood on its tail and long, slim snout - conceivably a result of being jostled in its cramped quarters as it made its long journey:

• over 600 miles of bumpy roads from the breeding centre in Kukrail, Lucknow to the river Ganga in Hastinapur Sanctuary, Uttar Pradesh. It lay unmoving - stressed by the crowd that had gathered. Locals push for a closer look, the media for a visual, the police to hold back the crowds. In the mayhem, a scientist pleads for peace, and gently steers the gharial towards the river. As it glides into the inky depths of water, a cry of “Jai Ma Ganga” rises above the cacophony. How true: the gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) derives its name from the river and has finally come home. Once, thousands roamed its waters, but its numbers dwindled till it was extinct in the Ganga.

The tragedy of this critically endangered species isn’t restricted to the Ganga: it’s been practically wiped out of its entire range, across 20,000 sq kms of rivers from Pakistan to Myanmar. There remain under 200 breeding adults, with a total population of barely 1,000 in three rivers: the Chambal, the Girwa in Katarniaghat, UP, and the Ramganga in Corbett. What brought it to near-extinction was loss of habitat: sand was mined and agriculture took root on banks where gharials breed; rivers were reduced to toxic soups; barrages and dams stilled, or flooded, the waters. And its domain declined to a meagre 200 sq km, just one percent of its former kingdom. Gharials are killed for their leather, too, and many get entangled in nets. Fishermen, rather than damaging their nets, slash its snout, and throw the maimed animal back in the river, where it starves to death.

The first alarm was sounded in 1970, when it was discovered that the India’s gharial population had crashed by 98 percent in three decades. Project Crocodile, launched in 1974, had 16 breeding centres, and when it released 5,000 young gharials, the project was hailed a success. But under two percent survived, and a 2006 survey revealed the population had plummeted to under 200 wild, breeding gharials.

This year’s reintroduction is a joint exercise by the UP Forest Department and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). It’s an uphill task - the management of Hastinapur can only be described as abysmal, and poaching is
not infrequent. In fact, 75 gharials were released here in 1997, “but there’s no clue of the fate of all of them, because there was no proper monitoring,” says Bivash Ranjan, Conservator of Forests, Meerut.

“The support of locals is also crucial,” says Dr Parikshit Gautam, Director Freshwater and Wetland Project, WWF. Though the authorities have conducted an awareness drive, there’s apprehension in the air. Jasbir Pehelwan, of Makdoompur village, understands the gharial is vital to the river’s ecosystem: “It will keep Ganga clean, so we must protect it”. But he fails to comprehend how “this big animal with mean-looking jaws is not a threat to our life, our cattle.” But the fact is, gharials only eat fish, and are not known to attack man.

Pressures on its habitat have increased with the dams planned along its habitats. But, before we kill the gharial, let’s remember that what it needs is essentially clean, uncontaminated river ecosystems, which are also vital to the survival of Man. No wonder the gharial is the vahan of the goddess Ganga.

Chitwan, Nepal - Fourteen gharials fitted with radio tags have been released into the Rapti River in Nepal in an attempt to identify the reasons for the alarming decline in population of this critically endangered member of the crocodile family.

The tagging, carried out by Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation in collaboration with WWF-Nepal, is also intended to study the movement pattern of the gharials, to assess its survival rate and find out about its preferred habitat in Nepal.

The gharial, which mostly inhabits deep, fast-flowing rivers, is characterized by its long and slender snout whose fragile jaws render it incapable of devouring any large animal including human beings. Its name derives from the protruberance at the end of the adult male’s snout that resembles a Ghara, an earthen pot common to India and Nepal.

The gharial is the first crocodilian species to be re-categorized as Critically Endangered on the 2007 IUCN Red List. With an inferred population of 5,000 to 10,000 in the 1940s, its numbers plummeted due to organized hunting for skin in the 1950s and 1960s, which led to a scattered and isolated population in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Although hunting is no longer a threat, the construction of dams, barrages, irrigation canals, sand-mining and riverside agriculture have all resulted in the irreversible loss of habitat for the gharial. Between 1981-2008, 691 gharials were released in the Narayani, Rapti, Karnali, Babai, Koshi and Kali Gandaki rivers but numbers continue to dwindle. A 2008 survey found just 81 individuals in the various rivers of Nepal, the number probably boosted by the release of captive-bred gharials.

The gharial is now considered to be confined to the river systems of the Brahmaputra (India and Bhutan), the Indus (Pakistan), the Ganges (India and Nepal), and the Mahanadi (India), with small populations in the Kaladan and the Irrawady in Myanmar.

The 14 gharials released into the River Rapti this week had transmitters attached to the scutes on their tails and each gharial has been given a different number and radio frequency. They will be monitored by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology by a team from Chitwan National Park.

WWF’s Country Representative to Nepal, Anil Manandhar, said: “The study will help diagnose the causes of decline in the gharial population. It will also help us better understand the gharial’s habitat use, knowledge that is crucial for saving the most threatened crocodile in the world.”

Sarala Khaling, regional co-ordinator of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund which has jointly funded the project with WWF, said: “Although conservation efforts such as the tagging and release of gharials are important steps in saving the species, a lot more is needed to ensure its long-term survival.

“Integrated efforts that include captive breeding, research and monitoring, and especially safeguarding gharial habitat and prey, are urgently needed.”

The monitoring of the released gharials will be helpful in formulating a long term conservation action plan to save them. “The water quality of Nepalese rivers is better suited for the gharial’s survival,” said Dr. Antoine Cadi of the French NGO Awely, which helped release the gharials. “If they are not saved in Nepal, they will be closer to extinction.”

Link to Article: http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/?156321/Radio-tagging-attempt-to-sa
ve-critically-endangered-crocodile

Feb 8, 2009

New Delhi (PTI): The Environment Ministry has shot down a Rajasthan government’s proposal to construct a series of hydropower dams on Chambal river noting that it will prove disastrous for the highly endangered dolphins and crocodiles besides aquatic bird species found in the region.

The refusal came after a two-member team comprising wildlife experts Ranjitsinh and BC Choudhary from Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in their report said that the proposed four hydro dams would destroy half of the Chambal sanctuary on the river which demarcates the border of MP, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The river is also home for Gangetic river dolphins and crocodiles.

The issue had come up for discussion at a recent meeting of the standing committee of the National Board of Wildlife chaired by Environment Minister S Raghupathy.

To stress the negative impact of the proposed dams, the members in the report also highlighted that the three already existing such hydropower projects on the river had wiped out dolphins, turtle and crocodiles in the surrounding areas.

Rajasthan had sought construction of four Hydropower projects on Chambal river under its Chambal development scheme to meet the power needs of the nearby villages.

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The announced rejection of the three hydropower dams on the Chambal River is good news for the gharial and many of the species that call the Chambal River home!

According to Janaki Linen the Executive Director of the Gharial Conservation Alliance;
“Dams have contributed to the demise of the gharial and other river species in India and it’s a rare day when a mega-project gets shot down for conservation reasons. About 6 months ago, we heard to our dismay that 3 more major dams are planned for the Chambal River (there are already 3). These dams were going to submerge most of the major basking and nesting areas of one of the two last major populations of the critically endangered gharial. Also negatively affected, had the projects been approved, were the endangered Ganges river dolphin, and critically endangered turtles such as red-fronted roof turtle. Due to the efforts of some of our colleagues including B.C. Choudhury of the Wildlife Institute of India and Dr. M.K. Ranjitsinh, the dam projects proposed by the Rajasthan Government, have been rejected. However, as pointed out by some of our GCA correspondents, we have to be eternally vigilant because the dam projects never really go away; they may re-surface any time.”

Article link: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200902081502.htm

Lucknow : Ahead of releasing ghari-yals in the Ganga after 17 years, the state Forest department has taken the recourse to religion to make people aware about the need to conserve the species.

The awareness drive launched by the government in association with the World Wide Fund (WWF) or Nature not only cites the religious significance of ghariyals but has also termed them as “Ganga Vahaan.”

Religious heads of various muths have been roped in this effort, too.

“This tool has been proved to be effective in conservation of dolphins. It helps in conserving the species if you relate it to the religious sentiments of the people instead of narrating scientific details,” said Parikshit Gautam, director of Fresh Water and Wetlands Programme of WWF-India.

The WWF pamphlets not only give information about ghariyals but also states the religious relevance of the species. Calling the ghariyals as equivalent to God, the pamphlet quotes Bhagvad Geeta stating religious importance of ghariyals in the sermons of the Lord Krishna.

The religious heads of various “maths” have been asked to state the religious importance of the species in their sermons. “While giving sermons on Ganga, they can also narrate the religious importance of ghariyal. This further helps the locals to give respect to the species,” said Chandra
Bhawan, DFO Meerut.

Conservator of Endangered Species, Uttar Pradesh, Eva Sharma said: “People generally mistake ghariyals with crocodiles and consider them as dangerous. To dispel the myth, we are distributing pamphlets.”

A total of 132 ghariyals will be released in the rivers in two batches of 66 each in January and February.

Ghariyal is a critically endangered species clubbed under schedule (I) of the Wildlife Protection Act.

Link to Article: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/now-religion-comes-to-rescue-ghariyals/415
348/

During the winter of 2007-2008 over 115 sub-adults and adult gharial died from kidney damage and chronic visceral and articular gout in the Chambal National Sanctuary of Northern India. The origin of the nephrotoxin is still unknown as is the mechanism by which the animals were exposed to it.

Though found in seven (7) different sanctuaries, there are less than 200 breeding adult gharial in the wild. The losses at the Chambal National Sanctuary could represent as high as 60% of that sanctuaries future breeding animals, putting the population at risk of extinction if extraordinary efforts are not made to save the remaining animals.

The veterinarian position will be based out of Etawah in the state of Uttar Pradesh providing assistance to field researchers by:

• Training others in crocodilian anatomy and physiology
• Conduct necropsies on gharial and other species found dead along the river
• Collect blood and/or tissue samples from dead or sick animals for further laboratory tests
• Monitor the health and welfare of gharial capture and released as a part of an on going telemetry project
• Provide written reports to the GCA
• And conduct other activities as required in supporting gharial conservation and determining the cause of gharial die-offs

The GCA wishes to thank the Cleveland Zoological Society for their continued support and the efforts of Sheena Koeth for making the grant possible.

Those wishing to contribute to the Chambal Gharial Crisis Response financially or otherwise can CONTACT US here

Download the latest GCA Press Release on the Chambal Gharial Crisis here.

Tehelka, Feb 3, 2008

The gharial, which has outlived the dinosaurs, is on the brink of extinction. Can we revive conservation efforts to save this beleagured animal?

JANAKI LENIN, Conservationist

NOW IF YOU are the protagonist in a cliffhanger it doesn’t help to have an ungainly body and short stubby legs. And yet, the gharial has been hanging on the precipice of existence by its toenails for the last few decades. The survival of an animal that outlived the dinosaurs depends on whether we can give it a leg up over the abyss. The gharial’s body-plan is fine-tuned to make the best use of the habitat it had chosen for its final staging ground. It is a specialist like no other crocodile in the world; deep rivers to live in, sand banks on which to bask and lay eggs, and plenty of fish to eat are prerequisites. This choosiness ensured the survival of the gharial into the 20th century.

Today, however, these very same adaptations have become three nails in the gharial’s coffin. Developing India built mega-dams across rivers that were home to the gharial, silting them up. The building boom that began in the 1990s in nearby cities like Delhi and Agra is fed by sand from the gharial’s nesting grounds on the Chambal. Fishermen deplete its prey while fishing nets become underwater curtains of death.

In the 1970s, it was estimated that less than 200 gharial survived in Nepal and India. An ambitious crocodile conservation project was launched by the Government of India in collaboration with the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Project Crocodile was touted as one of the most successful conservation programs in the world, and yet no one has ever heard of it. Crocodile sanctuaries were established, a crocodile research institute set up and captive rearing stations built. The 425km long unsullied stretch of the Chambal was seen as the last long-term refuge of the gharial. Somewhere along the way, conservation action ground down due to lethargy and ineptitude.

Habitat protection is the first commandment in any conservation program but it could not be enforced in the Chambal ravines, ruled as they were by bandits and warlords. The other most significant habitat, the river Girwa in the Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, remains stable for now. Obtaining local people’s support is the second commandment, but it was deemed too difficult under the circumstances. Having thrown out the two most important tenets of conservation, what did Project Crocodile do?

Over the years it released thousands of expensively captive reared gharial into the rivers — the Chambal, the Girwa, the Ken, the Son and the Mahanadi. The released animals were not monitored so no one knows what became of them. But annual census figures showed a steady climb upwards. It was like adding apples to a basket and then counting them! When the number of gharial in the Chambal reached 1,200 in the mid-1990s, crocodile conservationists, biologists, bureaucrats and politicians basked in their achievement — the species had been saved from extinction. The Government of India stopped funding the captive rearing project, though state governments persisted with the releases on a smaller scale. The annual census stopped.

And then in 2004, the hollowness of gharial conservation was revealed. RK Sharma of the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department set off the alarm — gharial numbers were plummeting. With fewer apples being added to the basket, the numbers didn’t look so good anymore. Surveys in 2006 came up with less than 200 breeding adults in India and Nepal, thereby putting the gharial on the Critically Endangered category of the 2007 Red List. A task force called the Gharial Conservation Alliance (GCA) was formed with the express purpose of reversing this dismal trend. Realizing that river dolphins, otters and water birds had similar needs, the GCA in partnership with WWF-India set up River Watch. Instead of focusing on individual species and working separately, River Watch intends to look at the big picture — the state of our rivers.

EVEN AS this was being initiated, came the horrific news — nearly 90 out of about 320 sub-adult and adult gharials have mysteriously died over a 70km stretch of the lower Chambal in little over a month: a 25 percent mortality in the 2-2.5 metre size
class. The epicentre of this disaster is near Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, at the confluence of the Yamuna and Chambal. Post mortem reports indicated liver cirrhosis, cause unknown. Subsequent reports pointed to the presence of heavy metals in the tissue samples. Lethal levels of heavy metals should have killed the other animals sharing the same waters — fish, birds, otters and river dolphins — but it did not.

A team of international croc veterinarians are expected to arrive later this month to assist in finding the cause of this catastrophe and to suggest ways of stemming it. If the gharial overcomes this crisis, it will become the touchstone of our commitment to treat rivers as a precious resource.

The cause of the mass deaths of gharial in the Chambal River continues, and no definitive cause has yet been identified. As of the 18th of January a reported 81 gharial had been found dead. Currently an international team of veterinarians, researchers, and Forest Department officials are on the Chambal River investigating the deaths. It is hoped they will discover the cause soon and a solution can be found to halt the deaths before the remaining Chambal gharial population is affected. Any gharial that appear sick are being caught for investigation and to help prevent the spread of any possible illness. The Forest Departments of the Chambal range states are committed to solving this crisis and a dedicated team of Forest Department officials are continuing to patrol the area for any clues and to safeguard the remaining gharial population.

Any news from the field will be reported here as soon as information becomes available.

Those wishing to contribute to the Chambal Gharial Crisis Response financially or otherwise can CONTACT US here

Download the latest official GCA press release here.