TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Lucknow: Winters are turning inauspicious for ghariyals in Uttar Pradesh. More than 100 ghariyals died in the winter months last year at the National Chambal Sanctuary. This winter 1,000 ghariyals of Kukrail Rehabilitation Centre might perish due to hunger.

Patna, PTI:

What would have been a dream come true for conservationists has turned out to be a nightmare for the authorities of Patna Zoo.

researchers have started telemetry tests on gharials in the Chambal river to gather information for the species

Lucknow: Exactly after a gap of ten days since an adult crocodile was caught from a pond in Fattepurwa village of Chinhat locality, forest team rescued another such crocodile from a pond in Bhakamau village.
The crocodile was spotted on Sunday morning and the matter was brought to the notice of the forest department team.
The team caught the reptile on Tuesday from the village under Gudamba police station, which was then taken to the ghariyal rehabilitation centre in Kukrail.

"Study will yield vital new information on their habitats " NEW DELHI: "We could be closer than ever before in understanding the real cause of the death of more than a hundred gharials at the National Chambal Sanctuary since December 2007," said Gharial Crisis Management Group chairman Ravi Singh here on Friday.

If all goes according to plan, the country's only crocodile farm in Phuentsholing will move to a more spacious location, further from the urban centre and allowing elbowroom for its inmates. An acute lack of space has been a longstanding problem for the farm, which was set up in 1976 behind Norgay cinema on a 0.58-acre area with 12 crocodiles (Crododylus palustris) and seven gharials. According to the gharial conservation program in-charge, B P Dhal, the new site planned near Dhoti khola, around a kilometre beyond the present location, will spread over a five-acre area.

The Prague zoo has launched a test programme to save the Indian crocodile-like gharial from the brink of extinction with a million-dollar pavilion for the animals to bask, and hopefully reproduce, in. There are only between 150 and 200 of this species, the Gavialis gangeticus, also known as the gavial, living in the wild along India's rivers today. Another 20 or so are in captivity in India, Japan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and the United States, according to the zoo. "All conservation plans launched in the world have failed until now.

Despite the mysterious death of more than 100 gharials in the Chambal river in the past three months, the Madhya Pradesh government today claimed that gharial and Magar population in Chambal national park has markedly increased while Gangestic river dolphins declined. A survey conducted on 435 Km stretch of the river from February 11 to 23 revealed that there were a total of 996 gharials as compared to 865 found last year, while the Magar population also rose from 194 to 219 during the period.

The findings were certified by veteri- nary experts sent in early 2008 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. A report was submitted to the chief wildlife warden on February 26 which clearly concluded that the reptiles perished due to "visceral gout," a direct consequence of kidney failure. Sudhir K. Singh