Bangladesh in last-ditch bid to save rare crocs

BANGLADESHI conservationists introduced two rare river-dwelling crocodiles to potential mates yesterday in a last-ditch attempt to save the critically endangered species from extinction.

A 36-year-old female gharial -- a fish-eating crocodile once native to rivers across the Indian subcontinent – was brought from a zoo in northeast Bangladesh to the capital Dhaka, where it is hoped she will mate with an older male to repopulate the species.

A 40-year-old male was returned to the zoo in Rajshahi, where there are only females.

Gharials can only breed until the age of 50 and as the small captive population in Bangladesh ages, conservationists decided intervention was needed if the species was to have any chance of survival.

“This is our last hope to rescue the critically endangered gharial from total extinction,” Sarowar Alam, who heads the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Bangladesh gharial project, said.

“We’re hopeful we’ll get some results, even though there are fears that these adults gharials may have lost the urge to mate.”

Bangladesh, with its vast network of rivers, was once a key habitat for the gharial, a crocodile distinctive for its large body and long thin snout.

But there has been no sighting of gharials in Bangladesh’s two Himalayan rivers – the Ganges and Brahmaputra – in more than a decade. – AFP