Counting, monitoring of gharial crocs initiated in Rapti and Narayani Rivers

Chitwan, Dec 8: Counting and monitoring of gharial crocodiles began in Rapti river and Narayani river from Sunday.

Information Officer at the Chitwan National Park, Abinash Thapa Magar, said the counting and monitoring of gharial would be conducted till December 14. 

He shared, “Every year crocodiles are released in the rivers and counting and monitoring is carried out to know their status.”

Crocodiles raised at the crocodile breeding centre of the national park are released into their natural habitat every year. The counting has been started to know their population.

Thapa added that the counting would be conducted from Lothar of Rapti rive to Tribeni via Golaghat and Ganjipur of Narayani river to the confluence with the Rapti river of Golaghat.

Technicians of the Chitwan National Park, Nepal Army, people from the Bote community have been mobilized for this purpose.

A team comprising eight members is assigned for counting and monitoring of gharial.

The gharials which are bred here are released into various rivers across the country. He shared that 2,105 baby crocs have been released in the various rivers from 1995 till the present.

In the last fiscal year, 133 gharials were released and in this fiscal year, 15 have been released. He mentioned that the number of the surviving reptiles could not meet expectations as some of them might have been carried away by the rivers.

In the census conducted last year, 352 gharial crocodiles were found in those rivers. Two hundred and six crocodiles were found in the Rapti River and 146 in the Narayani River. The gharial crocodile is a reptile species that has reached a critically endangered status.

Previously also found in countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Myanmar, gharials are now found only in Nepal and India.

The number of gharial crocodiles was around 10,000 worldwide in the 1940s. Conservationists say interest in its protection has increased since only two percent of this number was found to exist in 1970.

Information officer Thapamagar stated that the natural habitats of the gharial crocodile have been depleting due to the increasing human activities in the river, extraction of river materials, pollution, and fishing.