Indian Crocodile Conservation Project
Dr. H. Robert Bustard

As a reptile population ecologist, I became interested in crocodiles in the late 1960's at which time I was in Australia. I wanted to initiate a long-term study on a crocodile species but unfortunately could not find a population which was safe from hunting. I therefore became involved in crocodile conservation in Australia and, as a result of my field work and recommendations, first the Johnton's freshwater crocodile and eventually, the saltwater crocodile were afforded total protection throughout the whole of Australia.

Later, in the UK, I met Sir Peter Scott with the suggestion for IUCN to establish a Crocodile Specialist Group. Sir Peter agreed to this and subsequently, a Group was formed under the chairmanship of Dr Hugh Cott of Cambridge University, who had carried out extensive field work on the Nile crocodile. At the inaugural meeting of this Group in 1972, I accepted personal responsibility for doing something about two very little-known species, the Indian gharial and the Chinese alligator.

Following my return to Australia, I received a letter from UNDP
asking if I could go to India to advise the Government of India on the conservation of the gharial. Originaly, the objective was to collect wild gharial and breed them in New Delhi zoo, but I had told FAO in Rome that I was not prepared to do that.

I arrived in India in 1974 and met the then Inspector General of Forests (IGF), KC Lahiri, who approved my plans for conservation in the wild and sent me to gain a bird's eyeview of the Indian habitat, returning to Delhi between each trip to report back to him. This proved a marvellous way in which to proceed and Mr Lahiri's liaison with the many State Forest Departments eased my path amazingly.

Mr Lahiri's enthusiastic support at this stage laid the foundations for the project, and at the end of my three months' stay, I was able to write a report setting out the current status of not only the gharial but also of the mugger and the saltwater crocodile. According to my observations, the gharial was reduced to some 60-70 adults spaced widely throughout their former habitat range. In my report, I suggested using the techniques of nest location and hatchery  incubation of eggs, followed by rearing the young to 1.2m before returning them to specially gazetted and protected sanctuaries. In due course, the Government of India accepted my report and I readily agreed to return to India and implement the project. The Indian Crocodile Conservation Project was set in motion.

I returned in 1975 and initiated the Project at Tikerpada in Satkoshia Gorge sanctuary (Orissa). The Orissa part of the project included saltwater crocodile project at Dangmal in the coastal mangroves of Bhitarkanika. As an academic zoologist, I wanted to pass on my expertise to young Indians, and so collected around me a team of young researchers, both in Orissa and Uttar Pradesh. These researchers, LAK Singh, SK Kar, BC Choudhury, S Chowdhury, among others, have grown to become crocodilian experts in their own right and are members of the IUCN/SSC Crocodile Specialist Group.

Meanwhile, ND Jayal became Joint Secretary (Wildlife) and assisted the project immensely at GOI level. We worked very closely together over a number of years and with his active help many states rapidly adopted the Crocodile Project.

As the project grew, I had to spend increasing time travelling between states and, as such, shifted from New Delhi to Hyderabad, where the GOI set up a Central Crocodile Breeding & Management Training Institute (CCBMTI), as part of the Project. CCBMTI offered a 9 month Diploma Course to young forest officers in all aspects of crocodile conservation including sanctuary management.

The Project funded a gharial breeding complex in the Nandankanan Zoological Park in Orissa. I designed this complex as a huge pool 9m deep (capacity 180,000 litres) with flowing and recirculating water. The viewing point was only 9m wide on one side of the huge enclosure, the rest having a high wall to provide these shy animals with total protection. The zoo had three adult crocodiles, but the male suffered repeated penile prolapse, and we decided to obtain a large male from Frankfurt Zoo in (then) West Germany rather than capture one from the wild in India. This male reached Nandankanan and despite never having seen another gharial since a baby, mated with the Oriyan females _ so we had the world's first captive-breeding of the gharial. Soon there were twice as many eggs being laid there each year as the total number of adult gharial in the entire country at the time of my 1974 survey.

In due course, as part of the Indian Crocodile Conservation Project large protected areas were set up. Outstanding among these were Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary and Satkoshia Gorge Sanctuary in Orissa and Nagajunasagar-Srisailam Sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh. This latter is now the  country's largest tiger reserve. The `crowning glory' for the gharial was the setting up of the Chambal Gharial Sanctuary, spanning the states of UP, MP and Rajasthan, which would not have come into being without the tremendous assistance from SK Seth, the then IGF.

When I left India in 1981, UNDP said that it was the most successful large scale project of FAO/UNDP in India at the time. This was largely possible because of my close working relationships both with GOI and with my counterparts in the states. Without these relationships, involving trust in both directions, the Project could never have developed into a large scale UN assisted project, nor could it ever have achieved its many successes. The Project saved a species from extinction. That is a very substantial achievement.

The current situation
It may be fruitful to briefly review events after a passage of 25 years since project initiation, especially as I carried out the preparatory work leading up to the starting of the Project and was responsible for overseeing its development during initial years. When we began, protection to crocodilians was non-existent, and we had to start from scratch. The success of the Project over the past 18 years since my departure has to be viewed in this context.

The gharial was on the verge of extinction but because of the Crocodile Conservation Project, that eventuality has been averted. On current information, the gharial seems to be in safe hands. In 1981, I had left behind 2400 artificially reared gharial of which over 1800 have been released in the period up to 1994-95, and monitoring is continuing, though at a reduced level, in the National Chambal Sanctuary where there is a increasing evidence of recruitment of released gharial into the breeding cohort of the population. By 1997-98, the monitoring exercise by MP, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh had located over 1200 gharial, and most significantly _ over 75 nests in the National Chambal Sanctuary (according to RK Sharma of National Chambal Sanctuary). This is reassuring indeed.

The only comment here is that monitoring is an ongoing business and must not be allowed to be run down. It was lack of quantitative information on its status, and hence absence of any remedial action, that had brought the gharial to the verge of extinction in 1974.

There have been significant gharial gains elsewhere too. The Uttar Pradesh Crocodile project has released 399 gharial in the Girwa river, 257 in the Ramganga, 260 in the Sharda, 255 in the main Ganga, 55 in the Betwa, 45 in the Ghagra and 5 in the Suheli river. This is an immense achievement. Unfortunately, however, no systematic monitoring of these releases is being carried out. This is unsatisfactory _ especially in view of the tremendous cost (in both money and time/effort) of producing all these endangered  animals. Hence, I hope that this very considerable achievement can be complemented by extensive and ongoing monitoring surveys and population structure analysis.

Further, in Madhya Pradehs, 35 gharial have been released in the Ken and 177 in the Son river. Up to 1989, the Orissa part of the Project had released 609 gharial in the Satkoshia Gorge Sanctuary in the river Mahanadi. However, since no monitoring is taking place, we do not know what the achievements of this country's first gharial conservation project are. Clearly, a most unsatisfactory situation has been allowed to arise which should be speedily remedied. Orissa should realise that, outside of the Gangetic river system, the gharial holds its best chance of long-term survival in the Mahanadi river in Orissa. Monitoring is not a problem in the Mahanadi and should be set in progress immediately.

Turning to the saltwater crocodile, the situation is much less satisfactory. There are only very limited ongoing releases in the Sunderbans (West Bengal) _ a huge habitat area ideal for this crocodilian. In Bhitarkanika (Orissa), over 2000 saltwater crocodiles have been released _ a very substantial achievement as locating saltwater crocodile nests is very difficult indeed compared to those of gharial or mugger. However, Bhitarkanika requires much enhanced protection and this can only be achieved at the Government of India level. The whole deltaic mangrove area is much prized agricultural land and Bangladeshis know how to bund the areas to leach out the salt. In my time, on one occasion, we had 10,000 Bangladeshis in the sanctuary cutting down trees and only the assistance at GOI level saw them off. In view of the loss of mangrove areas in southern India, Bhitarkanika must be maintained and its boundaries rigorously enforced.

Finally, the Indian mugger has made a spectacular recovery as anticipated and Binod (BC) Choudhury who has worked extensively on that species, reports that on his last monitoring visit to Hiran lakes (Gir National Park, Gujarat) he counted 300 mugger and located over 50 nests. In Tamil Nadu, he released over 200 mugger in Anamalai Wildlife Sanctuary in 1987-88. In Andhra Pradesh, some 300 mugger had been released into the huge Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam sanctuary declared particularly for the Project, but monitoring data is absent. Other small releases in Andhra Pradesh resulted in quick successful breeding even at sites where mugger no longer occurred (Ethipotnala Falls) and breeding is also taking place in at Manjiri, Pakhal and Kimersani. According to BC Choudhury, released mugger are also breeding in Tadoba National Park and Melghat Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra.

A final message
The future success of the Crocodile Conservation Project will depend on several key factors, 
such as :

1. The much-needed GOI support to well-conceived state plans for enhanced crocodile conservation _ particularly over the long-term.

2. The continued _ indeed vital _ importance and urgency of monitoring in order to collect quantitative information, which is the only way in which a sound scientific assessment of the current status _ and hence future requirements _ can be obtained. GOI may assist here by emphasising this need at all times.

3. Revitalising the active involvement of wildlife managers in crocodile management.

The Wildlife institute of India may assist in all three of these important inputs by acting as specialist advisers to GOI, by assisting in the planning, initiation, and perhaps implementation of monitoring work and playing a key role in data analysis.

My endeavours all these years ago were strongly oriented towards training. The Wildlife Institute of India is eminently placed to play a vital role here also, specially by reviewing the needs for fresh training initiatives covering all aspects of crocodile and sanctuary management.

A final thought _ should the Indian Crocodile Conservation Project be exploiting crocodiles for their skins? A purely personal view is that it should not. Very definitely India would lose tremendous international esteem by allowing any commercialisation of the gharial. The current status of the saltwater crocodile indicates that it could not withstand any commercialisation. And were the mugger to be opened to commercialisation, it would not be possible for many officers to distinguish between the skins of the various species when they have been made into finished products, e.g. ladies handbags. Furthermore, even if it is suggested that all skins would come from closed crocodile farms (where all the `product' has been produced from eggs laid in the farm), and how would it be possible to know that these were not being augmented from illegally taken wild stock? I faced this problem with the huge stocks of skins of many reptile species held in Calcutta in 1974. Had they been allowed into trade they could have been continually replaced by freshly-taken wild skins. In my view, in a country with such inventive talent as India there can be no adequate safeguard for the wild population _ tags, etc., can easily be faked _ were India to be opened up to crocodile farming. India is different, a country with different values, and it should stand firm against commercial exploitation of its wildlife. For the forseeable future, let the profits come from wildlife tourism, not from the gun or skins/hides/furs.