Mysterious deaths at wildlife sanctuary
LUCKNOW, India (AP) - January 22, 2008 Everything from parasites to pollution has been blamed for the
deaths of the gharials - massive reptiles that look like their
crocodile relatives, but with long slender snouts. The bodies,
measuring between five and 10 feet long, have been found washed up
on the banks of the Chambal River since early December, according
to conservationists and officials.
The precise number of gharials that have died remains unclear,
with the Gharial Conservation Alliance saying 81 bodies have been
found since early December, butt Chief Wildlife Warden D.N.S Suman
putting the number of dead animals at 50.
Conservationists believe there are only some 1,500 gharials left
in the wild, many of them in a sanctuary based along the Chambal,
one of the few unpolluted Indian rivers. The Chambal contains the
largest of three breeding populations in the world.
In early December, officials found the bodies of at least 21
gharials over three days. The bodies have continued washing ashore
in the weeks since.
The latest possible clue to what's killing the rare reptiles is
an unknown parasite that scientists found in the dead gharials'
liver and kidneys, according to Dr. A.K. Sharma of the Indian
Veterinary Research Institute.
"We can say that liver and kidney of these gharials were badly
damaged," said Sharma. "They were swollen and bigger than their
usual size."
Other believe the gharials may have gotten sick and died after
eating contaminated fish from the polluted Yamuna river, which
joins the Chambal in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Pathological tests
confirmed lead and cadmium in the bodies of the dead gharials, said
Suman, the wildlife official.
"The Chambal river has clear water free from heavy metals. The
only possibility seems that these gharials might have migrated from
heavily polluted Yamuna river where they might have eaten fish,"
said Suman.
The gharial, also known as the Indian crocodile, was on the
verge of extinction in the 1970s, but a government breeding program
that has released several hundred into the wild has raised their
numbers.