RE: Should India start commercial ranching of crocodiles?

[Guest guest]

 

India shouldnot indulge in commercial ranching of crocodiles.

SKJ

 

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 wrote :

> http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1170/is_n6_v24/ai_16364232 I

>married a croc man - Romulus Whitaker

> <http://www.findarticles.com/p/search?tb=art & qt=%22Zai+Whitaker%22>

>

>When Zai married Rom, she might have expected children--but what about those

>10,000 crocodiles in the backyard?

>

>LATE ONE HOT JUNE NIGHT in 1974, my husband Romulus Whitaker and his friend

>Rajamani, an Irula tribesman from southern India, crouched on an embankment

>of a large reservoir in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, each holding one end

>of a tightly stretched net. I sat nearby in the humid darkness, waiting.

>

>We had come here in response to a desperate telegram from the local

>irrigation engineer, who wanted us to catch a 2-meter (7-ft.) mugger, or

>marsh, crocodile that had been hunting in nearby rice paddies, trampling

>crops and perhaps killing a goat. Since crocodiles have been dwindling in

>India for at least 50 years, the summons could not be ignored. If we did not

>catch the mugger, villagers would likely kill it. The engineer told us to

>set our net at the embankment, the mugger's frequent haunt.

>

>Chewed by mosquitoes and soggy from the damp ground, I sat as immobile as

>possible, ears straining, waiting for the croc. Around midnight I heard

>squishing footsteps. I backed away as a low, dark shape materialized and

>slid toward me. I prepared to bolt, but just then the mugger slid into the

>trap. Rom and Rajamani jumped on it, and it bellowed like a cow being

>slaughtered.

>

>Next morning we unravelled Chitra, as Rajamani had named the female croc,

>and packed her into our Jeep for the ride to Vadanemmeli, a village on

>India's south coast where we were starting a crocodile breeding facility

>called the Madras Crocodile Bank. Chitra became one of the bank's first

>residents.

>

>Indiscriminate killing and habitat loss have led to serious declines in most

>of the 23 crocodilian species worldwide. Several face extinction, posing a

>significant biological and economic loss. As the largest predators in their

>habitats, crocodilians play an important role in the natural balances of

>their ecosystems. By digging burrows and deep pools, they create water holes

>that sustain many other creatures during droughts. Yearly international

>trade in croc skins, accounting for some 1.5 million hides, is worth about

>$200 million.

>

>Trade, both from controlled hunting and farming, has proved a useful

>conservation tool when well regulated, since it makes the reptiles valuable

>to local people who might otherwise kill them indiscriminately. In recent

>years, conservation groups and government agencies have. initiated crocodile

>recovery projects, including restocking programs in India for which the

>Madras Crocodile Bank has served as a source of animals.

>

>Rom's interest in reptiles dates to his childhood in upstate New York, where

>he kept wild snakes as pets and learned his ABCS with " A is for Amphibian, B

>is for Brontosaurus, C is for Coral Snake, " and so on. In 1951, when Rom was

>8, his mother's second husband, a Bombay filmmaker, moved the family to

>India. The new home was a reptile lover's heaven, and Rom soon became versed

>in the ways of the Indian forest and its mildlife.

>

>He returned to the United States for college, but soon dropped out to work

>on a Florida snake farm. Later, after a stint in the U.S. Army, he went to

>the American Southwest and caught enough rattlesnakes to make $500 from

>venom

>

>dealers. With the money he bought passage on a slow freighter to India,

>where, in 1969, he opened his own snake farm near Madras.

>

>In 1972, Rom approached. World Wildlife Fund-India (WWF) for a grant and met

>my father, Zafar Futehally, who had started the group. Rom became active in

>WWF activities, lecturing on snake conservation, which is how I met him. The

>tall, blond snakeman who spoke Hindi and Tamil was a hit with the crowds,

>and also with me. We married in

>

>1974 and spent our honeymoon in a forest chasing down pit vipers, king

>cobras and other snakes.

>

>Once back home, Rom forged ahead with his newest project--the Madras

>Crocodile Bank. Rom conceived the bank in 1973, when he and Rajamani

>conducted crocodile surveys in four Indian states whose rivers, at the turn

>of the century, had teemed with crocodiles. By 1973, India's three crocodile

>species--the mugger, saltwater croc and gharial--were in trouble. Poachers,

>egg collectors, fishermen and dam projects contributed to the species'

>declines. India's gharial was nearly gone--fewer than 200 survived in the

>wild. Rom's plan was to breed crocs in captivity and release some into the

>wild.

>

>We set up the Madras Crocodile Bank on India's Coromandel Coast, an ideal

>site because it offered a reliable water supply and also a heavy tourist

>flow along the nearby Madras-Mahabalipuram road, which leads to famous

>temples. Rom figured that some travelers would stop to buy tickets and see

>the crocodiles, ensuring that we could meet our overhead. Today, a million

>visitors a year make the bank self-sufficient.

>

>Since the 1970s, various organizations have hired Rom to survey vanishing

>crocodile populations. Early in our marriage I joined Rom on these trips,

>but since the arrival, of our two sons I usually have enjoyed Rom's field

>experiences vicariously--and in the comfort of home --through the gnarled,

>blotched letters he writes while traveling primordial swamps. These letters

>reveal the hardships that field biologists endure.

>

>For example, when Mozambique recently undertook drainage of he Zambezi River

>flood plain for agriculture, wiping out crocodile habitat, the UN Food and

>Agriculture Organization (FAO) sent Rom there to determine whether enough

>crocs remained to sustain a skin trade (Rom found that crocs could produce

>more income for impoverished local fishermen than could crops). While on

>this assignment, the skies proved the worst enemy:

>

>Dear Zai: We forged a channel in the fleshy papyrus with our machetes. Frog

>calls rose from the two ends of the lake like a natural stereo system;

>closer to us, the grunting laugh of hippos foraging in the reeds. I was on

>Massingir Reservoir with two hefty Chengana fishermen as guides.

>

>When we started back across the wide lake at midnight, jagged fingers of

>lightning exploded from every direction. The wind picked up, gentle first

>then whip ping up the water until waves crashed over the side of the boat.

>We headed into the wind to keep from being tipped over, but where was the

>shore? We listened to the oncoming roar of the rain.

>

>Then another sound, closer: right under us. We'd hit a floating log,

>snapping the shear pin of the propeller. Helpless, we were tossed and shoved

>by the wind back across the lake. Holding on to the reeds to keep from

>turning over, we searched frantically for a substitute prop pin. Screws,

>pieces of wire, safety pins--these would work for a while, then snap.

>Eventually we could fight the wind no longer and found ourselves firmly

>wedged in a floating island of papyrus with hippos grunting and snorting all

>around us.

>

> Early in the morning the wind died down, and we were able to pull loose

> from the papyrus stems and nurse the motor along with a last nail that had

>held our only paddle together.

>

>One sheaf of Rom's letters concerns a World Wide Fund for Nature assignment

>in Irian Jaya, an Indonesian province on the island of New Guinea. Rom

>sought to determine whether the area held enough crocodiles to support a

>skin trade. Native people proved a danger:

>

>Dear Zai: Here I am on the last lap of our expedition into the Asmat, the

>region which gained notoriety when anthropologist Michael Rockefeller

>disappeared there in the late 1950s. With me are the head of WWF in Irian

>Jaya and two officials of the wildlife department. Our guide stayed behind,

>refusing to venture into the land of the Orang Hutan, the jungle people. The

>area is far beyond the patrols of the Indonesians or the camps of the

>missionaries. But it's here on the remote unhunted stretches of the Eilanden

>River, I'm sure, that the crocs live. We were all nervous, but so far all

>we'd seen of the Orang Hutan were abandoned hunting and fishing camps.

>

>Then it happened. Up ahead, four naked men walked slowly up the bank toward

>the oncoming boat. All were armed with bows and arrows, one carried an

>ornately carved shield. We exchanged glances: How should we react? Just then

>one of the men smiled and waved, and we decided to stop and meet them. We'd

>have to pass this way back down the river, and must be careful not to

>initiate any feeling of hostility. Besides, our rubber boat seemed a

>tempting target and was far from arrow--proof.

>

>But it was an anxious half hour. We could communicate only by smiles and

>gestures, and the uncertainty about our intentions made them skittish; they

>began muttering to each other and seemed clearly irritated. I pulled out

>some chunks of the black tobacco much favored by bush people throughout New

>Guinea island. Leaving that in their hands, we made a reasonably graceful

>getaway.

>

>Perhaps it had been foolish to come chugging into this hidden land. But the

>reward was hundreds of crocodiles, some of them so unused to humans I could

>get out on the bank and walk right up to them.

>

>Rom found greater threats closer to home. Straddling the border of India and

>Bangladesh and fringing the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers is a

>10,400 square-kilometers (4,000-sq.mi.) mangrove swamp called the

>Sundarbans, an area synonymous with man-eating tigers. While Rom was there

>for a three-week croc survey, tigers ate six people. The threat of tiger

>attack led to some claustrophobic restrictions:

>

>Dear Zai: An armed guard shadows me day and night, even grudging me a

>private moment behind a bush. At first this entire loss of privacy irks me.

>But then the reminders are everywhere: accounts of the latest attacks on

>fishermen and honey collectors, warnings from the Forest Department about

>especially troublesome tigers, shorts or sarongs of victims hung on poles

>along the waterways to mark scenes of recent deaths. Tigers kill an

>estimated 100 people in the Sundarbans every year.

>

> We have been cruising the side creeks at night in a dinghy, looking for the

>eye-shine of saltwater crocs. By day we stumble through dense thickets of

>tiger fern, looking for croc nests, tigers constantly on our minds. Some of

>the biggest crocs in the world live here but are too wary to approach. On

>Ihinbaria Khal (creek) a 5-meter (16-ft.) salty swam lazily ahead of us for

>long minutes, the powerful tail swinging slowly from side to side.

>

>That evening I took a walk inland (along with the obligatory armed tiger

>guard) among the spiky mangrove roots. There was a sudden, almost

>imperceptible movement behind us and Omar Ali spun round, cocked rifle

>disconcertingly close to my head. A beautiful dark cobra poised upright,

>hood spread and alert, watching us from the chocolate ooze.

>

>All the stress and strain has proved worth enduring, because the Madras

>Crocodile Bank is a big success. Today it is home to more than 10,000

>crocodiles of 10 species and serves as a base for a number of conservation

>projects, from reforestation of cleared lands to research in the remote

>Andaman Islands, home of the saltwater crocodile. Chitra, still with us, has

>proved a super-efficient egg machine, laying more than 700 eggs with a

>92-percent hatch rate.

>

>In 1975, the Indian government, with FAO help, set up its own

>captive-breeding facilities, and the Madras bank has supplied them with

>stock. Captive breeding has permitted the release of more than 1,300

>gharials and 1,000 saltwater crocodiles and has helped restock the mugger

>crocodile in 28 national parks, wildlife reserves and crocodile sanctuaries

>throughout India.

>

>Some state governments have been resisting further mugger releases because

>they think crocs compete with fishermen. Ironically, the largest mugger

>population in south India lives in the Amaravati Reservoir, which also has

>India's highest fish catch. Nevertheless, the government has stopped

>releasing muggers, which breed better in captivity than do the other two

>species and threaten to outgrow breeding facilities.

>

>The solution to overcrowding, Rom and I think, is sale of excess muggers to

>the skin trade. Croc trade has worked in Papua New Guinea, where

>government-monitored trade in croc skins brings in $2 million yearly, with

>much of the money going directly to tribal communities. For India, where

>half a billion citizens live on the edge of A poverty, trade could help both

>people and crocs.

>

>However, the Indian government opposes croc trade out of fear that it could

>be used to mask poaching of wild crocodiles.

>

>With or without trade, life goes on at the croc bank. As this is being

>written, a fax arrives inviting Rom to Bangladesh as part of a wildlife

>consultant team. This of course means more mud, tiger guards and mosquitoes.

>

>

>I think I'll just wait here at home for his letters.

>

>Zai Whitaker's book Snakeman, published in India, tells more about Rom and

>about Zai's life with him. London-based photographer Michael Freeman has

>visited the Whitakers twice on assignment for International Wildlife.

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Certainly not - animals are being allowed to breed in excess so that

ranching will then be offered as a " sensible alternative " .

 

S. Chinny Krishna

 

[journalistandanimals]

Friday, February 16, 2007 12:55 PM

aapn

Should India start commercial ranching of crocodiles?

 

 

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1170/is_n6_v24/ai_16364232 I

married a croc man - Romulus Whitaker

<http://www.findarticles.com/p/search?tb=art & qt=%22Zai+Whitaker%22>

 

When Zai married Rom, she might have expected children--but what about

those

10,000 crocodiles in the backyard?

 

LATE ONE HOT JUNE NIGHT in 1974, my husband Romulus Whitaker and his

friend

Rajamani, an Irula tribesman from southern India, crouched on an

embankment

of a large reservoir in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, each holding one

end

of a tightly stretched net. I sat nearby in the humid darkness, waiting.

 

We had come here in response to a desperate telegram from the local

irrigation engineer, who wanted us to catch a 2-meter (7-ft.) mugger, or

marsh, crocodile that had been hunting in nearby rice paddies, trampling

crops and perhaps killing a goat. Since crocodiles have been dwindling in

India for at least 50 years, the summons could not be ignored. If we did

not

catch the mugger, villagers would likely kill it. The engineer told us to

set our net at the embankment, the mugger's frequent haunt.

 

Chewed by mosquitoes and soggy from the damp ground, I sat as immobile as

possible, ears straining, waiting for the croc. Around midnight I heard

squishing footsteps. I backed away as a low, dark shape materialized and

slid toward me. I prepared to bolt, but just then the mugger slid into the

trap. Rom and Rajamani jumped on it, and it bellowed like a cow being

slaughtered.

 

Next morning we unravelled Chitra, as Rajamani had named the female croc,

and packed her into our Jeep for the ride to Vadanemmeli, a village on

India's south coast where we were starting a crocodile breeding facility

called the Madras Crocodile Bank. Chitra became one of the bank's first

residents.

 

Indiscriminate killing and habitat loss have led to serious declines in

most

of the 23 crocodilian species worldwide. Several face extinction, posing a

significant biological and economic loss. As the largest predators in

their

habitats, crocodilians play an important role in the natural balances of

their ecosystems. By digging burrows and deep pools, they create water

holes

that sustain many other creatures during droughts. Yearly international

trade in croc skins, accounting for some 1.5 million hides, is worth about

$200 million.

 

Trade, both from controlled hunting and farming, has proved a useful

conservation tool when well regulated, since it makes the reptiles

valuable

to local people who might otherwise kill them indiscriminately. In recent

years, conservation groups and government agencies have. initiated

crocodile

recovery projects, including restocking programs in India for which the

Madras Crocodile Bank has served as a source of animals.

 

Rom's interest in reptiles dates to his childhood in upstate New York,

where

he kept wild snakes as pets and learned his ABCS with " A is for Amphibian,

B

is for Brontosaurus, C is for Coral Snake, " and so on. In 1951, when Rom

was

8, his mother's second husband, a Bombay filmmaker, moved the family to

India. The new home was a reptile lover's heaven, and Rom soon became

versed

in the ways of the Indian forest and its mildlife.

 

He returned to the United States for college, but soon dropped out to work

on a Florida snake farm. Later, after a stint in the U.S. Army, he went to

the American Southwest and caught enough rattlesnakes to make $500 from

venom

 

dealers. With the money he bought passage on a slow freighter to India,

where, in 1969, he opened his own snake farm near Madras.

 

In 1972, Rom approached. World Wildlife Fund-India (WWF) for a grant and

met

my father, Zafar Futehally, who had started the group. Rom became active

in

WWF activities, lecturing on snake conservation, which is how I met him.

The

tall, blond snakeman who spoke Hindi and Tamil was a hit with the crowds,

and also with me. We married in

 

1974 and spent our honeymoon in a forest chasing down pit vipers, king

cobras and other snakes.

 

Once back home, Rom forged ahead with his newest project--the Madras

Crocodile Bank. Rom conceived the bank in 1973, when he and Rajamani

conducted crocodile surveys in four Indian states whose rivers, at the

turn

of the century, had teemed with crocodiles. By 1973, India's three

crocodile

species--the mugger, saltwater croc and gharial--were in trouble.

Poachers,

egg collectors, fishermen and dam projects contributed to the species'

declines. India's gharial was nearly gone--fewer than 200 survived in the

wild. Rom's plan was to breed crocs in captivity and release some into the

wild.

 

We set up the Madras Crocodile Bank on India's Coromandel Coast, an ideal

site because it offered a reliable water supply and also a heavy tourist

flow along the nearby Madras-Mahabalipuram road, which leads to famous

temples. Rom figured that some travelers would stop to buy tickets and see

the crocodiles, ensuring that we could meet our overhead. Today, a million

visitors a year make the bank self-sufficient.

 

Since the 1970s, various organizations have hired Rom to survey vanishing

crocodile populations. Early in our marriage I joined Rom on these trips,

but since the arrival, of our two sons I usually have enjoyed Rom's field

experiences vicariously--and in the comfort of home --through the gnarled,

blotched letters he writes while traveling primordial swamps. These

letters

reveal the hardships that field biologists endure.

 

For example, when Mozambique recently undertook drainage of he Zambezi

River

flood plain for agriculture, wiping out crocodile habitat, the UN Food and

Agriculture Organization (FAO) sent Rom there to determine whether enough

crocs remained to sustain a skin trade (Rom found that crocs could produce

more income for impoverished local fishermen than could crops). While on

this assignment, the skies proved the worst enemy:

 

Dear Zai: We forged a channel in the fleshy papyrus with our machetes.

Frog

calls rose from the two ends of the lake like a natural stereo system;

closer to us, the grunting laugh of hippos foraging in the reeds. I was on

Massingir Reservoir with two hefty Chengana fishermen as guides.

 

When we started back across the wide lake at midnight, jagged fingers of

lightning exploded from every direction. The wind picked up, gentle first

then whip ping up the water until waves crashed over the side of the boat.

We headed into the wind to keep from being tipped over, but where was the

shore? We listened to the oncoming roar of the rain.

 

Then another sound, closer: right under us. We'd hit a floating log,

snapping the shear pin of the propeller. Helpless, we were tossed and

shoved

by the wind back across the lake. Holding on to the reeds to keep from

turning over, we searched frantically for a substitute prop pin. Screws,

pieces of wire, safety pins--these would work for a while, then snap.

Eventually we could fight the wind no longer and found ourselves firmly

wedged in a floating island of papyrus with hippos grunting and snorting

all

around us.

 

Early in the morning the wind died down, and we were able to pull loose

from the papyrus stems and nurse the motor along with a last nail that had

held our only paddle together.

 

One sheaf of Rom's letters concerns a World Wide Fund for Nature

assignment

in Irian Jaya, an Indonesian province on the island of New Guinea. Rom

sought to determine whether the area held enough crocodiles to support a

skin trade. Native people proved a danger:

 

Dear Zai: Here I am on the last lap of our expedition into the Asmat, the

region which gained notoriety when anthropologist Michael Rockefeller

disappeared there in the late 1950s. With me are the head of WWF in Irian

Jaya and two officials of the wildlife department. Our guide stayed

behind,

refusing to venture into the land of the Orang Hutan, the jungle people.

The

area is far beyond the patrols of the Indonesians or the camps of the

missionaries. But it's here on the remote unhunted stretches of the

Eilanden

River, I'm sure, that the crocs live. We were all nervous, but so far all

we'd seen of the Orang Hutan were abandoned hunting and fishing camps.

 

Then it happened. Up ahead, four naked men walked slowly up the bank

toward

the oncoming boat. All were armed with bows and arrows, one carried an

ornately carved shield. We exchanged glances: How should we react? Just

then

one of the men smiled and waved, and we decided to stop and meet them.

We'd

have to pass this way back down the river, and must be careful not to

initiate any feeling of hostility. Besides, our rubber boat seemed a

tempting target and was far from arrow--proof.

 

But it was an anxious half hour. We could communicate only by smiles and

gestures, and the uncertainty about our intentions made them skittish;

they

began muttering to each other and seemed clearly irritated. I pulled out

some chunks of the black tobacco much favored by bush people throughout

New

Guinea island. Leaving that in their hands, we made a reasonably graceful

getaway.

 

Perhaps it had been foolish to come chugging into this hidden land. But

the

reward was hundreds of crocodiles, some of them so unused to humans I

could

get out on the bank and walk right up to them.

 

Rom found greater threats closer to home. Straddling the border of India

and

Bangladesh and fringing the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers is

a

10,400 square-kilometers (4,000-sq.mi.) mangrove swamp called the

Sundarbans, an area synonymous with man-eating tigers. While Rom was there

for a three-week croc survey, tigers ate six people. The threat of tiger

attack led to some claustrophobic restrictions:

 

Dear Zai: An armed guard shadows me day and night, even grudging me a

private moment behind a bush. At first this entire loss of privacy irks

me.

But then the reminders are everywhere: accounts of the latest attacks on

fishermen and honey collectors, warnings from the Forest Department about

especially troublesome tigers, shorts or sarongs of victims hung on poles

along the waterways to mark scenes of recent deaths. Tigers kill an

estimated 100 people in the Sundarbans every year.

 

We have been cruising the side creeks at night in a dinghy, looking for

the

eye-shine of saltwater crocs. By day we stumble through dense thickets of

tiger fern, looking for croc nests, tigers constantly on our minds. Some

of

the biggest crocs in the world live here but are too wary to approach. On

Ihinbaria Khal (creek) a 5-meter (16-ft.) salty swam lazily ahead of us

for

long minutes, the powerful tail swinging slowly from side to side.

 

That evening I took a walk inland (along with the obligatory armed tiger

guard) among the spiky mangrove roots. There was a sudden, almost

imperceptible movement behind us and Omar Ali spun round, cocked rifle

disconcertingly close to my head. A beautiful dark cobra poised upright,

hood spread and alert, watching us from the chocolate ooze.

 

All the stress and strain has proved worth enduring, because the Madras

Crocodile Bank is a big success. Today it is home to more than 10,000

crocodiles of 10 species and serves as a base for a number of conservation

projects, from reforestation of cleared lands to research in the remote

Andaman Islands, home of the saltwater crocodile. Chitra, still with us,

has

proved a super-efficient egg machine, laying more than 700 eggs with a

92-percent hatch rate.

 

In 1975, the Indian government, with FAO help, set up its own

captive-breeding facilities, and the Madras bank has supplied them with

stock. Captive breeding has permitted the release of more than 1,300

gharials and 1,000 saltwater crocodiles and has helped restock the mugger

crocodile in 28 national parks, wildlife reserves and crocodile

sanctuaries

throughout India.

 

Some state governments have been resisting further mugger releases because

they think crocs compete with fishermen. Ironically, the largest mugger

population in south India lives in the Amaravati Reservoir, which also has

India's highest fish catch. Nevertheless, the government has stopped

releasing muggers, which breed better in captivity than do the other two

species and threaten to outgrow breeding facilities.

 

The solution to overcrowding, Rom and I think, is sale of excess muggers

to

the skin trade. Croc trade has worked in Papua New Guinea, where

government-monitored trade in croc skins brings in $2 million yearly, with

much of the money going directly to tribal communities. For India, where

half a billion citizens live on the edge of A poverty, trade could help

both

people and crocs.

 

However, the Indian government opposes croc trade out of fear that it

could

be used to mask poaching of wild crocodiles.

 

With or without trade, life goes on at the croc bank. As this is being

written, a fax arrives inviting Rom to Bangladesh as part of a wildlife

consultant team. This of course means more mud, tiger guards and

mosquitoes.

 

I think I'll just wait here at home for his letters.

 

Zai Whitaker's book Snakeman, published in India, tells more about Rom and

about Zai's life with him. London-based photographer Michael Freeman has

visited the Whitakers twice on assignment for International Wildlife.

 

[Guest guest]

Dear colleagues,

What I find very worrying about these ranching

suggestions is that they are being touted as modern scientific methods. We

are having suggestions to cull elephants. There are suggestions to open the

tiger products market. The gharial, which is now threatened with extinction,

is also up for for this so called sustainable use. I am in complete

agreement with Dr Krishna, crocodiles have purposefully been allowed to

breed in excess so that culling could be offered as the only way out. As

more and more of these culling policies find their way into mainstream

conservation policies, it will become progressively more difficult for

animals to be respected for their own intrinsic worth. I am always amused

that these so called scientists never ever apply the 'population management'

theory to our own species, principally because it is not deemed to be

politically correct. But if one species needs population management, it is

Homo sapiens rather than Crocodylus palustris or Panthera tigris.

Best wishes and kind regards,

 

 

 

 

On 2/17/07, Dr.Chinny Krishna <drkrishna wrote:

>

> Certainly not - animals are being allowed to breed in excess so that

> ranching will then be offered as a " sensible alternative " .

>

> S. Chinny Krishna

>

>

>

> ** [journalistandanimals]

> *Sent:* Friday, February 16, 2007 12:55 PM

> *To:* aapn

> *Subject:* Should India start commercial ranching of crocodiles?

>

> http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1170/is_n6_v24/ai_16364232 I

> married a croc man - Romulus Whitaker

> <http://www.findarticles.com/p/search?tb=art & qt=%22Zai+Whitaker%22>

>

> When Zai married Rom, she might have expected children--but what about

> those

> 10,000 crocodiles in the backyard?

>

> LATE ONE HOT JUNE NIGHT in 1974, my husband Romulus Whitaker and his

> friend

> Rajamani, an Irula tribesman from southern India, crouched on an

> embankment

> of a large reservoir in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, each holding one

> end

> of a tightly stretched net. I sat nearby in the humid darkness, waiting.

>

> We had come here in response to a desperate telegram from the local

> irrigation engineer, who wanted us to catch a 2-meter (7-ft.) mugger, or

> marsh, crocodile that had been hunting in nearby rice paddies, trampling

> crops and perhaps killing a goat. Since crocodiles have been dwindling in

> India for at least 50 years, the summons could not be ignored. If we did

> not

> catch the mugger, villagers would likely kill it. The engineer told us to

> set our net at the embankment, the mugger's frequent haunt.

>

> Chewed by mosquitoes and soggy from the damp ground, I sat as immobile as

> possible, ears straining, waiting for the croc. Around midnight I heard

> squishing footsteps. I backed away as a low, dark shape materialized and

> slid toward me. I prepared to bolt, but just then the mugger slid into the

> trap. Rom and Rajamani jumped on it, and it bellowed like a cow being

> slaughtered.

>

> Next morning we unravelled Chitra, as Rajamani had named the female croc,

> and packed her into our Jeep for the ride to Vadanemmeli, a village on

> India's south coast where we were starting a crocodile breeding facility

> called the Madras Crocodile Bank. Chitra became one of the bank's first

> residents.

>

> Indiscriminate killing and habitat loss have led to serious declines in

> most

> of the 23 crocodilian species worldwide. Several face extinction, posing a

> significant biological and economic loss. As the largest predators in

> their

> habitats, crocodilians play an important role in the natural balances of

> their ecosystems. By digging burrows and deep pools, they create water

> holes

> that sustain many other creatures during droughts. Yearly international

> trade in croc skins, accounting for some 1.5 million hides, is worth about

> $200 million.

>

> Trade, both from controlled hunting and farming, has proved a useful

> conservation tool when well regulated, since it makes the reptiles

> valuable

> to local people who might otherwise kill them indiscriminately. In recent

> years, conservation groups and government agencies have. initiated

> crocodile

> recovery projects, including restocking programs in India for which the

> Madras Crocodile Bank has served as a source of animals.

>

> Rom's interest in reptiles dates to his childhood in upstate New York,

> where

> he kept wild snakes as pets and learned his ABCS with " A is for Amphibian,

> B

> is for Brontosaurus, C is for Coral Snake, " and so on. In 1951, when Rom

> was

> 8, his mother's second husband, a Bombay filmmaker, moved the family to

> India. The new home was a reptile lover's heaven, and Rom soon became

> versed

> in the ways of the Indian forest and its mildlife.

>

> He returned to the United States for college, but soon dropped out to work

> on a Florida snake farm. Later, after a stint in the U.S. Army, he went to

> the American Southwest and caught enough rattlesnakes to make $500 from

> venom

>

> dealers. With the money he bought passage on a slow freighter to India,

> where, in 1969, he opened his own snake farm near Madras.

>

> In 1972, Rom approached. World Wildlife Fund-India (WWF) for a grant and

> met

> my father, Zafar Futehally, who had started the group. Rom became active

> in

> WWF activities, lecturing on snake conservation, which is how I met him.

> The

> tall, blond snakeman who spoke Hindi and Tamil was a hit with the crowds,

> and also with me. We married in

>

> 1974 and spent our honeymoon in a forest chasing down pit vipers, king

> cobras and other snakes.

>

> Once back home, Rom forged ahead with his newest project--the Madras

> Crocodile Bank. Rom conceived the bank in 1973, when he and Rajamani

> conducted crocodile surveys in four Indian states whose rivers, at the

> turn

> of the century, had teemed with crocodiles. By 1973, India's three

> crocodile

> species--the mugger, saltwater croc and gharial--were in trouble.

> Poachers,

> egg collectors, fishermen and dam projects contributed to the species'

> declines. India's gharial was nearly gone--fewer than 200 survived in the

> wild. Rom's plan was to breed crocs in captivity and release some into the

> wild.

>

> We set up the Madras Crocodile Bank on India's Coromandel Coast, an ideal

> site because it offered a reliable water supply and also a heavy tourist

> flow along the nearby Madras-Mahabalipuram road, which leads to famous

> temples. Rom figured that some travelers would stop to buy tickets and see

> the crocodiles, ensuring that we could meet our overhead. Today, a million

> visitors a year make the bank self-sufficient.

>

> Since the 1970s, various organizations have hired Rom to survey vanishing

> crocodile populations. Early in our marriage I joined Rom on these trips,

> but since the arrival, of our two sons I usually have enjoyed Rom's field

> experiences vicariously--and in the comfort of home --through the gnarled,

> blotched letters he writes while traveling primordial swamps. These

> letters

> reveal the hardships that field biologists endure.

>

> For example, when Mozambique recently undertook drainage of he Zambezi

> River

> flood plain for agriculture, wiping out crocodile habitat, the UN Food and

> Agriculture Organization (FAO) sent Rom there to determine whether enough

> crocs remained to sustain a skin trade (Rom found that crocs could produce

> more income for impoverished local fishermen than could crops). While on

> this assignment, the skies proved the worst enemy:

>

> Dear Zai: We forged a channel in the fleshy papyrus with our machetes.

> Frog

> calls rose from the two ends of the lake like a natural stereo system;

> closer to us, the grunting laugh of hippos foraging in the reeds. I was on

> Massingir Reservoir with two hefty Chengana fishermen as guides.

>

> When we started back across the wide lake at midnight, jagged fingers of

> lightning exploded from every direction. The wind picked up, gentle first

> then whip ping up the water until waves crashed over the side of the boat.

> We headed into the wind to keep from being tipped over, but where was the

> shore? We listened to the oncoming roar of the rain.

>

> Then another sound, closer: right under us. We'd hit a floating log,

> snapping the shear pin of the propeller. Helpless, we were tossed and

> shoved

> by the wind back across the lake. Holding on to the reeds to keep from

> turning over, we searched frantically for a substitute prop pin. Screws,

> pieces of wire, safety pins--these would work for a while, then snap.

> Eventually we could fight the wind no longer and found ourselves firmly

> wedged in a floating island of papyrus with hippos grunting and snorting

> all

> around us.

>

> Early in the morning the wind died down, and we were able to pull loose

> from the papyrus stems and nurse the motor along with a last nail that had

> held our only paddle together.

>

> One sheaf of Rom's letters concerns a World Wide Fund for Nature

> assignment

> in Irian Jaya, an Indonesian province on the island of New Guinea. Rom

> sought to determine whether the area held enough crocodiles to support a

> skin trade. Native people proved a danger:

>

> Dear Zai: Here I am on the last lap of our expedition into the Asmat, the

> region which gained notoriety when anthropologist Michael Rockefeller

> disappeared there in the late 1950s. With me are the head of WWF in Irian

> Jaya and two officials of the wildlife department. Our guide stayed

> behind,

> refusing to venture into the land of the Orang Hutan, the jungle people.

> The

> area is far beyond the patrols of the Indonesians or the camps of the

> missionaries. But it's here on the remote unhunted stretches of the

> Eilanden

> River, I'm sure, that the crocs live. We were all nervous, but so far all

> we'd seen of the Orang Hutan were abandoned hunting and fishing camps.

>

> Then it happened. Up ahead, four naked men walked slowly up the bank

> toward

> the oncoming boat. All were armed with bows and arrows, one carried an

> ornately carved shield. We exchanged glances: How should we react? Just

> then

> one of the men smiled and waved, and we decided to stop and meet them.

> We'd

> have to pass this way back down the river, and must be careful not to

> initiate any feeling of hostility. Besides, our rubber boat seemed a

> tempting target and was far from arrow--proof.

>

> But it was an anxious half hour. We could communicate only by smiles and

> gestures, and the uncertainty about our intentions made them skittish;

> they

> began muttering to each other and seemed clearly irritated. I pulled out

> some chunks of the black tobacco much favored by bush people throughout

> New

> Guinea island. Leaving that in their hands, we made a reasonably graceful

> getaway.

>

> Perhaps it had been foolish to come chugging into this hidden land. But

> the

> reward was hundreds of crocodiles, some of them so unused to humans I

> could

> get out on the bank and walk right up to them.

>

> Rom found greater threats closer to home. Straddling the border of India

> and

> Bangladesh and fringing the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers is

> a

> 10,400 square-kilometers (4,000-sq.mi.) mangrove swamp called the

> Sundarbans, an area synonymous with man-eating tigers. While Rom was there

> for a three-week croc survey, tigers ate six people. The threat of tiger

> attack led to some claustrophobic restrictions:

>

> Dear Zai: An armed guard shadows me day and night, even grudging me a

> private moment behind a bush. At first this entire loss of privacy irks

> me.

> But then the reminders are everywhere: accounts of the latest attacks on

> fishermen and honey collectors, warnings from the Forest Department about

> especially troublesome tigers, shorts or sarongs of victims hung on poles

> along the waterways to mark scenes of recent deaths. Tigers kill an

> estimated 100 people in the Sundarbans every year.

>

> We have been cruising the side creeks at night in a dinghy, looking for

> the

> eye-shine of saltwater crocs. By day we stumble through dense thickets of

> tiger fern, looking for croc nests, tigers constantly on our minds. Some

> of

> the biggest crocs in the world live here but are too wary to approach. On

> Ihinbaria Khal (creek) a 5-meter (16-ft.) salty swam lazily ahead of us

> for

> long minutes, the powerful tail swinging slowly from side to side.

>

> That evening I took a walk inland (along with the obligatory armed tiger

> guard) among the spiky mangrove roots. There was a sudden, almost

> imperceptible movement behind us and Omar Ali spun round, cocked rifle

> disconcertingly close to my head. A beautiful dark cobra poised upright,

> hood spread and alert, watching us from the chocolate ooze.

>

> All the stress and strain has proved worth enduring, because the Madras

> Crocodile Bank is a big success. Today it is home to more than 10,000

> crocodiles of 10 species and serves as a base for a number of conservation

> projects, from reforestation of cleared lands to research in the remote

> Andaman Islands, home of the saltwater crocodile. Chitra, still with us,

> has

> proved a super-efficient egg machine, laying more than 700 eggs with a

> 92-percent hatch rate.

>

> In 1975, the Indian government, with FAO help, set up its own

> captive-breeding facilities, and the Madras bank has supplied them with

> stock. Captive breeding has permitted the release of more than 1,300

> gharials and 1,000 saltwater crocodiles and has helped restock the mugger

> crocodile in 28 national parks, wildlife reserves and crocodile

> sanctuaries

> throughout India.

>

> Some state governments have been resisting further mugger releases because

> they think crocs compete with fishermen. Ironically, the largest mugger

> population in south India lives in the Amaravati Reservoir, which also has

> India's highest fish catch. Nevertheless, the government has stopped

> releasing muggers, which breed better in captivity than do the other two

> species and threaten to outgrow breeding facilities.

>

> The solution to overcrowding, Rom and I think, is sale of excess muggers

> to

> the skin trade. Croc trade has worked in Papua New Guinea, where

> government-monitored trade in croc skins brings in $2 million yearly, with

> much of the money going directly to tribal communities. For India, where

> half a billion citizens live on the edge of A poverty, trade could help

> both

> people and crocs.

>

> However, the Indian government opposes croc trade out of fear that it

> could

> be used to mask poaching of wild crocodiles.

>

> With or without trade, life goes on at the croc bank. As this is being

> written, a fax arrives inviting Rom to Bangladesh as part of a wildlife

> consultant team. This of course means more mud, tiger guards and

> mosquitoes.

>

> I think I'll just wait here at home for his letters.

>

> Zai Whitaker's book Snakeman, published in India, tells more about Rom and

> about Zai's life with him. London-based photographer Michael Freeman has

> visited the Whitakers twice on assignment for International Wildlife.

>

>

[Guest guest]

Maybe someone could introduce crocodile polo.

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

[ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing

original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide,

founded in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the

decision-makers at more than 10,000 animal protection organizations.

We have no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. $24/year;

for free sample, send address.]

[Guest guest]

" Maybe someone could introduce crocodile polo. "

--\

--

 

If we can cut the comedy please, this is something that demands serious

attention atleast amongst the Asian Nations.

The World Bank and its sister associations have been engaged in commercial

farming of Crocodiles in Bangladesh for many years now.

They are now hell bent on popularising 'Crocodile Farming' in the North east

states of India as well. In a seminar which was sponsored by the World Bank

some time back in Guwahati, I happened to go through the brouchure/leaflets

which was distributed amongst the delegates / entrepreneurs present and was

shocked to see that pictures of corcodiles in Bangladesh farms were shown,

along with statistics and data as to how lucrative it is to be involved in

this business.

 

You have 'Elephant Experts' suggesting wierd things as 'Commercial Elephant

Cullings', you have the World Bank promoting 'Commercial Crocodile Farming',

you have China sponsoring Indian journalists to visit 'Tiger Farms' so that

'Commercial Tiger Farming' gets a nod in India as well.

 

Where is India going ?????

 

I am afraid if things are not arrested in the begining, just like the Tribal

Bill all the above discussed plans can fast turn into reality.

 

Azam Siddiqui

 

 

On 2/17/07, Merritt Clifton <anmlpepl wrote:

>

> Maybe someone could introduce crocodile polo.

>

> --

> Merritt Clifton

> Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

> P.O. Box 960

> Clinton, WA 98236

>

> Telephone: 360-579-2505

> Fax: 360-579-2575

> E-mail: anmlpepl <anmlpepl%40whidbey.com>

> Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

>

> [ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing

> original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide,

> founded in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the

> decision-makers at more than 10,000 animal protection organizations.

> We have no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. $24/year;

> for free sample, send address.]

>

>