Friday, December 5th 2008

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World Renowned Herpetologist Romulus Whitaker on the critically endangered Gharial

Rom says……
I started working on gharial conservation in 1973 when my colleagues and I carried out surveys of this strange looking crocodilian in the rivers of the Indian subcontinent. We concluded that there were less than 200 gharial left in the wild and precious few in captivity. We (the Madras Crocodile Bank www.madrascrocodilebank.org/) and the Government of India started working hard to establish captive breeding groups and eggs were collected from wild nests for a head-starting programme that eventually released over 5,000 gharial back to the wild.



However, there are severe problems facing India's rivers in the form of dams, barrages, diversions and canals threatening the gharial and other endangered river fauna including the Ganges river dolphin, turtles, otters and fish. The need of the hour is to impress upon the authorities that we need clean safe rivers for the future of all of us, the creatures included! We will work hard toward this end and the entire global conservation community (and that means all of you out there) has to realize that this is all of our heritage, not just India's. Google up the Gharial Conservation Alliance (www.gharialconservation.org/), get in touch with us and see what you can do to help. Many thanks, from Rom Whitaker and colleagues.



For more information click the following:
www.iconfilms.co.uk/gharial
www.gharialconservation.org

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