KANPUR: A gharial was found dead on Wednsday in Chambal river near Udi bridge in Etawah district.
The death of gharial came barely three days after the recovery of a dead Gangetic dolphin in the Sahson area in the upstream of Chambal river in the district on August 5.
The death of gharial came barely three days after the recovery of a dead Gangetic dolphin in the Sahson area in the upstream of Chambal river in the district on August 5.
The dead gharial, which was in a highly decomposed state, was about 3.5 ft in size.
The dead gharial was found to be wearing a yellow colour tag with a serial number 41 inscribed on it, which according to the environmentalists only suggests that the gharial was released by some gharial conservation agency in the river in order to track the movement of critically endangered species.The tracking is expected to help assess the reptile's survival rate and the status of its preferred habitat in rivers across the region.
In 2007, gharial ( Gavialis gangeticus) was listed as "Critically Endangered" in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The recovery of a dead gharial with a number tag, however, has left the UP forest department officials perturbed. "As such kind of tagging has not been done by us, we therefore contacted officials of Deori Gharial breeding centre of MP (Madhya Pradesh) and apprised them about the dead gharial, but they also feigned ignorance about any such tagging activity being carried by them in recent time," said Mahaveer Prasad, range officer, National Chambal sanctuary.
Gharials are only released in their habitat after they attains the age of three years and grew upto 120 cm in size.
Prasad further said that as the carcass was in highly decomposed state it was difficult to ascertain the exact cause of death at this point of time. "We would try to find out the immediate cause by conducting its post-mortem," he added. Sources, however, informed that the body of gharial was found to be entangled in a fishing net, which suggested that the fishermen might have killed the reptile when it apparently got entangled in fishing net.
Currently, besides Chambal, gharials are found only in the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the Mahanadi river systems in India and Nepal.
From November, 2007 till March, 2008, more than 112 gharials have died in the Chambal river from an unknown disease with gout-like symptoms. This recent death toll is expected to have decreased the number of breeding pairs. In 2007-2008, most of the gharials were found dead near the Sahson, the same spot where a female gangetic dolphin and a gharial have been found dead in past couple of days.
The World Wide Fund for Nature-India estimates that more than 100 gharials have died in the sanctuary since December 2007. Most of the dead gharials were spotted at the confluence of the rivers Chambal and Yamuna. The river Chambal is the largest of only three remaining breeding populations of gharial left in the world.
According to Rajiv Chauhan, secretary society for conservation of nature, who was actively involved with the conservation of gharial in the region said, "If measures of protection are not intensively taken then gharials would be wiped out from the region."
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-08-09/kanpur/33118267_1_gharials-national-chambal-sanctuary-nature-india-estimates
The dead gharial was found to be wearing a yellow colour tag with a serial number 41 inscribed on it, which according to the environmentalists only suggests that the gharial was released by some gharial conservation agency in the river in order to track the movement of critically endangered species.The tracking is expected to help assess the reptile's survival rate and the status of its preferred habitat in rivers across the region.
In 2007, gharial ( Gavialis gangeticus) was listed as "Critically Endangered" in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The recovery of a dead gharial with a number tag, however, has left the UP forest department officials perturbed. "As such kind of tagging has not been done by us, we therefore contacted officials of Deori Gharial breeding centre of MP (Madhya Pradesh) and apprised them about the dead gharial, but they also feigned ignorance about any such tagging activity being carried by them in recent time," said Mahaveer Prasad, range officer, National Chambal sanctuary.
Gharials are only released in their habitat after they attains the age of three years and grew upto 120 cm in size.
Prasad further said that as the carcass was in highly decomposed state it was difficult to ascertain the exact cause of death at this point of time. "We would try to find out the immediate cause by conducting its post-mortem," he added. Sources, however, informed that the body of gharial was found to be entangled in a fishing net, which suggested that the fishermen might have killed the reptile when it apparently got entangled in fishing net.
Currently, besides Chambal, gharials are found only in the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the Mahanadi river systems in India and Nepal.
From November, 2007 till March, 2008, more than 112 gharials have died in the Chambal river from an unknown disease with gout-like symptoms. This recent death toll is expected to have decreased the number of breeding pairs. In 2007-2008, most of the gharials were found dead near the Sahson, the same spot where a female gangetic dolphin and a gharial have been found dead in past couple of days.
The World Wide Fund for Nature-India estimates that more than 100 gharials have died in the sanctuary since December 2007. Most of the dead gharials were spotted at the confluence of the rivers Chambal and Yamuna. The river Chambal is the largest of only three remaining breeding populations of gharial left in the world.
According to Rajiv Chauhan, secretary society for conservation of nature, who was actively involved with the conservation of gharial in the region said, "If measures of protection are not intensively taken then gharials would be wiped out from the region."
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-08-09/kanpur/33118267_1_gharials-national-chambal-sanctuary-nature-india-estimates
