NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, FEB 8
Faced with dwindling income owing to the COVID-induced restrictions and the problem of plenty, the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust is sending hundreds of ‘surplus’ mugger crocodiles for their new home at the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre (GZRRC) in Jamnagar 2,000 km away in Gujarat.
The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) has permitted GZRRC, which is part of the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Kingdom also called Reliance Zoo, to acquire 1,000 mugger crocodiles, said to be in surplus, from the city facility.
The permission was accorded in April last year under Section 38(I) of Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, which allows acquisition or transfer of captive animals from or to a recognised zoo. Sonali Ghosh, Deputy Inspector General of Forest, CZA, has written a letter to Tamil Nadu Chief Wildlife Warden giving approval for the transfer of 350 male and 650 female surplus crocodiles on the condition that the animals shall be housed in an off-display facility of the zoo in such a way that they do not breed.
CZA officials said the request for transfer came from the Madras Crocodile Bank which is reeling under severe financial crunch for the last couple of years due to forced Covid-19 lockdowns.
The Madras crocodile bank was struggling to feed the animals. Chief Wildlife Warden Shekhar Kumar Niraj has given a transit permit to Madras crocodile bank to relocate 300 crocodiles, all male muggers.
On January 11 this year, a transit permit was given to relocate 250 more crocodiles in five batches. As per the annual report for 2019-20 uploaded on CZA website, Madras crocodile bank as on March 31, 2020 has over 2,000 crocodiles of 17 different species, of which 1,820 are mugger crocodiles. So, the croc bank chose to give away almost 50 percent of its crocodilians
