Tide turns, gharials swim back from brink of extinction

CHANDIGARH: In a historic day for wildlife conservation and the campaign for clean rivers, 10 gharials from the Chhatbir zoo were released into Beas River at Gagdewal, upstream of the Harike wildlife sanctuary, at 11.30 am on Monday. The re-introduction of this critically endangered species comes nearly six decades after it was officially declared extinct in Punjab.
The seven female and three male gharials of the first batch of 10 were also the first to be re-introduced on the Indus river system and fulfilled the long term aim of 'Project Crocodile' initiated in 1975.

In July, the Punjab government had declared Beas River as a conservation reserve and banned commercial fishing and other activities harmful to riverine ecology. "The re-introduction of gharials on the Beas constitutes a historic landmark.

For decades, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had been seeking the gharial's re-introduction on the sub-continent's three river systems. While the species has been successfully re-introduced on the Ganges river system, gharials were missing from the Indus and Brahmputra.

Pakistan government is also working to re-introduce the gharial at the Indus's Sukkur barrage. However, India has taken a lead and the Harike-Beas release marks the gharial's first re-introduction in the Indus system," crocodilian expert and former IUCN West Asia crocodile specialist group chairman B C Choudhury told TOI.

Choudhury was one of the four Indian scientists who launched 'Project Crocodile' in 1975 under the leadership of the Australian expert Robert Bustard. While Choudhury was also the guiding light for the gharial re-introduction on the Beas and had chosen Gagdewal as the site for the first release, it was his student, Neeraj Gupta, who laid the foundations for this return from extinction. As DFO (Wildlife) at Ferozepur in 2015 and later as DFO (HQs), Gupta had conducted the feasibility studies and the critical public outreach programmes to reduce fear of this purely fish-eating species, which does not attack humans.

After the gharials were released at 11.35 am on Monday, it took the reptiles 45 minutes to warm up and then head towards their natural habitat, the Beas, and they swam strongly and confidently into the water currents. "There was opposition to the gharial release from the sand mafia, fish poaching mafia and a section of the peasantry goaded by political vested interests but the release went smoothly with Gagdewal's support. The Punjab CM, who holds the wildlife portfolio, backed the release fully. The next batch of 15 gharials will be released in the second week of January," Punjab chief wildlife warden Kuldip Kumar told TOI.

The release was facilitated on Monday by the support of the people of Gagdewal village, led by sarpanch Kulwant Singh.

"The WWF-India' s technical monitoring team under Gitanjali Kanwar was also present at the release. Four of the gharials swam upstream of the Beas after release while six went downstream," Kumar added.