The Karamjal wildlife breeding and rearing center at the Sundarban east division got 64 young salt water crocodiles on Tuesday and Wednesday, said officials in forest department in Bagerhat.
The center that has three sections – mangrove arboretum, animal hospital and wildlife breeding — and was established in 2002 got the young crocodiles after hatching 78 eggs laid by two crocodiles – Juliet and Pilpil, officials said.
Surprising the forest officials, Pilpil laid 40 eggs for the first time at only 10 years of age though generally the female salt water crocodiles become adult at the age of 12 and lay 19 to 20 eggs for the first time.
Juliet laid 44 eggs on May 14 and six of them were damaged, they said, adding young crocodiles came out of 29 eggs, out of the remaining 36, on Tuesday after they were hatched artificially.
They said Pilpil laid eggs on May 21 and young crocodiles came out of 35 eggs, out of 40, on Wednesday.
'But all the pilpil's youths are ill healthy as her eggs were irregular in size, the egg cells and egg cell membranes were soft and fertility rate was high,' the centre in-charge Md Abdur Rob told New Age on Friday.
The crocodile eggs are hatched artificially to increase their fertility rate, he said, adding that the saline water crocodiles generally lay egg in May-June in the coastal areas.
He said they kept all the young crocodiles in incentive care unit of the centre till Friday morning and later released them in the raring pan.
'We will keep them at the place until they become two-metre long and later they would be released in the rivers as we want to increase the population of the saline water crocodile in the forest,' he said.
With the new 64 crocodiles, the centre will have now 143 crocodiles, said the center officials.
Source : New Age
No comments:
Post a Comment