Concerns over vanishing gharials

There are barely 1300 of gharials in the entire world and most of them are in India. But in the last one month, at least 69 of these suddenly died.

What's shocking is that all of them were in a 40 km stretch of the Chambal river in a Gharial Sanctuary.

No one is sure why they died but experts say it was either contaminated food, fish in this case or a virus.

''Yes, there is a sense of crisis. No one is denying it. We are admitting it. There is a general call for assistance,'' said Ravi Singh, Secretary General, WWF-India.

Finally on Monday, after an expert committee meeting, the government set up a crisis management group to look into the Gharial deaths.

But the damage to the species may already be too huge.

Gharials were on the verge of extinction with less than 300 of them left in the late 70s.

Sustained efforts at captive breeding pushed the numbers up by a thousand in three decades. These deaths will be a huge setback to those efforts.

''If you see the number of animals that survive from the ones which are rehabilitated. Each of these animal is about 50-100 animals. So the loss can be compared to 30 -50 years of conservation effort and operations,'' said D Basu, Gharial Conservationist.

Courtesy:ndtv.com
Complete artical HERE