110 gharials dead, officials don’t know why

Gharials in the National Chambal Sanctuary in central India are dying despite Govt claims that efforts were on to save them, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Mar 6, 2008, 01:29:15 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Gharials

in the National Chambal Sanctuary in central India are dying despite government claims that efforts were on to save them.

By Monday, 110 of the estimated 182 gharials in the sanctuary had died. Some NGOs suspect the figure is higher.

The Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh governments have joined hands to conserve gharials in this 35-km stretch, but the forest department is still clueless. “What can we do? We rescued three ill gharials but could not save them because they were highly infected,” said an official of the Uttar Pradesh forest department.

The officials said kidney failure was the main reason behind the deaths but toxicology and pathology examinations have thrown up multiple reasons. High level of uric acid was found in the body of the dead crocodiles. The examination of the organs of the dead animals in government institutes at Bareilly and Lucknow found lead concentration between 0.7-1.4 ppm.

Wildlife experts from India and abroad believe the gharials may have got infected through the food chain — that would mean they were infected from the fish in the Chambal river, or at the captive breeding centres. Most of the gharials released in the stretch were from captive breeding centres in Lucknow, a forest department official said. But it could not be ascertained if the gharials that died were from the Lucknow centre.

Wildlife lovers are angry. “It is sad that even months after the deaths, the government has failed to check it,” said Fayaz Khudsar, a wildlife expert working in the Chambal valley.

An Environment Ministry official, a member of the gharial crises management group, said the Centre was providing all possible assistance to check the deaths.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.