Baz Kanda What a Croc!

The first time I heard about the Madras Crocodile Bank
in India was when I watched a show about it on the
National Geographic Channel. I was amazed by the
number of crocodiles I saw at this place and
fascinated by the conservation work that was being
done there. After seeing this place on television on a
few popular nature shows I was determined to go there
and experience it myself. Being a wildlife educator at
Little Rays Reptile Zoo in Ottawa I felt that it was
very important for me to get real hands-on experience
with crocodiles and other reptiles at such an
important conservation facility in India as this would
allow me to bring my own experience and new knowledge
into the wildlife presentations I do for the public
here in Canada.

The Madras Crocodile Bank was started in 1976 by
herpetologist Romulus Whitaker. Its goal was to
conserve the 3 crocodile species of India: the mugger
(or marsh) crocodile, the saltwater crocodile and the
highly endangered gharial. Poachers and habitat
destruction had brought all of them (especially the
gharial) very close to extinction in this country. The
Croc Bank was to become a breeding centre and a centre
for research and education on crocodiles and other
reptiles. In 1976 there were only 25 crocodiles at the
inauguration of this facility but now there are over
6000 crocodilians from 14 of the 23 species in the
world!

The Croc Bank also contains the Irula Snake Co-op
where venomous snakes such as kraits, Russell's
vipers, spectacled cobras and saw-scaled vipers are
"milked" for their venom. The venomous snakes are made
to bite down on a small container which is covered by
a cloth and as they bite down the venom drips from
their fangs into the small glass container. The snakes
are housed in clay pots which are sealed with a cloth
and secured by strong rubber bands. This venom is sold
to labs which use it to create anti-venin to treat
snake bites. The Irulas are a tribal people whos
primary source of income was through catching snakes
and selling their leather. The Irulas can track snakes
by following telltale signs on the ground to burrows
where the snakes may be hiding. Using nothing more
than a metal bar to dig the soil and bare hands, these
people easily catch highly venomous snakes like
cobras, vipers and kraits. In the 1970s India passed a
law which forbade the killing of these snakes and left
the Irulas without a source of income. The Irulas of
Chingleput district on the shores of the Bay of Bengal
banded together in 1978 and formed the Irula Snake
Catchers Industrial Co-operative Society under the
leadership of Romulus Whitaker. Now instead of killing
the snakes they caught they would keep them for 3
weeks, "milk" them and then release them safely back
into the wild. The Irulas were now using their
tracking skills to make money from the venom that was
sold to the labs. Snake venom now became known as
"Liquid Gold of the Irulas".

I left Ottawa to spend some time at the Croc Bank in
the beginning of August this year. I travelled from
Ottawa, to Vancouver, to South Korea to Singapore and
then finally to my destination in Chennai (Madras,
India). Two zoo keepers from Jungle Cat World in Orono
(Jen Rosell and Ashley Kirk) had decided to come with
me on this trip to gain experience and knowledge. The
journey was very long but it was well worth it. We got
to the Croc Bank in the middle of the night during an
intense thunder storm. We walked to our rooms through
this storm with large branches breaking and falling in
front of us from the trees. It was pitch black and we
put our hands on low brick walls to catch our balance
and to help guide us through the night. In the morning
we would learn and see that these were the walls of
enclosures which housed large mugger and saltwater
crocodiles!

The next day we met Harry Andrews who is the Director
of the Madras Crocodile Bank. We discussed some of the
things that we would be doing in the next 2 weeks
while we were there. We wanted to get some experience
catching crocs and they needed some crocs moved to
different pits. Some gharials had to be moved to an
underwater viewing enclosure in preparation for a BBC
documentary that was going to be filmed there. They
also wanted us to do a couple of wildlife
presentations and feeding demonstrations for them at
the Croc Bank and at their NatureQuest Centre in
Chennai city.

In the next few days we caught many crocodiles. We
started off with the young mugger crocs and learned
how to noose them and after they were caught we had to
determine the sex of the crocodile by turning it over
and opening up its cloaca with a pair of tweezers. If
we saw hemipenes then it was a male. A couple of days
later I moved on to catching much larger mugger crocs
in the 6ft range. It's not easy catching an angry croc
in 40 degrees Celsius, noosing it, throwing a sack
cloth over its eyes, jumping and sitting on its back,
restraining its mouth with rubber bands and then
flipping it over and determining the sex not with
tweezers but with my finger! A few of these crocs
would charge towards me with their mouths open when I
tried to catch them! What a rush! I loved every second
of it! I was very grateful to all the people there who
were patient and willing to teach me how to do all
this - especially Ganga and Munsami. Munsami spoke
English quite well but Ganga did not know much English
and I did not know how to speak Tamil but we still
managed to communicate and have a good laugh somehow.
Before this I had only seen people like the Crocodile
Hunter catch crocs on TV but now I was doing the same
thing. After these practice catches we had to catch
and remove weak crocs from their pits and move them to
another pit where special care could be given to them
to bring them back to health. You can tell a weak or
malnourished crocodile because the end of its tail
flops to the ground sideways.

On one of the days we had to remove a couple of fully
grown female gharials from their pit and move them to
an underwater viewing enclosure for a BBC documentary.
This was one the most memorable experiences I had.
First we constructed a fence by tying a few square
metal gratings together. Then 7 of us held the fence
up in front of us and walked into the gharial pond.
Taking one step at a time and resting the fence just
in front of our feet. We were basically herding 14
full grown gharial crocs to one end of the pond. The
water was up to my chest in the deepest part of the
pond. Sometimes the angry gharials would ram the fence
we were holding up. Sometimes the female gharials
would insert their slender snouts through the holes in
the fence and we had to move our bodies out of the
way! One of the most amazing things to see is to have
an angry adult male gharial's head (I estimated this
male to be around 13ft) emerge from the water just
inches away from me, hissing and blowing bubbles
through his nostrils. I was also told beforehand that
the gharials sometimes dig body pits in the mud at the
bottom of the pond so that the fence would pass right
over them. I found this out when I stepped on the head
of one of them and he rammed my ankle with a head
blow! No injury though thank God. If that wasn't bad
enough we had to be weary of large soft shelled
turtles which lived in the same pond and give a nasty
bite ripping off chunks of flesh. Suddenly my toes and
other parts of me didn't feel so safe! After we had
herded the gharials to one end of the pond we embedded
large wooden poles into the mud in the water and tied
the fence to it. This would allow us to get out onto
the bank and noose the gharials which we did. It took
4 of us to haul one out. Gharials are huge
crocodilians but extremely fragile. The build up of
lactic acid in its body and stress through a struggle
can kill it. We had to work as fast as we could to
transport it to the underwater viewing enclosure at
the other end of the Croc Bank.

We also went field herping quite a few times during
our stay at the Madras Crocodile Bank. Our guide was
Sampat who is an Irula and works for the Croc Bank. I
was amazed at his tracking skills. I lost count of how
many rat snakes he found. He would spot a burrow in
the ground which looked exactly like the burrow next
to it but he knew which had an animal in it and which
one was empty. Sampat would start digging with his
only tool which was a simple metal rod that was
flattened on one end and out would pop a rat snake or
a sand boa or a scorpion or a toad or a huge spider.
It was funny to think that the real professional was
out here catching snakes with a metal rod and wearing
flip flops and here we were in our boots and fancy
retractable snake hooks! I have no clue how Sampat
managed to spot a small saw-scaled viper in a tiny
bush while we were out snake wrangling. The saw scaled
viper is one of the 4 most deadly snakes in India. We
managed to pull it out of the bush with a small snake
hook and get some good photographs of it.

I wanted to take as many photographs as I could at the
Croc Bank and the Irula Snake Co-op because I wanted
to send these photographs back to them so they could
use them for any promotional material for their
facilities. The people at the Irula Snake co-op were
kind enough to take some cobras, Russell's vipers and
kraits out for me to photograph. I was lucky enough to
photograph a leucistic krait which is pure white with
black eyes and I believe it is the only one ever
recorded.

We were also lucky enough to meet Romulus Whitaker and
have lunch with him at his house. It was great to meet
the man who started the Croc Bank and headed the Irula
Snake Co-op. I have a lot of respect for someone like
him who started such great projects. He inspires me to
do as much as I can in this field and make a
difference.

The people at the Croc Bank did a lot for us and I
wanted to give back in any way I could so I jumped at
the chance to do a couple of wildlife presentations
for them. We did one for the "Friends of the Croc
Bank" which is a children's club. I first took them on
a feeding tour around the facility as I fed the
muggers, gharials, and some of the other crocs while
educating the children about them. The feeding show
ended with me hand feeding "Jaws 3" the 16ft Saltwater
crocodile. There is nothing like being in the same
enclosure as a 16ft beast with a mouth full of teeth
as thick as my thumb! I had entered the pit with this
crocodile a few times before and fed him with one of
his keepers (Munsami) in preparation. I have also
worked with crocodilians in captivity at Little Rays
Reptile Zoo but nothing that even comes close to the
size of "Jaws 3". After the feedings we took the
children for a hands-on presentation with other
reptiles in which I introduced them to a reticulated
python, boa constrictor, bronzeback tree snake, baby
gharials, baby nile crocodiles and travancore
tortoises. A couple of newspaper reporters and
photographers were present and some people from the
local television station were filming also. It was
great publicity for the Crocodile Bank and they got a
lot of positive feedback in the following days from
people who saw us on television.

We did another wildlife presentation at the
NatureQuest Centre in Chennai city. I believe this is
the first time a wildlife presentation with live
animals has been done in the city there. I started off
with a slide show showing the outreach programs we do
at Little Rays Reptile Zoo. I discussed the importance
of these outreach shows, especially for children who
live in the cities, and how these would help them
appreciate and respect animals and nature in general.
I also wanted to stress that the Forestry Department
in India should work closely with the Madras Crocodile
Bank for it to be able to reach the public, especially
the children, in the city through outreach
presentations with live animals. Such a respected
facility like the Madras Crocodile Bank should have
the freedom to spread its message of conservation to
the public. I can understand the need for strict laws
which regulate the transport of animals into the city
to prevent abuse of animals from those who would just
want to make a profit off them, but there should be
more co-operation between the government and those
institutions which are doing good conservation work.
After the slide show I did a hands-on presentation
with a young mugger crocodile, alligator, baby nile
crocodile and gharial and discussed the differences
and similarities between them. We also brought out an
iguana, star tortoise, reticulated python and boa
constrictor as I educated the audience on these
animals. The crowd was amazed to see me wrap a tame
boa constrictor around a young boy. Most of these
people have never touched a crocodilian before or
petted a large snake.

Some other highlights for me were feeding the king
cobras, removing 3 very aggressive and large Indian
rock pythons that wanted to bite my face off from an
enclosure, and capturing 2 large water monitor lizards
to move them to another enclosure.

My 2 weeks at the Madras Crocodile Bank just flew by.
I wish I could have stayed longer as it felt like a
second home to me. I really appreciate the hospitality
that Harry Andrews and the rest of the staff showed us
and the opportunity they provided for us to gain the
experience that we did. I hope to work with the Madras
Crocodile Bank again in the not too distant future.
This place is doing a lot of great conservation work
in India and on the Andaman and Nicobar islands with
the sea turtle project there. I encourage everyone to
donate what they can to this place. A little bit of
money can go a long way in India. If anyone would like
to donate to them please send a cheque to: