The Department of Punjab Forest and Wildlife Preservation, in collaboration with the World-Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF-India), recently released another lot of 23 critically endangered long-snouted gharials into the Beas flowing in Hoshiarpur district.
The gharials were transported in boxes from Chhatbir Zoo in Chandigarh, where they had been kept for a year after being brought from the natural hatchery at Morena in Madhya Pradesh. Gursharan Singh, DFO, Wildlife, Hoshiarpur, said the species were three-year-old. “We had plans to release them in March 2020, but the move was postponed due to the pandemic. So, these were kept at the Chhatbir zoo before their final destination in the Beas.”
A joint monitoring team of the Wildlife Division Hoshiarpur and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), India, has been formed for daily monitoring of gharials for the next one month, officials said.
Geetanjali Kanwar, coordinator – Rivers, Wetlands and Water Policy, World Wildlife Fund-India, said that post release monitoring was one of the vital aspects of the gharial reintroduction. “The surveys will focus on understanding dispersal, habitat preference, population ecology and general wellbeing of the released species,” she said.
The Beas Conservation Reserve — a 185-km stretch of the Beas — was found to be a perfect habitat for the gharials, which were reintroduced into the river two years ago.
It is an extension of the state’s programme, conceptualised in 2005. The gharial reintroduction project of the Punjab forests and wildlife preservation department aims to establish a breeding population of the species in the state’s rivers.
In the phase-I of this project, 47 juvenile gharials were released into the Beas Conservation Reserve in batches between 2017-2018 in Amritsar and Tarn Taran. The number of gharials released has now reached 70.
Before its reintroduction, the endangered animal was spotted the last time in 1974. It was important to reintroduce gharials in this area to complete the food chain.
