Crocodile survey to be undertaken in TN

CHENNAI, June 25: The Madras Crocodile Bank and the Tamil Nadu forest department will jointly undertake the first survey of crocodile population by the end of this year. The initiative comes in the wake of the recent appearance of a salt water crocodile, which had not earlier been sighted in Tamil Nadu, in the city’s Buckingham canal. It may be recalled that the reptile met its death at the hands of panicked hutment dwellers on the banks of the canal. The MCB and the forest department had a meeting recently, as a follow up of a meeting of the West Asian conference on crocodiles held in Gwalior earlier this month. At the conference, it became clear that no clear picture existed regarding the crocodile population in the country. Initially restricted to Tamil Nadu, the survey could be extended to other parts of India, and eventually to the West Asian region as a whole.