How a nearly extinct species of crocodile returned from the abyss in Cambodia

PHNOM TAMAO, Cambodia (AP) — A small snout appeared to widen the crack in the shell of the slowly shattering egg.

The Siamese crocodile was taking its time, lagging behind others who had already writhed, singing, in the sand. Adults can be up to 4 meters (13 feet) long and weigh up to 350 kilograms (770 pounds). They have few natural predators. But these cubs – each about the size of a New York hot dog – are vulnerable and their chorus of shrill cries was a signal for mothers to protect them and for stragglers to catch up.

Hor Vichet, a keeper at the nonprofit Fauna and Flora breeding center for critically endangered reptiles in Phnom Tamao, Cambodia, broke off the rest of the shell.

“It’s time to go out into the world,” he said.

Siamese crocodiles are making an unlikely comeback. Once widespread throughout Southeast Asia, the demand for leather made from their skins decimated wild populations in the last century. Thousands were hunted or captured for breeding on farms. In the late nineties, they were thought to be extinct.

But research in 2000 in the Cardamom Mountains of western Cambodia found traces of a wild population. These misty rainforests were among the last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge guerrillas who fought the government until 1999. This, combined with the reverence of local indigenous communities, saved this persistent crocodile enclave. But there were still too few and too dispersed to recover the population.

Conservationists realized that saving the species would require captive breeding of fertile, purebred crocodiles. Crocodile farmers who nearly hunted the species to extinction are now playing a vital role in that effort.

Today there are around 1,000 Siamese crocodiles in the wild, around 400 in Cambodia and the rest scattered across Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Indonesia. Protecting the reptile also requires safeguarding its habitat in the Cardamom Mountains – a diverse ecosystem that is one of the last surviving rainforests in Southeast Asia. It extends over an area larger than Denmark, helping to trap greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that cause the planet to heat up.

The efforts are finally bearing fruit: the first crocodiles were reintroduced into the wild in 2012 and have begun to reproduce in the wild: more than a hundred eggs were discovered in the forests in July, the largest number so far. “We are still far from being able to say that the species is in a good place”, admitted Pablo Sinovas from Fauna and Flora. “But it’s progressing.”

Conservationists faced major challenges when they began their project in 2011. There were more than 1.5 million crocodiles languishing on farms in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, but few were purebred. Farmers bred Siamese crocodiles with larger, more aggressive species to obtain skin with the textures demanded by fashion brands. Releasing these hybrids into the wild could accelerate the disappearance of purebred species.

It can also pose a threat to people. Evidence of Cambodian reverence for Siamese crocodiles lives on in the toothy carvings on the walls of the Bayon temple in the country’s Angkor Wat temple complex, but the hybrids are not the same animals.

“This would be a problem, as some of these species are aggressive towards humans. And you don’t want them in the wild,” he said.

So experts scoured crocodile farms across Cambodia, working with farmers and scientists to find purebred animals. The few who were eventually identified were taken to the wildlife center in Phnom Tamao to breed in captivity. Their eggs were incubated artificially and the first group of 18 young purebred crocodiles were released into the Cardamom Mountains, laying the groundwork for the resurrection of the species.

Crocodiles are a social species and, once together, “they find their own hierarchy,” said Iri Gill, who manages cold-blooded animals at Chester Zoo in the United Kingdom, which supports the breeding program. After the breeding season, females lay eggs that are kept in an artificial incubator where humidity and temperatures are carefully monitored to replicate the conditions of a nest in the wild.

“This is the key stage for hatching these juveniles and raising them to a strong age before being released,” Gill said.

A similar captive breeding program was also instrumental in bringing back crocodile populations in India after they were nearly wiped out in the early 1970s, said Yashendu Joshi, a crocodile researcher at the Indian Center for Wildlife Studies. non-profit. In the wild, less than 1 in 20 baby crocodiles survive to adulthood. Their chances of survival increase exponentially if they are released after they reach one meter in length.

“That’s why these captive breeding programs have worked all over the world,” he said.

Today, demand for crocodile leather has declined and many farms have been losing money since the pandemic, said crocodile breeder Ry Lean.

Dozens of large crocodiles bask in enclosures around the house where the 73-year-old lives with her family. His shop sells souvenirs like crocodile skulls stacked on shelves like books, glass display cases filled with canines, mounds of dried crocodile meat and lacquered bodies of baby crocodiles drying in the sun. But tourism has declined since the pandemic and rising fish prices have made it harder to feed the reptiles, Lean said.

“I’m stuck with this business and the crocodiles,” she said, adding that a large crocodile used to cost up to $1,500. Now she would be lucky to get $150.

Conservationists still scour farms for purebred Siamese crocodiles. They are also working to protect the habitats where purebred juveniles are released. In 2001-23, Cambodia lost almost a third of its tree cover, according to Global Forest Watch – a platform run by the non-profit World Resources Institute.

The Siamese crocodile’s role as a flagship species – chosen to represent an environmental cause similar to giant pandas in China and tigers in India – helps the cause of protecting the Cardamom Mountains, said Sinovas of Fauna and Flora.

It doesn’t make sense to release crocodiles into habitats that don’t support them, he said.

“Protecting the habitat is the most important part of this entire project,” he said.

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Associated Press journalist Sopheng Cheang contributed to this report.

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