Trip to Gharial capital

Gavialis gangeticus

The Gharial Gavialis gangeticus is one of the most endangered crocodilians in the world, with less than 200 breeding adults left in the wild. Historically, gharials were found in the river systems of Pakistan, Northern India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal. Now gharials are wiped out everywhere except a few small areas of India and Nepal.

Edward and Derek (I really can’t spell or pronounce their Chinese names!) from the university of Hong Kong reached Croc Bank, late night on 20 February, 2010. They were awarded a fully sponsored field trip by the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation. They were to spend a week at Croc Bank and a week at Croc Bank’s field base in Chambal River Sanctuary, experiencing Croc Bank’s field projects.

So who’s gonna escort them to Chambal..?

Yep, me! :)

We left for the airport at 05:30 in the morning. I didn’t notice we were flying spice jet till I actually took out the e-ticket to acquire boarding pass. It was one of the worst 2 hours and 32 minutes of my life! The legroom was ridiculous. I was using ‘concertina locomotion’ on my way out of Delhi airport!

It was a long drive to Gharaita where our field station is based. We reached at around 7 in the evening. Dark outside. No electricity. Cold. Tripped over a stone and almost got bitten by the sleeping dog!

Anyway, we were waiting for Dr. Jeff Lang and Shailendra Singh, both were on their way back from Etawah. Ravi, the education officer working with the freshwater turtles project did welcome us and offered nice hot tea. Jeff is heading a gharial radio telemetry project (Gharial Conservation Alliance) and Shailendra works with Turtle Survival Alliance. They both arrived in a short while. It was time for dinner by then. We had a nice introductory session with Jeff and Shailendra while having dinner.

“So, where do you guys want to sleep? You have your sleeping bags, right?” asked Jeff.

“Yes we have sleeping bags and we can sleep anywhere. No worries.” I said with a casual smile.

“Ok, we have a couple of cots up on the terrace. We can arrange for one more” said Jeff.

We went up there and whoa! It was COLD. Really cold. People who know me would know how much I hate cold. I realized I’ll look like a chicken if I now say that “Well, maybe I can sleep downstairs. It’s nice and cozy there.” So I was just nodding away with a weird smile. We set up a couple of cots for Edward and Derek. The third cot was covered with Jeff’s gear and I had my fingers crossed. :)

“You can sleep downstairs tonight and maybe we can arrange for a cot here tomorrow. Hope you don’t mind.” announced Jeff.

“Don’t worry Jeff. I’m fine anywhere, really” I said, again casually. But inside my head, I was “YES! Phew.. :)”

It was a rather good night. Nice and cozy in my sleeping bag, which has a 10 deg C comfort level by the way.

Next day started with a breakfast discussion with Jeff. He gave an overview of his project. They have been tracking 10 gharials for over a year now. A lot of interesting findings including habitat preferences, parenting behavior and some intelligent behavior! Jeff mentioned findings about the habitat preference and the main factors influencing it. Female gharials tend to stick around in areas with deep waters during the dry season and nest on the sand bars (raised islands in the river), making sure the babies, when they hatch out, have enough water and food to survive till the rains come. Males choose areas with females and food availability and end up making the same choice as females – deep waters. Same goes with juveniles and sub-adults. Smaller males maintain their distance from the big dominant males, quite naturally. You can very well map out the ‘gharial colonies’ on Chambal River in the dry season. During the monsoons everything changes; Chambal River gets flooded inevitably with high water levels everywhere, flushing out a lot of babies. This is when the gharials move out of the nesting areas. They have also documented a very cool movement pattern of gharials from wet season to dry season to wet season again. They seem to know the area they cruise pretty well. This movement pattern may hint towards their ‘home ranges’ but it is too early to conclude anything. A few more years will reveal a lot more information. Jeff also witnessed parental behavior of a caring father gharial. Jeff was trying to take some good shots of some of the hatchlings when this male appeared out of nowhere and stood guard, protecting the babies.

We also had a chat with the trackers, Pankaj and Anand. Jeff says he’s really fortunate to have these guys as trackers. The best advantage is that they are locals with their village not far from our base. They know the terrain, weather, animals, people and culture; some of the main qualities of a good tracker. They both come from a fishing community and so are well aware of the Chambal river system. I was acting as a translator in the conversation between the students and trackers. I also cleared out some of my queries. It was interesting to know that the local community is amazingly ignorant about the animals. They think Muggers Crocodylus palustris and Gharials are the same species and call them muggers! In spite of them looking and behaving a lot different. In case there’s an attack by a mugger on livestock or humans, gharials are equally blamed as the villagers think they are the same. Plus they see the gharials as major competitors for fish and think that if there are no gharials, there won’t be a protected area and they’ll have easy access to the river and its resources. This shows the extreme importance of educating locals.

Mugger Crocodylus palustris in Chambal

We went gharial watching for the next couple of days with Pankaj and Anand. This was another first for me; seeing gharials in the wild. I must say, these two guys have perfected the tracking business. We carried a big antenna and its smaller cousin, a foldable antenna. Within no time the receiver units were connected to the antennae and the search begun.

Tracking gharials

The first time I got a signal,…. beep beep, beep beep, I was jumpin! Woo hoo! That was awesome! What next? What next? I recalled Jeff saying “After the beeps, we try and observe the animals for 2-3 hours and note everything they do” and that’s exactly what we did. We went down the ravines (yeah exactly like you see in the movie ‘Bandit Queen’) and to the river bank.

Chambal is wild!

The terrain is not easy. It’s usually a few kilometers walk to the observation spots; hot, sweaty, tiring, but worth every step. Chambal is a wild place – ducks, pelicans, cormorants, storks and the best of all and my favorite - the birds of prey. I saw more birds of prey than anywhere else; Ospreys, Bonelli’s eagles, Booted eagles, Steppe eagles, Laggar, Kestrels and a couple that I could not identify.

“…19, 20, 21” Pankaj was counting.

I wondered what he was looking at with his binoculars. I tried to spot the ‘target’ myself.

“F……ish!” there were gharials! 24 at least. That was crazy. I wanted to WOW loudly but was well aware that’ll freak them out. Finally, I got to see gharials in the wild. Awesome!

We sat down looking at the gharials. The trackers took out their field notebooks and started recording location of the gharials, count, activity, sketch of the river and position of gharials, everything. GPS coordinates are also taken. The trackers follow the protocol religiously; pretty impressive.

Life is in slow motion for crocodilians. You can fill up 5 pages in one hour if you’re studying primate behavior, but with crocs you barely fill up half a page in a day.

The croc is basking.

Basking.

Basking.

Still basking.

It ate a fish…………………….. no it didn’t.

Went in water. Can’t see it anymore.

End of day.

Studying crocs, not easy.

So we were enjoying the gharials while our tracker friends were busy taking data. My binoculars occasionally would set a higher angle to spot the distant raptors. I was so happy, almost forgetting about the long walk back. But hey, that’s exciting too.

Leith's sand snake Psammophis leithii. Spotted on our way to the river bank.

Edward and Derek were having a great time taking tons of photos. We were also chatting with the trackers about their experiences with dacoits – the most famous ‘wild life’ of Chambal. It seems it isn’t as bad as it used to be a few years ago, but there are still a few dangerous folks around. The far-famed dacoit queen ‘Phulan Devi’ ruled her territory not far from where we were sitting. Just then Anand pointed a boat at distance. ‘Chambal Safari Lodge’ it read.

“Don’t worry. The gharials won’t get scared. They know the boat” said Pankaj.

I recalled the conversation we had with Jeff. He was talking about the intelligence level of gharials and capability to learn. If it is a survey boat (the boat that was used during their catching when the transmitters were fitted), they vanish underwater even before you see the boat coming. But they have figured out the tourist boats pose no threat and so they are surprisingly tolerant of them, even the babies! They differentiate based on how the boat  looks and sometimes based on how it sounds!

The tourist boat didn't seem to bother the otherwise extremely shy gharial

I told Jeff about the enrichment training that I do with the crocs at Croc Bank and how they can analyze, learn and modify their behavior to get the best results. This could be linked to their behavior in the wild as well. I showed him some of the croc enrichment training videos. “Whoa!” , “Bloody hell..” , “Wow..” , “Wow…“ , wide open eyes,  were some of the expressions. “Man, that is new!” I was happy to hear that from a croc researcher of his caliber. We discussed about this whole new concept of learning capabilities of crocs and how it can be explored more to understand them better. I remembered Ralf mentioning its importance in dealing human-croc conflicts. Jeff encouraged me to document the training sessions as much as I can and well, I’m gonna do it!

Back to the field. Derek pointed out “Is that a Jackal?” No Derek, that’s a WOLF! Wow!  Another first for me, right there, on the opposite bank. I wish I was there on that bank, or may be the wolf on this bank. Feeling blessed with an awesome luck I asked Pankaj “Are there dolphins here?”

“Yes!”

Not long before we spotted a few behind the gharials! Ganges river dolphins! I was thrilled. This just could not get any better. 

It was getting dark now.

“We better leave. Not a safe place after dark.”  announced Pankaj.

I fortunately got my jacket along. It was getting colder as it was getting darker.

“What pugmark is that?” I asked

“Dog?!? ” said Pankaj

“You guys have huge dogs here”

Pankaj came to have a closer look and said “oh these are of Hyena’s”!!!

Striped hyena Hyaena hyaena pugmark

Chambal is awesome. 10/10! I loved it there. By the end of our trip, we saw around 100 gharials of all sizes and a bonus of all the other wildlife. I’d love to go back again, any day (except the winters!). In fact, I just received an email from Samir (Assistant director, Croc Bank) requesting a couple of visits to our base. Man! ain’t I happy!!!

__

Siamese Crocodile enrichment training

"Thai" & "Komodo" are real fun to work with!

These are Siamese Crocodiles; fast and bold - a super combination. This is one of my favorite species. I consider them as one of most physically capable crocs. Komodo used to respond same as Thai but you can now see the difference training makes. It is so much easier to manage Komodo now, Phew..

Spectacled Caiman enrichment training

"Johny" is one of the fastest learners.

Johny is an adult Spectacled Caiman, who is also one of the new 'students'! This was my 10th session with him. That's quite impressive considering its only 10sessions x 15 mins = 150 minutes of training work!

American Alligator enrichment training

"Ally" loves her training sessions!



Ally, a 6 year old gator enjoys the enrichment program as much as I do!
This clip shows a small 'sequence' of commands that she loves to do.

Ninja turtles

Psycho is not exactly a decent name for a croc but that’s what I call our male Tomistoma. He never really got along with the female and now I’m trying to get him a new bigger female. May be… he likes big girls! ;)

There are 14 species of crocs here at Croc Bank; around 2200 individuals, and they truly are ‘individuals’. They are all so different; each with a unique personality. They all have their choices, likes and dislikes. Animals in captivity provide such great opportunities to dig deeper into their way of living and observe some really cool behavior. Croc Bank is thus one awesome place. With so many crocs around there’s always something happening; audible communications, gestures, displays, fights to name a few.

Feeding time is always fun. Fun for crocs, fun for us. Especially when you can see the otherwise ‘shy’ crocs so actively feeding/foraging. Most of the crocs are opportunistic feeders. They will eat what they can catch.

The Mugger was faster than the egret this time.

Gharials are different. They are specialist feeders, feeding almost exclusively on fish. They are built for catching fish, though I have documented one instance of a Gharial eating an egret. But that was one freak incident. They’re happier with fish on the menu. That’s why we are able to house the breeding stock of Batagur kachuga and some other turtles with Gharials. But this is not the only species tolerating turtles.

These three species; African Slender-snouted Crocodile Mecistops cataphractus (left), Tomistoma Tomistoma schlegelii (center) and the Gharial Gavialis gangeticus (right) are fairly big, the latter two being one of the largest. But they have never really harmed any of the Melanochelys trijuga (Indian Black Turtle) living (and breeding like rabbits in some!) in the same enclosure. Interestingly, they have one physical characteristic in common. Hmmm.. what could that be? The shape of the snout? Yes! They are all narrow snouted crocs. Gharials have a somewhat delicate snout built to catch fish. So delicate that it may break in a fight! The Slender-snouted Croc and Tomistoma are not restricted to fish only. Small mammals, birds, reptiles (except turtles) are part of their diet, even monkeys in case of Tomistoma! The teeth formation in these species is interesting too. Most of the teeth are sharpish and narrowish, built for ‘catching’, not many for crushing. Same with the jaw muscles. This could probably explain why they are not into turtles. But in spite of this explanation, who would want to challenge the mighty Tomistoma, that too Psycho?!?

I hope these little pirates don’t push their luck too far!

What the f...ish ?

It is finally raining here now. Monsoon is late but I’m happy it is here. More than me, the crocs are happy. The water level had gone down quite a bit in some of the natural ponds. This resulted in some really tensed days for them. They either had to fight for a dip or defend their part of the ‘pool’ from others.  After the rains you can see a kind of a smile on their face! Rain is good for all. We now see tons of tiny toads and frogs all over the place. You've got to be careful or you’ll step on a few on every walk. They are mostly seen doing two things; eating or getting eaten up! Well, that’s life. Everything seems livelier during the rains though.

I was having a cup of hot coffee in my office, which is in the Croc Bank laboratory building, while it was raining outside. It was cozy inside and I was entering some animal data into the system. Just then Akanksha called.

“There are some fishes walking around in pen 10!”

“What???”

“Yeah. They are. You coming?”

I hung up the phone and headed towards the said enclosure. On my way, I was wondering what fish could that be. I recalled we did have some Climbing perches. These are often referred to as Climbing gouramis (Anabantidae). They possess a special structure in their head called labyrinth organ which allows them to breathe atmospheric oxygen. Primarily a freshwater egg-laying fish; often guarding the eggs and young. Unlike the name, they cannot really climb perches, unless of course the perches are laid low. Really low.

They are often kept by fish enthusiasts. They look quite dumb with the large eyes, mostly spending time sitting on the floor and ‘looking’ at you. They are commonly seen gulping air at the water surface.

Climbing perches travel in search of water when their ponds dry up; they walk with jerky movements, supported by the spiny edges of the gill plates and propelled by the fins and tail. But what could stimulate walking during rains when the ponds are full?!?

I reached the enclosure and sure the Climbing perches were WALKING!

“WOW!”

It was just amazing to see them walking. This was the first time ever I saw a fish walking! Well, I have seen mudskippers before but these were walking on proper land, managing their way through hurdles like leaf litter, stones, bricks.. That was so cool! I remembered that when I take groups for guided tours, I always mention about these fishes. We have a few in Batagur dhongoka and Lissemys punctata exhibits. I tell the group things that I was told about this fish but actually seeing them walking is just another thing.

About 10-15 were out of the water and were walking on the inner side of the enclosure boundary wall. I spent of some time there wondering why are they walking out of water now? I went back to my office as it started raining hard again. After about 20 minutes, Akanksha came to my office with a big smile on her face.

“At least over a 100 were out walking when it was raining heavily! Many are still out.”

Fortunately the rain halted for a while now. I ran out with the camera.

“What the f…ish?!?”

So many of them were walking around, in a straight line! Oh that was crazy! They all came out from one end of the pond and walked for almost the entire distance of the enclosure wall inner periphery. A m a z i n g stamina I'd say! They were following the wall and that’s a long distance considering the size of the enclosure. People who've been here would know. This is Rambo’s enclosure, opposite director’s house. I managed to take the following video before it started raining again.

I still kept on wondering what would make them walk during the rains? In fact they were more active when it was raining really heavily! I noticed one thing this time. There were small puddles along the wall. The fishes would walk to the puddle, halt completely submerging themselves in the little available water, till many of them gathered in the same pool; then they would start walking again. I came to this probable conclusion.[Please note that this is my little theory.  This is what I think.]. With so many of them in the same pond, there must be tough competition for everything including food. So if a water body reaches its carrying capacity, they probably disperse to newer water bodies and populate them. This also means population expansion of the species; one of the main evolutionary goals. Distance from one big water body to another is not fixed. The fish doesn’t know if the distance is long or short. If short, no problem, but if long, the small puddles during the rains provide best pit stops! Plus they are not continuously exposed to predators. Cool thinking!

But wait a minute, I read that they usually walk out under the cover of darkness, but our fishes were walking during the day time! Another mystery to solve, eh? This becomes a bit more complicated especially when there are a few hundred egrets sitting on trees above the pond! Walking in daylight would be just dumb, right? But hey, no predator is active when it is pouring. Wow! How did the fishes figure that out?

Ahmedabad's favorite bloodsport

Bird life of Ahmedabad city is impressive. My checklist of rehabilitated birds is of 126 species; all from in and around Ahmedabad. People visiting from other places often get amazed by the diversity of birds that are now part of the ‘urban environment’. But by bad luck, this city also becomes a death trap for thousands of birds every year. Yes, I am talking about the Mass Bird-Killing Sport, also known as Uttarayan – The Kite Flying Festival (14 & 15 January). This is the worst time of the year for resident birds, the critically endangered White-Rumped Vultures topping the list. About 25% of the total Vulture population of city either die or is grounded for life, every year. 

This Vulture ran out of blood before reaching the hospital. The impact of crashing into tar road tore its crop.

This is one of our most 'important' birds. What a shame.

Also, this is the time when many of the species including Vultures have young ones in nests. This means if the parents die, the babies will too. More bad news. This is the winter migration time and Ahmedabad falls in the migration route. We have done immense awareness and education though various medium regarding the same. Almost everybody in Ahmedabad knows what exactly happens during ‘Uttarayan’ yet a very small percentage have shown concern and stopped participating in the sport. For the rest, the entertainment value is far greater than anything else. In this case, Uttarayan is nothing less than a free bird-hunting season; a cold-blooded sport with no restrictions. For those who have no clue what I am talking about, please go through the presentation below. I had made this a few years back with the aim of sensitizing Amdavadis, but I seem to have failed.

I don’t think we need anything more than plain common sense to make the decision.

The bathroommate!

Casper loves his morning walks/runs and he will wake you up. He basically comes and licks all over your face till you are about to drown, slobbering as he licks. Though it is mostly Akanksha, I do get the face-baths sometimes. One such morning, I went in the bathroom to wash my face and then was to take Casper out.

“Damn rat!” I called out. Akanksha woke up wondering what was wrong.

“A rat probably was running around in the bathroom last night. My shaving foam bottle, brush, razor, all your tubes are fallen down. We need to do something about these…… HEY! LOOK AT THAT!!”

“What?”

“Loooook at her!” There she was. A female Polypedates maculatus, the Common Indian Tree Frog. I forgot all about the mess in the bathroom. She was beautiful!

Cozy hangout on my hair cream bottle.

She looked really cozy on top of my hair cream bottle. What a pleasant morning that was! These frogs are known to use the same roosting place for a long time. She started spending days here and at nights she’d be out hunting. She didn’t seem to get bothered by any activities. We started wishing her “good morning” and “happy night out”. She was the first thing we would look for the moment we enter the bathroom every morning. She was now part of our daily life; our very own bathroom-resident froggy!

One night we heard ‘things’ falling down in our bathroom.

“That rat is back again”

I rushed in …. but then came out laughing…! Froggy was happily hopping from one shelf to the other! So it was her the other night and I was blaming a rat. Now the mess was looking so cute!

I was thinking of a name for her. One evening Akanksha just randomly said “Your Champa is sitting on the flush tank”. She lovingly calls female individuals ‘Champa’.

“Hey that’s a nice name for her!” And so she was named Champa.

One morning I went in the bathroom, washed my face and was about to greet Champa, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Akanksha, have you seen Champa?”

“No”

She did not come for the whole day. We were very worried, especially with predators like snakes, shrews, Casper? around. Is she gone forever??? I was a bit upset that evening.

Next morning I was yawning as I went in the bathroom.

“Akankshaaa!!”

“What?”

“Champa is back!”

I was so happy. She was back. She often stayed out for a day but was always back the next day morning. We were used to her ‘routine’ now. She is pampered at times. Once there was this grasshopper that hit the fan and was half dead. It was the perfect dinner for Champa! Click here to see what I did!

It was an awesome experience. Champa is now more or less a permanent resident and we love her company. But a few days back she did not come back for one night or the night after that or the night after that. Three nights in a row is not good news at all. I was hoping she’s safe and alright. Thoughts were discomforting. I was up till late night hoping she’d come back but she didn’t.

Next morning, I found my shampoo bottle, tooth paste, deo and the shaving foam bottle scattered on the floor.

The bathroom was in a mess.

She is back! :)

Checkered Keelback playing dead (Letisimulation) video

 I had written an article on Checkered Keelback playing dead (Letisimulation) some time back.  In fact, that was the first article of this blog!

You can read it here: http://wildinfo.blogspot.com/2009/02/playing-dead-observed-in-xenochrophis.html

At that time I was unable to trace the video that I had taken of the same.

Found it now and here it is: 

Sorry for the quality. The video was taken from a small digi cam. The snake was quite used to handling when this was taken and thus not giving her 
best performance, but you can get the idea. Hope you like it!

CROCODILE TRAINING : PART FOUR

The whole training and enrichment of crocodiles started off as an experiment. The current ‘model’ was going really well now, but there’s always that urge to try more things. In this case, try more crocs. All of the crocs in the training group were juveniles; around 6 years old. I remember bugging Ralf a lot when he was here.

“Do you think it is easier to train a certain age class?”


“No. It is all the same whether you train young crocs or big adults.” said Ralf.


“Really? Even the BIG ones?”


“Ya. They are often easier!”


Cool!

So that was my next plan. Train some big crocs. Of course enrichment is always attached with such programs. Now I needed a big croc, but which one? One day I was walking past pen 10. A background on this enclosure – This enclosure houses breeding Mugger females and one super lucky breeding male. He was having a tough time trying to keep all the females happy! Anyway, I just randomly called him “Rambo” and he looked at me! WHOA!!! I don’t know why he responded but that was the ultimate opportunity. You always identify ‘responsive’ crocs like this for training. It is not impossible to train any less responsive crocs but it is just much more fun with good response. I started calling him out and giving some rewards. Every time he responds to “Rambo”, he’s given a reward and this I carried on for about a week to reinforce his name. Once he knew his name he was like a dog when I call him.

Rambo coming out. Note the high walk.

Of course there’ll be days when he’s not in the mood and ignores me completely. But in the good days he is awesome. I first make him “jump” which he absolutely loves. Folks who have seen this up close know what I am talking about.

Rambo leaping for the meat. This pic would have been awesome if it was taken a second later.

Rambo is one of the fittest crocs at Croc Bank. He often manages to clear ground when he jumps and that is damn impressive for a 10-footer!

I wanted to do something really different with Rambo. Something that wouldn’t look like a simple trick that you can teach a croc. The next trick was ‘inspired’ from one of the youtube videos! There’s this guy who was working with a big Saltie, desensitizing him. Next thing he did was asked the croc to open its mouth and the croc did! I was speechless. How the hell do you teach a croc to open its mouth?!? How do you get the message through? I was breaking my head on HOW? I took that as a challenge, spent some time with Rambo and cracked the code!

Rambo with his mouth open.

Again, folks who have seen this up close will agree with the following part. It looks totally unbelievable. After the jumping, I ask Rambo to look “up” which he does perfectly well. After that the next command is “open your mouth”; Rambo opens his mouth! He gets a reward. “Up” and “open your mouth”, and he will do it again and again. It looks awesome. But How?

I was so overjoyed when I first taught him that. People just couldn’t believe that. When they saw it for the first time, they thought it was merely a coincidence that he opened his mouth.

"This is not real, right?" They would say.

"You don't believe what you see?"

“Rambo up” and “open your mouth” and I instantly had some astounded people!

Basically, all of the ‘tricks’ or ‘commands’ are based on the target croc’s basic behavior. I never entered the enclosure and always worked from outside but still managed to teach him to open his mouth on my command. Well, actually that was one of the easiest things to do! Rambo is a big guy. If he does “up”, which is looking up at me, for a longer time, he gets tired and drops his lower jaw; opening the mouth. When I noticed this first I went “Whoa! He just opened his mouth! Similar to that Saltie. Now I only have to make him understand that he has to do it when I ask him to.” When a croc is already doing the behavior that I want him to do, my job is half done. I only need to reinforce the behavior and associate a vocal command and reward with that. Every time during “up” when he opened his mouth after a bit, I would go “open your mouth” and give him a reward. Within three days he  figured that when he hears that vocal command he is supposed to open his mouth for which he will get a reward. I continued doing this everyday for a week and had a really cool trick on board!

I enjoy working with big crocs equally well. Next target group was from pen 8. Gerry and a group of herpers from U.K. helped build a wooden ramp for enrichment of the crocs. The basic idea is to get them up on the ramp and give them food there. This will give them ample exercise as they will have to come a long way considering the enclosure size.

Initial days need some extra encouragement

I managed to fit in “stay” when they reached the top of ramp.

Tommy performing "stay"

This whole activity is a big crowd puller and offers excellent education opportunity. We will be having some good talk accompanying it. Tommy and Gerry are the crocs that I am working with in this enclosure. They are big and impressive but I am waiting to try my hands on Monster, the largest male Mugger. That will be truly awesome.

END OF PART FOUR.

To be continued...