The major highlight of this week was on Friday, when Croc Bank caught and crated some crocodilians to be sent to a zoo in the Czech Republic. The crocodilians in question were juvenile gharials, juvenile morelet's, muggers and two full grown gharials. I got up early at six o'clock but even then the young gharials and the muggers had already been caught.
I was able to help pin down the morelet's whilst they were tagged however. They cannot have been more than 4ft long but it still needed 3 men apiece to get them into their crates. It was then time to shift the adult gharials. Fortunately they had been moved to an isolation pen long before Friday so we did not have to deal with other gharials getting a bit too inquisitive. Just moving the crates to the enclosure was heavy work. Obviously I did not help to catch the gharials as quick reactions were needed, and I don't understand nearly enough Tamil to understand orders. Moving the crates back out of the enclosure and onto the truck proved to be quite difficult enough for me!
This is not to say that this is the only excitement that occured.
The first proper feeding of the new baby anacondas was carried out on Sunday and I am pleased to say that they all ate well. This is a good sign as it means they are settling into their new home.
Also on Friday there was a fish feeding. I have now helped feed the juvenile gharials (not the same ones as were crated, there are a lot here) quite a few times but it remains a pleasure to see the finesse with which they pin and then swallow their fish.
The young spectacled caimans on the other hand are not so impressive. They frequently miss and bite each other, resulting in a small tussle. If this happens I usually throw another fish at them to break it up!
John