The rainy spell we have been having at Croc Bank has stopped... for now. The weather is back to the usual sweltering midday sun with the evenings and mornings being bearable. Most of my time at the moment seems to have been spent baking sand. Now that all the wood is dry once again all the old sand from the nursery bath tubs and terrariums has to be removed and heated over a fire to sterilize it.
One such terrarium is used to house a young Indian Rock Python in the Young Reptiles Exhibit everyday. Yesterday I cleaned it out (with some help and put in fresh substrate. Once the sand and leaf litter had been put in I decided to put in a large log to give the snake something to hide under. I hoped that this would help reduce stress as previously the python had had only the leaf litter to hide under. However today I was asked to remove the log as visitors were saying they could not see the python. Sometimes you just can't win!
Two weekends ago there was a spate of crocodile emergencies. First of all on Saturday night, two saltwater crocodiles (males, so particularly aggressive towards each other) knocked down the fence separating each other. I was part of the watch to make sure they did not kill each other. Of course I did not do anything dangerous, I mainly just helped keep company the more qualified people! The very next night, the female Tomistoma (False Gharial) broke through the fence separating her from the male. This was a worry because the male might kill her thinking she was a territory threat (that was why the fence was there, to introduce them gradually). These are the only two Tomistoma in India so they are very important.
The same sort of thing happened: a watch was kept throughout the night. I think it was Tuesday morning that I was woken up to be told that the male had dragged the female down to the bottom of the pool. I hurried along in case I could help. The result was that the female was taken back to her side of the fence, although fortunately there was not even a mark on her. At the time people said that they might just have been courting, but they didn't want to take that risk with the only two Tomistoma in India!