Alvares, Rahul; Natural history -- India -- Anecdotes
Jaws III was a loner and would kill anything including other crocs
which fell into his pit. So he lived a lonely, if majestic life.
Whenever we jumped into his pit to clean it he would come charging at
us even if he was in the water. He seemed to give us more exercise than
all of us put together gave him. Anyway, the Croc Bank, after ten
years, finally felt it was time to find a him bride. Since he had on
more than one occasion bashed his head against a wall sensing a female
in the opposite pit, we knew he was ready!
The first female we caught was about to be thrown into his pit when I
asked to examine her. (I had just learnt how to sex them). I began to
feel inside the crocodile and felt a hemipenis! "It's a male," I
shouted. "Can't be," said Gerry, "let me check." After a few seconds
there was a reassuring nod from Gerry: "Yes, Rom, it's a male!"
"Rahul, Champion Sexer," cried Gerry.
One cannot tell if crocs are male or female by their outward
appearance. So, at the Croc Bank, after crocs grow to a certain length
they are sexed and markings are made on their scales. But workers can
sometimes make mistakes while sexing small crocs. That's perhaps how
the error occurred with the first bride we got for Jaws. I can't
imagine the plight of the poor chap had he been put in the pit with
Jaws. He would have been turned into minced meat in minutes.
After that episode we physically examined every supposed female we
caught to be doubly sure of not making any error and found that most of
the supposed females turned out to be males! By then, most of the crocs
had run into the deepest part of the pond and we had hardly any crocs
to choose a female from. Rom suggested chasing the females out of the
water onto the land, but that's not easy at all. So he came up with
another idea.
We got some iron gates and tied them together with a thick mesh net
over it all. Then we had to wade into the green water with the net in
front of us. This would effectively push the crocs from the deep water
onto the land. But the best of plans can go haywire and, instead, the
reverse started happening. The crocs from the land started coming into
the water colliding with those being driven out by us. Thereafter there
was general commotion in the water and all the crocs started thrashing
about. One almost got my neighbour's hand. I could feel the crocs at my
feet through the iron mesh that I held grimly onto. However we finally
accomplished our dangerous mission and when we had driven a sufficient
numbers onto the land we were able to select a female for Jaws.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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