A single nest in Cambodia produces a bumper crop of rare crocodiles

This Siamese crocodile, which lives in a remote section of Cambodia, is part of a species that has greatly declined over the past century. (Fauna And Flora International Via Associated Press)

via Khmer NZ News Media

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Conservationists in Cambodia are celebrating the hatching of a clutch of eggs from one of the world's most critically endangered animals. Thirteen baby Siamese crocodiles recently crawled out of their shells in a remote part of southwestern Cambodia, following a weeks-long vigil by researchers who found them in the jungle.

Experts believe as few as 250 Siamese crocodiles are left in the wild, almost all of them in Cambodia but with a few spread among Laos, Burma, Indonesia, Vietnam and possibly Thailand. The crocodile has suffered a massive decline over the past century because of high demand for its soft skin. Commercial breeders also brought them to stock farms where they crossed them with larger types of crocodile, producing hybrids that further reduced numbers of the pure Siamese. In 1992 it was declared "effectively extinct in the wild" before being rediscovered in a remote area of Cambodia eight years later.

The nest, with 22 eggs inside, was discovered in the isolated Areng Valley. Volunteers from Fauna and Flora International, a United Kingdom-based organization for which conservation of this once-abundant species is a key program, removed 15 of the eggs to a safe site and incubated them in a compost heap to replicate the original nest. They left seven behind because they appeared to be unfertilized.

In early June the crocodiles began calling from inside the shells, a sure sign they were about to hatch. Within hours 10 emerged -- and a further surprise was in store. Three of the eggs left behind at the original nest also hatched. A field coordinator, Sam Han, discovered the squawking baby crocodiles when he went to recover an automated camera from the site. "When I first saw the baby crocodiles, they stayed and swam together near the near site," he said. "They were looking for their mother," which eventually returned.

The reptiles are being kept in a water-filled pen in a local village in the jungle-covered mountain range. The indigenous Chouerng people who live there revere crocodiles and consider it taboo to harm them. It's likely they'll be looked after for a year before being released into the wild. But the euphoria is tempered by hard-edged reality. This part of the Areng Valley has been earmarked for a major hydropower project. The conservation group is looking for areas of similar habitat for when the time comes to release the juveniles.

Siamese crocodiles take 15 years to reach sexual maturity.