Well we have had a bit of a saline theme for the last week. Cleaning out the pit of salt water crocodile. Sweating buckets while teaching school children about small reptiles, chasing snakes with the Irulas, riding dungies with the Karen, and learning al about reefs with Dr. Rohan Arthur. It was a pretty wild ride, but I’ll try to do it a little justice in the next two posts.
Of crocs and wizards.
We began our week at the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust—Croc Bank. http://www.madrascrocodilebank.org/ A park and repository very reptile species from around the globe. We met Payal—the education director for the trust. She had been in textiles prior to coming to the croc bank, but her love of reptiles and nature drew her away from the fascinating world of fabric. We then met Sajan who would be our guide for the rest of the time at Croc Bank. Sajan was nature lover with a post graduate certificate in telecom. After a little tour of the park and watching a four of the India’s most dangerous snakes get milked for venom, we headed off for some real work.
Cleaning the pit of the larg
est salt water crocodile in captivity—Jaws—II. So just how much can an 1200 pound crocodile crap in a week? I’ll let the pictures do the talking. 
While the picture might look a little “too close” to such a large beast, it is rather safe albeit mucky task. After a couple hours of passing the muck buckets, it was time to clean up and work a little in environmental education.
Sajan, our now fearless leader, lead half hour training on environmental interpretation with small reptiles. The crowds gathered and the gang of four spent the next hour and a half surrounded by Indian and Foreign Tourists all intrigued by both the small reptile and the vellakaris (white women) doing the show. It was really fun.
Once the shows were over it was time to feed the crocs (in this case the muggars or marsh crocodiles). While quite a bit smaller than the salt water crocodiles, they presented a very efficient beef eating collective. There is something mesmerizing about 500+ crocodiles jostling for feeding position.
Then it was time for our first ocean exposure on the Croc Bank Beach. Being seasonally semidiurnal and having a few beach erosion issues has the beach and essentially two sand cliffs. This dissuaded the gang of four from entering the water there…four about 2 minutes. Then it was body surfing and other salt water frolicking.
Back to bed with a host of creepy crawlers, slugs that turn into leaves, enough egrets that the pooping sounded like rain. We were scheduled for an early morning excursion of snake catching with the Irula Tribals.
Early hope of Krates and Cobras gave way to repeated rat snake captures. While not as exciting, it was a lot more fun as rat snakes are quite docile and easily handled—as the pictures will attest.
We left our snake catching to go for a visit to the irula tribal womens welfare society. Where Devi showed us the wonderful herbal nurseries run by the Irula Women. We had leaves that were sweet and leaves that would make your taste buds unable to taste sweets. Pretty interesting and a nice source of income for the women there.
Again time for a little clean up followed by a healthy dose of insect repellent (apparently 30 crocodile pits provide a reasonable breeding ground for mosquitoes). Then off to the tourist temple beach town of Mahabalipuram and the famous Moonrakers restaurant. If you thought the hundreds of crocs could go through beef you should have watched out group devour a large plate of fried calamari, three plates of French fries, the mixed fish platter, etc. Moonrakers cooks are quite talented.
Back to Croc Bank for Sleep and a very early flight to the Andaman Islands where we would find – Nemo’s father –I mean mother….more to come.
