Chitwan, December 22

A team from Chitwan National Park is returning from Bardiya with a male gharial found in the Babai river, today.

The team had left the park for Bardiya on December 19 in search of a male gharial as not a single male gharial was found in rivers around the gharial breeding centre in the park.

Chief Conservation Officer of the national park Ram Chandra Kandel said a male gharial was found in the Babai River and was being brought to the national park today.

The gharial is said to be 35-year-old and 416 centimetres long. Normally the life expectancy of a gharial is 75-years-old. After the rare species is brought to the park,  it will be released in the confluence of Rapti and Narayani rivers tomorrow morning.

As per census 2016, there were as many as 31 gharials in the Babai river. Of them, three are male. A total of 110 gharials have been left in the Babai river and 41 in the Karnali river after breeding at the centre in CPN so far.

CPN  officials were in search of male gharial for the past six months as there was only one gharial at the breeding centre. A male gharial at the centre and another in the Rapti river had died last year. “CNP is preparing to bring one more male gharial from the Indian territory to the breeding centre,” said  Kandel.