New clothes were laid out and the aroma of freshly baked poda pitha (a rice flour-coconut-jaggery cake) wafted through the house. It was June 14 and the three-day festival celebrating the menstruation of earth, Raja, had begun. In Nimapur, a coastal village in Odisha’s Kendrapara district, Puspalata Acharya, 40, was on her toes getting her three children ready for the morning festivities. As she hurried them along, she discovered there was no water in the overhead tank. Acharya took her children to the Brahmani river, flowing just 100 metres from their home, for a quick bath. The 541-km-long river, the second largest in Odisha, pours into the Bay of Bengal, running through the mangrove forests of Bhitarkanika National Park.
Playfully, her son Ashutosh, 10, piggybacked on her as they emerged onto the banks. But a few seconds later, Acharya felt her son falling off. As her other children screamed, she turned around to see an estuarine crocodile grab the boy’s leg and drag him into the river. Ashutosh’s corpse was found on the opposite bank of the river. The festivities turned into a nightmare. “I had never imagined I’d lose my son this way. He was just snatched away from my embrace,” says Acharya.
This was the first of six deaths in just two and a half months in Odisha, five in Kendrapara and one in Jajpur districts. Over the last decade, most human-crocodile conflicts have been reported from areas around Bhitarkanika National Park, India’s largest habitation of estuarine or saltwater crocodiles, 150 km east of the State capital, Bhubaneswar. The reptile is considered the largest of the living crocodilians in the world, with males growing up to 20 feet and weighing over 1,000 kg. But the four lakh people living around the national park, on the banks of rivers, worry about crocodile attacks and losing their connection with rivers.
A week after Ashutosh was attacked and killed, Sitarani Das, 45, of Hatigadi village in Kendrapara, too fell prey to the powerful jaws of the estuarine crocodile. Das had been cleaning utensils in a creek. Her decapitated body was found after an hour-long search.
Eight days later, in Ghagaradia village of the same district, Gangadhar Tarai, 63, was taken, as he went to relieve himself on the banks of the Brahmani. On August 16, news that had been confined to villages entered drawing rooms, as local TV channels showed a crocodile dragging Jyotsna Jena, 35, into the Birupa river near Palatapur village of Jajpur district. “The whole village saw my wife being devoured by a crocodile that came out of nowhere. We were too stunned to react as the water turned red,” says Anam Jena, Jyotsna’s husband, who witnessed the horrific incident. Last week, Abhaya Rout, 62, a buffalo herdsman of Kendrapara’s Rajapur village, was dragged from a boat by an estuarine crocodile.
Bhitarkanika, spread over 145 sq km, is dotted with innumerable creeks and mudflats, a distinct feature of the estuarial region. The Brahmani and the 365-km-long Baitarani rivers meet the Bay of Bengal near Bhitarkanika, the tides from the sea creating a unique world for flora and fauna. Crocodiles live in the Bhitarkanika mangrove ecosystem, preying on the fish and crabs. But during the monsoon, when rivers flood, they are pushed into smaller waterbodies. In the breeding season, which coincides with the rainy season, crocodiles become aggressive, to protect their hatchlings. As a precaution, the government prohibits entry of visitors to Bhitarkanika between May 1 and July 31.
Trouble with numbers
The estuarine crocodile (crocodylus porosus) is often found with just the snout and eyes above the surface. It leaps out of the water, and grabs and snaps the neck of an unsuspecting victim. Once the prey is firmly in its mouth, the crocodile violently rotates the body in the water before dismembering it. It is identified in the Red List of threatened species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
In 2019, it was listed as ‘lower risk, least concern’, meaning its population is stable, but still needed tracking in the changing status of the biodiversity that it is a part of. It is, however, listed in India under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, in Schedule I, meaning it is one of the 62 reptiles that receive topmost protection.
In 1974, when the United Nations Development Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization teamed up with the State Forest and Environment Department, there were just about 90 crocodiles in Bhitarkanika. Researchers collected eggs from natural nests, and artificially hatched and released them into the waters. The process continued until 1995, when authorities decided not to release any more since the crocodile population had reached 1,000.
Researchers Shesdev Patro and Sunil Kumar Padhi of the Department of Marine Sciences, Berhampur University, say increasing human-crocodile conflicts could be attributed to overpopulation of the species in Bhitarkanika National Park.
“Existing reports suggest that the present density of saltwater crocodiles in Bhitarkanika National Park has surpassed the value that was proposed while initiating the conservation programme [five to six crocodiles per km of water]. In 2009, there were 1,484 crocodiles in the park and their relative density was already 13.5 per km of water,” says Patro, who along with Padhi published a paper in 2019 titled ‘Saltwater crocodile and human conflict around Bhitarkanika National Park, India: A raising concern for determining conservation limits’.
“The increasing attacks on human beings are probably due to overcrowding of the saltwater crocodiles in the limited area of natural habitat,” says Patro. The researcher says that in 32 years, from 1975 to 2007, instances of attacks on humans were 72, while in the 15 years between 2004 and 2018, the attacks had touched 57.
The State Forest and Environment Department has put the deaths caused by crocodiles from 2010-11 to date at 40.
The research paper says August is when human-crocodile conflict peaks. As per a forest department official, crocodiles would, until a few years ago, undertake upward migration (from the coast to the landmass) from 5 km to 10 km. Now they migrate from 17 km to 23 km towards the mainland during heavy rainfall. Researchers still don’t know why.
Authorities, however, say the crocodile population is not exceeding its carrying capacity in Bhitarkanika. Odisha’s principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife) S.K. Popli says, “The area is vast enough to accommodate 1,800 crocodiles. There has been little evidence of crocodiles fighting among themselves over territorial control and killing each other, so the area still has lots of carrying capacity left.”
Sudhakar Kar, a researcher associated with crocodile conservation since its initial days in 1975, says, “Saltwater crocodile conservation in Bhitarkanika is one of the most successful wildlife revival programmes in India and outside. If one analyses the crocodile population, there would be only 300 adult males and females. The rest are juveniles and sub-adults. A small adult population cannot attack humans in a large area.” He adds that 90% of the crocodiles stay within the national park and only 10% go outside. He does admit though that six deaths in two and a half months are a matter of concern.
A rethinking of life
The human-crocodile conflict has grown to the point where coastal Odisha’s riparian communities are reconsidering their age-old bond with the waters. Last year, Babrubahan Bhuyan, a vegetable vendor in Nimpur village, Kendrapara district, had a miraculous escape when a crocodile ripped off flesh from his thigh.
Bhuyan has now fully recovered after spending ₹1.5 lakh on plastic surgery. “I have demolished a room from my house to create a separate bathroom. I don’t go near the river, and don’t let my family members go either,” he says.
There is evidence of crocodiles straying into fields and village ponds, further squeezing the area of movement for people. It has adversely impacted riverside agriculture and grazing of cattle, with people losing them to crocodile attacks. Fishing is another casualty.
Children are told not to swim anymore, an essential life skill for a region criss-crossed with rivers. In July this year, a crocodile was seen floating in floodwaters in front of a school gate at Alupua village in Kendrapara. People worry that in this coastal region prone to floods, the fear of crocodiles may impact rescue and relief operations.
Certain religious ceremonies like funerals demand interaction with the river. “That part of the river needs to be barricaded before people use it, especially during mass dipping for religious events,” says Ganeswar Behera, a former Minister who represented the Pattamundai constituency, which overlaps with Kendrapara.
The Mangrove Forest Division (Wildlife), Rajnagar, in Kendrapara, has proposed the setting up of 144 new barricaded bathing ghats in addition to the over 100 existing enclosures. “Barricaded bathing ghats are safe as crocodiles cannot enter the enclosures,” says Sudarshan Gopinath Yadav, divisional forest officer of Rajnagar.
He admits that some enclosures get damaged in the floods. “We are constantly strengthening key infrastructure,” he adds, talking about an awareness programme being conducted on the dangers lurking in rivers.
Villagers say floating river waste gets stuck in the barbed barricades of the bathing enclosures, attracting snakes, an additional danger. They don’t understand how to live without the river.
The river ahead
The average survival rate of crocodile hatchlings is 1% to 1.5%; their lifespan ranges from 70 to 100 years. A 2023 study titled ‘Climate Risk Assessment of Bhitarkanika Mangroves, Odisha’ by the State government, International Climate Initiative, and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, a German development agency, has warned of hard days ahead for crocodiles due to a rise in temperatures.
“The impact of climate change within the mangrove habitats, especially the mud banks favoured by adults for basking, is uncertain, with some erosion and deposition of sediments. Increased rainfall and flooding in the monsoon are likely to cause changes in the available basking habitats. The sea-level rise will tend to reduce these areas... so crocodiles may seek other basking areas outside the site, leading potentially to human-animal conflict,” says the study.
Moreover, if climate change upsets the biodiversity, the principal natural food items of crocodiles — fish and crustaceans — may become less available, again resulting in conflict, it predicts.
Kendrapara district, especially the Rajnagar block, is mapped as a high flood zone by the State Disaster Management Authority. The study predicts that changing weather patterns and a rising sea will lead to flooding in Bhitarkanika, increasing human-crocodile conflict.
“Bhitarkanika National Park is highly stressed due to tourist boats,” says Biswajit Mohanty, a wildlife expert, who hopes such activities will be curbed. Similarly, B.C. Choudhary, a retired scientist from the Wildlife Institute of India, says it is time to study population density and migration patterns of crocodiles and shape a response for peaceful coexistence.
No one should have to experience that fear, says Mamata Dalai, who won a national bravery award in 2018 for saving her sister from a crocodile attack in a pond in Bankuala village, Kendrapara district. Her parents are farmers and she now lives in a hostel in Bhubaneswar. “Precaution is the best way to avoid conflict,” she says, worrying about their safety.
