Gharial conservation plan leaves Nepal fishing communities searching for new jobs

Fifty-six year-old Kaluram Bote has awaited the end of February, which marks a crucial time for gharial breeding in Chitwan, between Nepal’s Terai and hilly regions. Rowing his boat in the Rapti River, he sets off on an early morning hunt for gharial eggs and fetches them back to the breeding centre. For more than two decades now, Kaluram has been deployed by Chitwan National Park to collect the reptile’s eggs, which are hatched in captivity at the gharial breeding centre in Chitwan.

“Once the eggs are collected and hatched in the breeding centre, the hatchlings are fed and taken care of in captivity until they are released in rivers to grow for the rest of their lives,” says Kaluram, one of the Indigenous Bote people who works as a “keeper” of the critically endangered species.