A video of a small crocodile crawling across a road in Vadodara went viral on Friday, showing curious onlookers stopping to watch and record the scene on their phones. However, this isn’t the first such sighting recently.
Over the past three weeks, nine crocodiles have been rescued from different parts of the city and handed over to the forest department. Officials say the reason for these unusual appearances is the Vadodara Municipal Corporation’s (VMC) ongoing flood-mitigation project, which involves cleaning canals and culverts connected to the Vishwamitri River. As a result, young and sub-adult crocodiles are being displaced and are moving into nearby urban areas in search of new territories.
The viral video was actually recorded on Wednesday, officials confirmed.
Karansinh Rajput, Range Forest Officer in Vadodara, said, “Since mid-June, about eight or nine crocodiles have been rescued. They’re mostly around two feet long and found near local drains. After being rescued by animal activists, they are observed for two days and, if uninjured, released back into the Vishwamitri.”
He added that larger crocodiles usually only end up in residential areas when floodwaters rise.
Dr. Pratyush Patankar, curator of the VMC-run Sayajibaug Zoo and a member of the Vishwamitri project panel, noted that the canal-cleaning work has revealed that crocodiles also live and establish territories in the canal system—something authorities hadn’t fully realised before.
Patankar said, “After the desilting and dredging, Vishwamitri has taken the shape of a river… The culverts are now being cleaned and it is likely that these crocodiles were inhabiting the culverts. No one paid attention to this. Now that the river is being cleaned to remove obstructions in its flow, we are seeing baby crocodiles and even adults in the kaans (a kind of canal).”
He further said, “On Friday morning, an adult crocodile was found in the Ruparel kaans… We are noticing them now because we are entering these areas to clean them up. If you speak of Bhukhi kaans that passes through the MS University campus, sub-adult crocodiles have been spotted there very often. As the vegetation is being removed, their hideouts are disappearing, making them look for new territory.”
Since March last year, VMC and the state irrigation department have been carrying out desilting and dredging of Vishwamitri river along its approximately 50-km course.
Patankar said that being territorial in nature and also recorded cannibals, baby crocodiles prefer to “move to safe places” when adults of the species establish their territory. “Crocodiles stay with their mothers for about a year… Parental care as a character is well documented in mammals and birds, but in reptiles, it has not been (the case)… Reptiles are self-sufficient since birth. Once they separate from their mothers, they keep moving to find their territory. They are driven away from areas where adult crocodiles have established their territories,” he said.
“Size matters among reptiles especially in fierce territorial fights; cannibalism is well documented, too. So, the babies and sub-adults try to move away from the territory of adult crocodiles,” he added.
Patankar said that the crocodiles prefer to migrate during night hours, which explains why most of the rescues are made at night or in the wee hours. “They travel between water bodies. They can walk long distances and they prefer to move at night,” he said.