A pot-shaped snout on the Girwa: the gharial and the Katarniaghat sanctuary

Background

The Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in the Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh holds a part of the Girwa river, and it came onto the conservation map in the nineteen seventies for its part in safeguarding the Critically Endangered gharial. The gharial takes its name from ghara, the Indian word for a pot, after the bulbous knob at the end of its snout, and of India's three crocodilians it is the most efficient fish catcher. Gharials are endemic to South Asia and were once found in the rivers of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the southern parts of Bhutan and Nepal. The Union government launched a crocodile conservation project to build up the numbers of the freshwater crocodile, the gharial and the saltwater crocodile by breeding them in captivity and releasing them in the wild. Katarniaghat was among the first five sanctuaries taken up under that project, with the National Chambal Sanctuary, the Satkosia Gorge Wildlife Sanctuary, the Son Gharial Sanctuary and the Ken Gharial Sanctuary. The National Chambal Sanctuary, spread across Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, is the largest gharial reserve in the country. Eggs from Katarniaghat went to the Kukrail Gharial Rehabilitation Centre at Lucknow, and the reared young were put back into rivers including the Ramganga. Gharial nests in the sanctuary rose from 19 to 36 in three years, and Katarniaghat is one of the Uttar Pradesh forests in which the State has put money into visitor facilities.