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(May 19 to add dateline details)
Picture Essay:
By Gabby Ota and Efrain Oter
On the banks of Capanaparo River, Venezuela, May 19 (Reuters) – 34 -year -old V Anizuela’s biologist Carlos Alvarado, one hand is on the neck of a young crocodile and the other is on its tail. With the help of some tape and calirs, he is measuring it, tracking its growth a few days ago, before it will be released in the wild.
The story of Alvarado – and Oinoco Crocodiles She is taking care of – is a story of hope and perseverance in front of heavy obstacles.
According to Venezuela’s conservation Foundation Fudeki, less than 100 orinoco crocodiles – one of the world’s largest living reptiles – remain in the wild. The natural habitat of the animal is in the Oinoco River Basin, which covers most of Venezuela and spreads to Colombia.
For decades, men and women of Venezuela’s crocodile expert group have been increasing the youth of seriously endangered species in captivity against time to avoid their extinction.
But they say that they are losing that race. Decades of poaching for leather pushed the Orinoco crocodile to the verge, and now struggling the people of Venezuela who hunting animals for meat and taking their eggs for food that threaten to deal with the final blow. Members of the crocodile specialist group are not getting any small – and the next generation biologists have mostly fled from the upheaval for jobs elsewhere in Venezuela.
Alvarado is alone to take baton. This is, he says, “A great responsibility.” He has a mission spirit. He is trying to convince the students of the university to participate in conservation effort.
The 59 -year -old Federico Pantin is not optimistic. He is the director of the Leslie Pantin Zoo at Termo near Karakas, who specializes in endangered species and is one of the places where crocodile hatching is raised.
“We are only delaying the extinction of Oinoco,” they say.
Pantin and their colleagues keep running, however – research, measurement, transport.
Scientists log in to the sites where long -lasting Oinoco is known for nests that collect their eggs or hatching. They also breed the captive adults placed in the zoo in a biodiversity center near tamarind in the central Venezuela and the cattle farm.
Scientists raise infants, feed them a diet of chicken, beef and vitamins until they are about a year old and grow up to about 6 kg (13 pounds).
Adult Oinocoses can reach more than 5 meters (16 ft) in length, and may last decades-70-year-old Picopando lives in a 70-year-old Masaguator. Adults have hard, bony armor, fierce jaw and sharp teeth. They do not have to be trifled with.
But when they are first composed, a researcher can raise one in his hands.
Omar Hernandez, 63, biologists and head of Fudesi, tag the small legs of a hatching at the Leslie Pantin Zoo. To save the species, many efforts will be necessary, they say: research, security, education and management.
“We are managing, gathering hatching, extending them for a year and freeing them,” they say. But “it is practically only one thing being done. And it is not being done on scale.”
Every year the group leaves around 200 young crocodiles into the wild.
Hernandez says that biologists wait until they become one year old, as this is the most important period in their life. This is when they are young that “almost all of them are victims.”
In April, Reuters were with scientists as they released this year’s batch. Young animals were placed in crates, their jaws were tied, for traveling from zoo to Capanaparo River, not away from the deep Colombian border in Western Venezuela, where human settlements are some more distance. This part of the river passes through the private land, reduces the possibility that animals will be hunt immediately.
Alvaro Velasco, 66, who has a tattoo of an orinoco crocodile on his right shoulder, covered a teenager’s eyes with tape to avoid being stressed during the journey.
“People ask me,” Why crocodiles? They are ugly, “said Vailasco, president of the crocodile expert group. “For me, they are fantastic animals. You leave them and they live there, see you, such as ‘what am I going to do in this huge river?’ And then they float.
Pickup trucks fired scientists, crocodiles and volunteers with dirty tracks in a camp near the river, where humans spent the night while sleeping in the swing.
The next day, they slowly removed the crocodiles from their boxes and took them to the river.
The teenage dirty, slipped into green water.
Hernandez said, “Many of these animals may be killed due to lack of awareness among people after tomorrow or day after tomorrow or after day.” He echoed Pantin’s comments that Oinoco was eventually likely to crocodile.
But, he said, “We are stubborn. It is a way of delay in getting extinct and it is something that is in our capacity. If we wait for the right circumstances, they will never come.”
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