The last-ditch race to save the Orinoco crocodile

By Gaby Oraa and Efrain Otero
CAPANAPARO, Venezuela (Reuters) -Venezuelan biologist Carlos Alvarado, 34, has one hand on the young crocodile's neck and another on its tail. With the help of some tape and calipers, he is measuring it, tracking its growth a few days before it will be released into the wild.
Alvarado's story - and that of the Orinoco crocodile he is caring for - is a tale of hope and persistence in the face of overwhelming odds.
Fewer than 100 Orinoco crocodiles - one of the largest living reptiles in the world - remain in the wild, according to Venezuelan conservation foundation FUDECI. The animal's natural habitat is in the Orinoco River basin, which covers most of Venezuela and spills into Colombia.
For decades, the men and women of the Venezuelan Crocodile Specialist Group have been raising younglings of the critically endangered species in captivity in a race against time to avoid its extinction.
But they say they are losing that race. Decades of poaching for leather pushed the Orinoco crocodile to the brink, and now struggling Venezuelans who hunt the animals for meat and take their eggs for food threaten to deal the final blow. The members of the Crocodile Specialist Group are not getting any younger - and the next generation of biologists has mostly fled turmoil in Venezuela for jobs elsewhere.
Alvarado remains alone to take up the baton. It is, he says, "a great responsibility." He has a sense of mission. He is trying to persuade university students to take part in the conservation effort.
Federico Pantin, 59, is not optimistic. He is director of the Leslie Pantin Zoo in Turmero, near Caracas, which specializes in endangered species and is one of the places where the crocodile hatchlings are raised.
"We're only delaying the Orinoco's extinction," he says.
Pantin and his colleagues keep on going, however - researching, measuring, transporting.
The scientists log the sites where the long-snouted Orinoco are known to nest, collecting their eggs or hatchlings. They also breed captive adults kept at the zoo and at Masaguaral Ranch, a biodiversity center and cattle farm near Tamarindito in central Venezuela.
The scientists raise the babies, feeding them a diet of chicken, beef and vitamins until they are about a year old and grow to a weight of around 6 kg (13 lb).
Adult Orinocos can reach over 5 meters (16 ft) in length, and can live for decades - a 70-year-old named Picopando resides at Masaguaral Ranch. The adults have tough, bony armor, fierce jaws and sharp teeth. They are not to be trifled with.
But when they are first hatched, a researcher can cradle one in their hands.
Omar Hernandez, 63, biologist and head of FUDECI, tags the tiny foot of a hatchling at the Leslie Pantin Zoo. To save the species, a number of efforts would be necessary, he says: research, protection, education, and management.
"We are doing the management, collecting the hatchlings, raising them for a year and freeing them," he says. But "that is practically the only thing being done. And it is not being done at scale."
Every year the group releases around 200 young crocs into the wild.
The biologists wait until they are a year old as that is the most critical period in their life, Hernandez says. It is when they are young that "almost all are hunted."
In April, Reuters accompanied the scientists as they released this year's batch. The young animals were placed in crates, their jaws bound, for the journey from the zoo to the Capanaparo River, deep in western Venezuela not far from the Colombian border, where human habitations are few and far between. This part of the river passes through private land, reducing the likelihood that the animals will immediately be hunted.
Alvaro Velasco, 66, who has a tattoo of an Orinoco crocodile on his right shoulder, covered the eyes of a juvenile with tape to avoid it becoming stressed during the journey.
"People ask me, 'Why crocodiles? They're ugly,'" said Velasco, president of the Crocodile Specialist Group. "To me, they're fabulous animals. You release them and they stay there, looking at you, as if to say 'What am I supposed to do in this huge river?' And then they swim off."
Pickup trucks drove the scientists, crocodiles and volunteers along muddy tracks to a camp near the river, where the humans spent the night sleeping in hammocks.
The next day, they gently removed the crocodiles from their crates and carried them to the river.
The juveniles slid into the muddy, greenish waters.
"Maybe many of these animals are going to be killed tomorrow or the day after tomorrow because of a lack of awareness among people and of course because of hunger," said Hernandez. He echoed Pantin's comments that ultimately the Orinoco crocodile was likely doomed.
But, he said, "we're stubborn. It's a way of delaying extinction and it's something that is in our capacity to do. If we waited for the perfect circumstances, they would never come."

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