This documentary was made on the saltwater crocodile project in Bhitarkanika. It shows how the crocodile suffers from a bad public image but is actually the guardian of the mangroves and eats only those fish that eat up the fish we need. It shows the crocodile as a beautiful reptile, shy and wuick in its movement. The only white crocdile is also there, captive and responding to the keeper. In the end we show a lovely statue of a crocodile in Konark Sun temple with a fish in its mouth: even the ancient wisdom tells us the crocodile is basically a fish eater and is revered.

DHUMAL

When he first came to see me, it was night and he had just returned from the mangroves, where he was with a scientist doing research on the water monitor.

He was such a handsome young man with soft poetic eyes, black hair and a black beard, wearing a lungi, upto his knees and a faded green forester's shirt. In his hand he held a long steel falshlight.

He told me in Oriya how he had once captured a female crocodile bare-handed, but his vivid expression, his surprisingly classic Oriya and his very adroit gestures left nothing to be interpreted.

We all stood around him as he described the experience. The flash torch in his hand became the head of the crocodile, his ‘gamcha' (hand towel) the shirt he had dropped from an overhead branch onto the crocodile's head just over his eyes to blind him, and then he jumped down, each foot on one side of the crocodile, not touching it, until slowly he had grabbed the crocodile by the head.

HISTORY

The reserved blocks were maintained for the purpose of hunting and no resource was gathered from there. From the utilisation blocks timber for making agriculture implements, livestock shelters, roof thatching and small timber was allowed to be extracted on the payment of a levy. A six / seven year rotation for timber thinning was also practised in some of the forest blocks.

Very early the Raja (18th-19th century) realised the importance crocodiles played in conservation of the forest, and dug out a creek (Khola creek) to create island from an area rich in wildlife. This creek today has the highest concentration of crocodiles in the sanctuary and the manmade island has been declared the core area of the sanctuary.

In the 1950s zamindary was abolished and the Kanika Raja zamindary was given to the revenue department and later transferred to the Athgarh forest division. In 1975 a special wildlife division was created with HQ at Chandbali and was responsible to manage the forest which was declared as a Wildlife sanctuary.