Wild on the Blog

Fun, wild, and covertly educational rants about Crocodiles and other Wildlife.

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Orinoco Crocodile feeding at Crocodile Encounter. Great dominance display complete with exaggerated tail wagging! #CrocstarTour2017 @you.name.it.tours @crocodileencounter @crocstar.tv #nathansweeting @nathansweeting #reptilesofinstagram #instafamous #zookreepers

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With Spring on the horizon that means crocodile nesting season is only a few months away here at our facility! Breeding and nesting season is an exciting time for us, both for behavioral study and for opportunities to create a unique teaching environment for keepers new and old.

Crocodile nesting season can be extremely dangerous while conducting general husbandry related interactions and especially with egg collection both in field study and in captivity, but using solid technique with a good team, can be a very fun and educational environment that offers great learning experiences in safety practices, communication, teamwork, and with crocodilian behavior.

(Pictured: One of our female Siamese Crocodiles (C. siamensis) guarding her mound nest last year, June 2016)

We are especially excited about our group of Siamese Crocodiles. On the verge of extinction in the wild and completely gone throughout most of their historical range except for small populations in countries like Cambodia, captive breeding and reintroduction to the wild may be the last hope for this species and many others. The good news is, there are already conservation efforts and breeding programs in effect as we speak, read, and write about it. On the ground in Cambodia, conservation groups have already laid the groundwork with local farmers and government to help establish captive breeding colonies to reintroduce juvenile crocs back into the wild in areas where numbers have depleted or vanished; as well as utilizing locals and resources to help educate the public about crocs and their importance to the environment, their history, culture, and to their way of life.

In other countries like the USA, captive breeding groups exist in Zoos that have shown great success with both breeding and coordinating with other countries to establish viable conservation and reintroduction plans in the crocs native range.

There is hope and the people that care and want to do more, are coming out of the woodwork everyday, and personally in my opinion, since humans are probably the largest contributing factor to the extinction of nearly every extinct species seen in the past few hundred years or so, it is our obligation to wake up a bit and pay attention and act! We can all save and fix what we’ve screwed up, we have that ability, we have the talent, the skills, the technology, so let’s not piss away the opportunity.

Some may wonder, “Wow, I’ve never even heard about these…” and I’ll tell you why. While scientists and academics and zookeepers and researchers are great at finding solutions and putting an action plan together; unfortunately they, quite frankly, suck at promotion and marketing to the masses and general public. We all know our strengths and weaknesses and You the general public can make the craziest impact by knowing your strengths too! Imagine the impact an advertising agency, or music promoter, or even half of our friends who got their degrees in psychology yet did nothing with it, but have great ideas just sitting around waiting to be used, grabbed ahold of a cause or project and made it a viral topic that stuck in our heads for a while. Imagine if every concert you went to, or movie you watched, or beer you drank, or club you hopped, or game you gamed, or Netflix series you got hooked on, had a hand in conservation efforts by advertising or shaving even 1% of their insanely mind-boggling revenue into foundational programs.

On a smaller scale, imagine if every human in America dropped $1 in the proverbial bucket every year. That’s a lot of money toward something Earth needs, humanity Needs.

I’ll leave you with this. The animals, and plants, and habitats we’re losing today, hold the keys and the cures to every disease and door to unanswered questions that can and will save our lives and save us from ourselves and our own extinction one day. We can save them just as easily as we can let them vanish from existence along with those secrets, still and forever secret. This is our choice…

$1 a year worth of time from every human?

We all have strengths and talents to utilize and contribute. What’s yours?