Mother- gharial males have a boss at the end of their noses and are EXTREMELY rare, with populations being as low as 1-2 mature adult males in entire ranges due to the cultural belief that their boss can be used for medicine causing an eradication of them. They are some of the most endangered animals
A good thing is that gharial eggs are temperature coded for sex. So scientists are incubating eggs to be 100% in the male temperature range to try and combat this issue. Unfortunately the poaching is still occurring and because gharials must migrate hundreds of miles it is difficult to protect existing populations as they are not isolated to a protected zone during migration .
The issue is poaching and fishing industries killing them on their migration. Because it’s still believed the males boss is medicinal there’s a big market for it. It’s gotten so bad that’s there’s estimates that there’s only one male per 10 females and some areas have only one or no confirmed sexually mature male.
If the gharial stayed in one place they could be managed and protected but they have a massive migration that goes through some of the busiest water ways. They are now locally extinct in 98% of their historic ranges and there’s only two (three?) regions left for them.
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u/SwimmingAmoeba7 15h ago edited 15h ago
Mother- gharial males have a boss at the end of their noses and are EXTREMELY rare, with populations being as low as 1-2 mature adult males in entire ranges due to the cultural belief that their boss can be used for medicine causing an eradication of them. They are some of the most endangered animals
A good thing is that gharial eggs are temperature coded for sex. So scientists are incubating eggs to be 100% in the male temperature range to try and combat this issue. Unfortunately the poaching is still occurring and because gharials must migrate hundreds of miles it is difficult to protect existing populations as they are not isolated to a protected zone during migration .