Papua New Guinea Finds A New

Twist To The Crocodile Tale

Crocodiles have loomed large re cently in the thinking and planning of PNG’s government departments— breeding them in captivity as the be ginning of a new industry, the end product of which is the reptile’s tanned hide, and the conservation of the crocodile through new laws which came into effect in February.

To save the wild crocodile from extinction, PNG, writes Gus Smales from Port Moresby, has developed a new twist on the usual fisherman’s rule of throwing back the little ones and keeping only the big ones.

It all depends on what you are fishing for.

Throwing back the little ones is usually a conservation measure to ensure that normal breeding patterns are maintained. But if you live in Papua New Guinea and you happen to be fishing for crocodiles, it’s essential that you push the big ones back (if they don’t get you first).

You can keep the little ones, and the medium-sizes ones as well.

New conservation laws which came into effect in February make it an offence for anyone to buy, sell or “otherwise trade in” crocodile skins with a belly-width greater than 20 in.

In principle, the restriction has existed throughout PNG for several years, but, because of pressures from crocodile hunters, blanket exemptions applied to the major crocodile areas in the East and West Sepik Districts and the Madang District.

Under the new legislation there are no exemptions. Department of Agri culture officials said that crocodiles

were “late breeders”. The retention of big adult crocodiles was a far better breeding insurance than look ing to the future with large numbers of small crocodiles.

Young crocodiles were produced in prolific numbers, but the early mortality rate was high. Best con servation resulted if older crocodiles were protected and suitable breeding conditions encouraged.

The department believes that, initially, some PNG crocodile hunters will lose income because of the restrictions. In the long run, how ever, they are expected to be far better off because of the impetus to breeding which will be given.

Statistics already available show that the exemption programme which was followed in the East and West Sepik Districts and in the Madang District has already undermined the hunting potential.

Research workers believe Papua Guinea has become the first country in the world to breed freshwater crocodiles in captivity.

The success of a six-year-old breed ing experiment is seen to provide new potential for the country’s crocodile farming industry. The breeding ex periments have been carried out at the Moitaka Wildlife Research Centre near Port Moresby.

The leader of the crocodile management team, Mr John Lever, said in January that a batch of seven baby crocodiles had hatched and were thriving. Their mother was one of a number of freshwater crocodiles of the breed Crocodylus Novae-

Guineae which were in captivity at the research centre.

Mr Lever said salt-water crocodiles had been bred in captivity in a num ber of countries. Freshwater croco diles, however, were facing extinction in many parts of he world and so far all attempts to breed them in captivity had failed.

Freshwater breeds are considered far more valuable for the production of skins in the crocodile-farming in dustry.

Mr Lever said he believed the result of the Moitaka experiment would “capture the imagination of conservationists and crocodile farmers around the world”.

About 90 eggs were still awaiting hatching. The mothers had buried them in grass and would tear them open when the young were ready to hatch. The help provided by the mothers in opening the eggs was one of the reasons why simple incuba tion processes were not sufficient in the breeding experiment.

Mr Lever said the techniques de veloped at Moitaka would not mean that every crocodile farmer would start breeding his own crocodiles. The value lay in the fact that a central breeding establishment could supply young crocodiles to farmers in all parts of the country.

'Hie Agriculture Minister, Dr John Guise, believes that crocodile farming will become a multi-million dollar village industry in PNG although it is at present in depression because of a number of world factors.