Bangladesh's first gharial breeding centre has been opened in Rajshahi. Amir Hosain Chowdhury, chief conservator of forests at the Forest Department, inaugurated the centre on Shaheed Zia Shishu Park Road in the city on 15 April.

An adult male and an adult female gharial brought from Gazipur Safari Park were released into the centre at the time.

Present were deputy chief conservator of forests and project director Gobinda Roy; Sanaulla Patwary, conservator of forests for Wildlife and Nature Conservation, Dhaka region; Muhammad Subedar Islam, conservator of forests for the Bogura social forestry region; Rajshahi divisional forest officer Rafiquzzaman Shah; and Kamrul Hasan, professor of zoology at Jahangirnagar University.

The Rajshahi divisional wildlife conservation office said the gharial is now critically endangered. It was once seen in Bangladesh's Padma, Meghna, Jamuna and Brahmaputra rivers, but river pollution, loss of navigability, overfishing, illegal hunting, trafficking, destruction of eggs, disruption of breeding and food shortages have pushed it towards extinction. Efforts are now being made to increase its numbers again through breeding.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.