Hubballi: With rivers drying up in North Karnataka, crocodiles have begun moving into villages on their banks, terrifying the villagers, who are destroying their eggs laid on the river basins to stave off the threat.
The people have a love-hate relationship with the reptiles. While on the one hand they are fighting to save the dying crocs in the drying rivers, on the other, they are fed up with them entering their cattle-sheds and farmhouses on the banks and hurl stones at them or beat them up with sticks. With the conflict rising, farmers have been paid in lakhs as compensation for croc attacks on their cattle.
Last Sunday, however, the villagers were out trying to save a crocodile that was stuck in silt on the dry Krishna riverbed in Korthi village , Bilagi taluk , Bagalkot district. But despite their efforts, it died like the many other crocodiles, which are having a hard time surviving the soaring heat and drought.
While the crocs usually breed in the Krishna, Ghataprabha and Malaprabha, this year with the rivers drying up, they are moving to the catchment areas in search of fish, say the farmers.
“The population of crocodiles has increased in our rivers since the Almatti reservoir was built in 2000. And now crocodile attacks are on the rise in Bagalkot district as the rivers have dried up. Both district in-charge minister, Umashree and water resources minister, M P Patil, who is in-charge of the adjacent Vijayapur district, have failed to help,” said a Korthi villager, Srikant Talawar.
Ask forest officials and they say around eight crocodiles have been relocated from the dry Krishna to Almatti backwaters.
“We usually see a rise in crocodile attacks in summer when the rivers dry up. Relocating them is the only answer,”said Bagalkot deputy conservator of forest N D Sudarshan.
While villagers are demanding setting up of a crocodile park nearby similar to the one in Dandeli, to conserve them, he says no such proposal has been sent to the government yet.
