Gharials under threat as river turn poison

UNDER THREAT: WWF suspects toxins from the Yamuna are entering the Chambal’s ecosystem.

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New Delhi: Scientists believe they have found of what is killing the rare Indian gharial in the Chambal river—toxins.

Autopsies on the 10 gharials that have died in the Chambal since December 2007 show that the animals died of renal diseases like gout and kidney failure. Scientists suspect unidentified toxins caused the diseases.

“The most consistent reports of postmortem suggest gout. There are white deposits on heart, liver and stomach,” said Dhruvjyoti Basu, who works for the Riverwatch Programme of World Wildlife Fund (WWF), India.

The WWF suspects that toxins from the Yamuna are entering the Chambal’s ecosystem. Most gharials were found dead in the 35 km stretch that forms Chambal’s confluence point with the Yamuna. The WWF suspects gharials are eating toxic fish.

“The fish is migrating upstream and downstream from Yamuna. It is entering from a toxic river (Yamuna) to a pristine one. We know that Yamuna has toxins,” says Ravi Singh, CEO of WWF, India.

During the past six months there have been four recorded instances of mass fish deaths in the Yamuna. Scientists believe these deaths have occurred due to increasing levels of toxins in the river.

On the last count there were less 200 breeding gharial pairs left in the Chambal—a figure, which puts the animal on the critically endangered list.