Kendrapara: A group of fishermen have allegedly hacked an eight-feet-long estuarine crocodile to death at Okilopapal village in Rajnagar police limits of the district.

On March 31 also, carcass of a crocodile was retrieved.

The body bore multiple injury marks, and it was most probably caught in the fishing net, said forest officials.

The croc had strayed into human settlement areas and reportedly devoured domesticated animals. This might have angered the local people to kill the animal - which is accorded the protected status under wildlife legal provisions, said sources.

"As estuarine croc, spotted dead, comes under scheduled and protected animal, so a case under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, has been registered. The reptile's body has been sent for post-mortem," said the divisional forest officer Bimal Prasanna Acharya.

"In all probability, the croc had fallen prey to the unlawful fishing activity in the prohibited water bodies. The croc might have got entangled in the fishing nets. Later, the fishermen must have killed it. As the animal body bore marks of injury, it could be conclusively inferred that it was a case of unnatural death," said an official.

In recent past, saltwater crocodiles on the prowl have often trespassed into the water bodies in and around the sanctuary-side human settlements, triggering panic among the villagers.

The species are itinerant in nature and stray into adjoining water bodies because of its increase in hyper-salinity contents. After a temporary sojourn, they leave for their permanent habitation corridors within the Bhitarkanika habitation corridors, according to forest officials.

The Bhitarkanika river system is home to 1,698 estuarine crocodiles according to the latest census. The river system is said to house 70 per cent of the country's estuarine crocodiles or saltwater crocodiles, conservation of which was started in 1975.