Carcass of the crocodile. Telegraph picture

Kendrapara, Jan. 28: Reacting violently to the reign of terror unleashed by furious estuarine crocodiles, residents living on the fringes of Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary have allegedly hacked to death a sub-adult male crocodile.

With the latest casualty, at least three salt-water crocodiles have died in the ongoing conflict between human beings and crocodiles in the past two months.

“We have retrieved the bloated body of a seven-feet-long male crocodile from near Bijoynagar Ghat under Aul police station area. The body of the crocodile bore several injury marks. According to our investigation, the animal got entangled in a monofilament fishing net. Later the trapped reptile was beaten to death as the reptile failed to get out of the fishing net,” said Manoj Kumar Mahapatra, divisional forest officer (DFO), Rajnagar mangrove (wildlife) division.

“We have registered a case under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 in connection with the incident,” he said.

In the past two months, three reptiles that had strayed into Brahmani and Kharasrota rivers from their natural habitats were killed.

Forest officials believe that local residents trapped the crocodile by entangling it with a fishing net and later killed it with a sharp spear-like object. It might be a retaliatory assault by local residents as the crocodile was often straying into waterbodies in the village areas eating up cattle.

With salt-water crocodiles constantly on the prowl in the peripheral villages of the wildlife sanctuary, villagers are living under lurking threat from these man-eating reptiles. As incidents of attacks by crocodiles were mostly reported from prohibited waterbodies, those injured did not come under compensation package of the state forest department.

“Human interference like fishing is an offence in crocodiles’ habitat. People taking to fishing in such places are thereby exposing themselves to possible crocodile attacks. The tricky issue has triggered a major socio-economic problem in these perennially backward areas,” said Madhav Manna, a former sarpanch of Dangmal gram panchayat.

Three decades back, the estuarine crocodiles were threatened in the Bhitarkanika territorial limits. But the scenario has become worse with 1,672 reptiles crowding the waterbodies here.

“As it has mostly been found, local settlers trespass into the prohibited waterbodies reserved for crocodiles for fishing. In the process, they not only break the law but also expose themselves to the crocodiles,” DFO Mahapatra said.

The crocodiles mostly stray into villages during either in rainy season or during flood. Besides, high tides during low-pressure formation prompt the crocodiles to stray.

Habitation corridor of the crocodiles is getting squeezed following boom in their population. As a result, the reptiles encounter shortage of food. Unlawful fishing in prohibited sanctuary areas also greatly exhausts the crocodiles’ food reserve, said conservationists.