What did you do when you were in India?

Monsoon rains quickly turned MCBT into a
croc-infested swimming pool

I regularly get asked this question from friends infected with that itchy condition known as the travel bug. However my answer is perhaps not as familiar as they may expect. I did not eat fish curry in Goa, nor did I fight through cosmopolitan crowds in Mumbai or marvel at the Taj Mahal, instead I found myself living side by side with toothed predators at the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust (MCBT).

This reptile zoo is approximately 45km south of Chennai, just north of the coastal tourist destination of Mamallapuram. Set in a miniature oasis of indigenous forest the ‘centre for herpetology’ is home to a vast collection of crocodilians including India's three native species, the extremely rare gharial, the enormous saltwater crocodile and the mugger. It was with this final member of the trio whom I would become personally acquainted.

I had arrived in southern India in October and been welcomed by its sticky, pre-monsoon climate. Each evening both staff and volunteers at MCBT would cool off with a swim in the Bay of Bengal, often at exactly the same moment the thunderclouds above released their pent up energy with violent bolts of lightning. After dark the excitement continued. Venomous snakes lay camouflaged in the leaf litter, malarial mosquitoes tested my insect repellent and stinging centipedes found their way under my sweat-sodden pillow each and every night.

Yet it was after a typical morning breakfast of egg and rice that a new peril presented itself. The larger adolescent mugger crocodiles in ‘Pen 8’ needed to be translocated before they started to gnaw on their younger siblings. I couldn’t help thinking that if a crocodile can get ideas about chewing on another leathery scaled beast surely it wouldn't think twice about trying to nibble a nice soft-skinned snack from Surrey!

Carrying a mugger in muggy weather
is not a mugs game!

Lassoing hungry crocodiles on an artificial island surrounded by a crocodile-infested moat armed only with a long stick is an adrenaline rush to say the least. By lunchtime we had already delivered ten of the biggest animals to their new enclosure. However it was with the last capture that things almost went terribly wrong. 

We had roped, leapt upon and bound the powerful jaws of a two and a half metre long female before three of us heaved her up off the ground. In synchrony we began to cross the metre-wide moat when, just as I had one leg on either side of the murky water, our passenger began to thrash. I lost my balance and felt myself begin to fall backwards, croc too. In a split second decision I plunged my naked foot into the water in an attempt to prevent my whole body being at the mercy of any submerged mugger lurking below.

Thankfully my foot collided with concrete rather than croc and after a quick count no toes had been eaten, or should I say mugged...

The largest resident at MCBT, a saltwater crocodile named JAWS III