gharial

PRESS INFORMATION Lacoste launches its first operation to safeguard endangered crocodile species.

In 1927, when René Lacoste chose the crocodile as his emblem, he had not imagined that 80 years later, millions of people would bear this logo. He could also not imagine that the crocodile would be threatened to disappear one day.

Today, through « Save Your Logo », Lacoste contributes to the protection of biodiversity on the planet by implicating itself in the safeguard of crocodiles, alligators, caimans and gharials.

First company to embroider a logo on its clothes, Lacoste is also the first company to support the « Save Your Logo » campaign which allows private companies or institutions to contribute to the preservation of the animal that represents their logo.

The first project which will receive a part of the financial aid from LACOSTE has just been selected : a safeguard program of the Gange gharial in the Chitwan National Parc in Nepal led by the WWF Nepal and the French NGO Awely with the support of the Crocodile Specialist Group of the Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The gharial With the crocodile and the alligator, the gharial is the third representative of the order crocodilia. Considered as the longest animal after the saltwater crocodile – 7 meters on average – and the rarest, the gharial is particularly related to its aquatic environment because of its food – freshwater fish almost exclusively – and morphology: short legs preventing it from running on the ground but allowing it to swim very well.

The gharial is recognizable by its very particular form: a thin and very long mouth with fully apparent teeth. The male is recognizable by its nasal prominence on the tip of its mouth: "ghara" in Sanskrit where the name "gharial" in English comes from.

The threat The gharial is a specie considered as critically endangered by international organizations. Recorded since 2001 through tagging and telemetry, less than a hundred individuals are counted in Nepal and some others in Northern India. Known for centuries by local people as an animal dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu, it is nevertheless the victim of several phenomena: the poaching for its skin, the changes of its natural environment - pollution, dams constructions - and the fishing habits - nets injure it or prevent it from reaching the surface to breathe.

Gharials’ breeding farm in Nepal

The project A gharials’ breeding farm was created several years ago in the Chitwan National Park near the village of Sauhara. Its main activity is to pick up the gharial eggs on the banks of the Gange River right after they are laid. Then they are hatched in incubator-pools. The animals are bred during 6 to 8 years before they are released into the wild. Through a transmitter attached to their tails, they are followed for several months to ensure their successful reintegration into their natural habitat.

Michel Lacoste Transmitter on a gharial tail

Lacoste's investment will allow, in the coming months, the expansion of the existing pools, the creation of new pools for the youngest or oldest animals, the creation of pools devoted to fish farming to directly provide the animals with food, the modernization of the infrastructures, the organization of visits and a information campaign targeting the local populations, including children and tourists.

Gharials in the breeding farm

The next step is the release of about thirty young gharials in the Gange River in February / March 2010.

Broadly speaking, the success of the reintroduction of the gharial into its natural environment would also be proof of the improvement of the water quality in the river, and so of the entire habitat of other species that live nearby: elephants, rhinos, classic crocodiles, dolphins, birds and tigers.

www.lacoste.com/saveyourlogo

Photos and pictures available upon request Contacts : VĂŠronique Mauduit - vmauduit@lacoste.fr Marie Volkringer - mvolkringer@lacoste.fr