Bhitarkanika's Saltwater Crocodiles Rose From 96 Counted in 1976 to 1,858 in January 2026, After a Project Begun in 1975 Released 3,008 Captive-Raised Juveniles Into Odisha's Creeks

The Odisha forest department counted 1,858 saltwater crocodiles in and around Bhitarkanika National Park in January 2026, and 353 of them were adults, longer than eight feet. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) PK Jha announced the result on 19 January 2026, after 24 teams covered 54 river and creek segments between 8 and 10 January. The first survey, in 1976, had found 96 crocodiles that were not hatchlings, according to Sudhakar Kar, the researcher who has worked on the project since its first year.

Bhitarkanika is a mangrove delta in Kendrapara district where the Brahmani, Baitarani and Dhamara rivers reach the Bay of Bengal. The saltwater crocodile, also called the estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), is the largest living reptile. The survey is held each January, so the January 2026 count is the latest as of 29 October 2026.

What the January 2026 count recorded

PTI and The Hans India reported the same age breakdown: 531 hatchlings (under 2 feet), 442 yearlings (2 to 3 feet), 365 juveniles (3 to 6 feet), 167 sub-adults (6 to 8 feet) and 353 adults. The total was 32 higher than the 1,826 counted in 2025. Jha called the rise marginal and said the growth in the largest animals suggests the park is a safe habitat for the species.

The count is done from boats. Sub-adults and adults are counted by day. Hatchlings, yearlings and juveniles are counted at night with spotlights. The Kanika wildlife range held the most crocodiles, followed by Rajnagar, Mahakalpada and Gahirmatha.

A project that began in 1975

Kar’s account in the IUCN Crocodile Specialist Group newsletter starts in 1975, when the Government of India, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations Development Programme launched a crocodile breeding and management project in several states. Robert Bustard, the project’s chief technical adviser, gave the technical lead. Odisha’s forest department began the estuarine crocodile work in early 1975, and Kar says Bhitarkanika was chosen because it held a viable breeding population compared with the Andamans and the West Bengal Sundarbans.

The state declared the Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary, 672 square kilometres, on 17 April 1975 under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Its core of 145 square kilometres became Bhitarkanika National Park in 1998. In 2002 the 650 square kilometre Bhitarkanika Mangroves, which take in the park, most of the sanctuary and part of the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary, were declared a Ramsar site, a wetland of international importance. The turtle nesting at Gahirmatha is covered in the olive ridley piece.

The starting number depends on which source is read. Kar’s table gives 96 for the 1976 survey: 29 adults, 6 sub-adults and 61 juveniles. The 2010 IUCN crocodile action plan gives 95 sightings in 1976 and 1977. Down To Earth has printed 94, 95 and 96, and dated the figure to 1974 or 1975 in different pieces, and its 2024 piece says 34 of the 95 were adults where Kar’s table has 29. This article uses Kar’s 1976 survey.

How rear and release worked

Workers collected eggs from natural nests soon after laying and incubated them under controlled conditions for about 75 days. Hatchlings were reared in pools at the Dangmal Crocodile Research Centre, which sits inside the national park. When they were 0.9 to 1.2 metres long they were released into creeks and rivers away from villages.

The first release, of 15 animals, came in the winter of 1977. Another 63 phases followed through the winter of 2024, averaging 47 animals each. The total from 1977 to March 2024 was 3,008, Kar writes. Since 1975 the project has taken 6,482 eggs from 142 nests, most of them (4,348 eggs from 96 nests) between 1975 and 1995.

Kar says released females, which mature at 10 to 12 years, contributed to the rise in nesting, particularly between 1995 and 2003. Releases in large numbers stopped in 2010, and 37 animals were released in 2024. Down To Earth has given other end dates for the programme, 1995 in an August 2022 piece and 2024 in a January 2025 piece. Kar’s tables show egg collection falling sharply after 1995 and releases continuing in small numbers in most years since 2010, and this article follows them.

The count, decade by decade

The table uses Kar’s survey figures for 1976 to 2025 and the PTI figure for 2026. Counts before 1991 include no hatchlings, so the early rise is partly a change in what was counted.

Down To Earth’s published series differs from Kar’s in several years before 2017, including 1,192 for 2000 against Kar’s 914. The two agree from 2017 on.

Nesting rose with the population. Kar’s records show 1 nest located in 1975, an average of 4.9 a year from 1975 to 1994, and 122 in both 2022 and 2023. Forest officials told Down To Earth in August 2022 that the 122 nests of that season gave about 3,700 hatchlings, roughly 50 per cent more than in 2021. Kar estimates that about 40 per cent of eggs hatch in a normal year and that about 70 per cent of hatchlings are lost before they are a year old.

The crocodiles of Bhitarkanika include pale ones, locally called Sankhua. Kar’s 2025 census report counts 16 leucistic animals, meaning animals with unusually pale skin. Down To Earth reported 18 albino crocodiles that year and 20 whitish ones in 2023. Kar’s 2024 paper lists at least 23 crocodiles of 4.8 to 5.5 metres, 6 of 5.5 to 6.0 metres and 4 longer than 6.1 metres.

What a count can and cannot say

The annual survey covers about 200 kilometres of river and creek, 160 inside the national park and 40 outside it. It counts what observers see on a day and a night, and Kar notes that no reliable correction exists to turn sightings into absolute numbers for this site. Using factors from northern Australia, he estimates the sanctuary holds about 2,320 non-hatchlings and 2,900 crocodiles including hatchlings, and he cautions that those estimates carry many uncertainties.

Where this sits in India

The saltwater crocodile is a Schedule I species under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the highest level of legal protection, according to a 2023 review in the journal Studia Naturae. The IUCN action plan places India’s surviving population on the north-east coast of the mainland and in the Andaman Islands. Kar told PTI in June 2025 that Bhitarkanika holds nearly 70 per cent of India’s estuarine crocodiles. The IUCN Crocodile Specialist Group lists the species as Least Concern worldwide, last assessed in 2019, and notes that it may be secure in countries such as Australia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia while greatly reduced in others.

The same Odisha programme covered gharial and mugger crocodiles, and PTI reported in June 2025 that Satkosia Gorge holds 16 gharials and that about 300 muggers live in the state’s rivers. The wider gharial story is told in the Chambal piece. The Sundarbans National Park in West Bengal, covered in the Sundarbans piece, is the other site the Studia Naturae review names for its larger saltwater crocodile populations.

Living beside them

No one lives inside the national park, but Kar’s paper counts 310 villages and 145,301 people in the wider sanctuary in 2011, with free access to the rivers for bathing, washing and fishing. He records an average of 0.4 crocodile attacks a year from 1971 to 1980, 1.6 a year from 1981 to 2015 and 3.2 a year from 2016 to August 2024. Most incidents happen outside the national park. The 2010 action plan had already noted that the project’s success had brought more conflict.

The forest department has responded with bathing ghats, fenced stretches of riverbank where villagers can wash safely. Kar’s paper puts the number at about 150, now built with steel posts and plastic-coated chain mesh, and says most villagers use them. Down To Earth reported about 120 ghats in June 2024, and PTI reported more than 150 in June 2025. The department is also restoring a strip of mangrove at least 50 metres wide along creek and river banks. Compensation for a death was raised to Rs 10 lakh (Rs 1 million), Down To Earth reported in July 2025. Officials issue warnings each rainy season. Rutika Nath of Action for Protection of Wild Animals wrote that attacks peak in the May to July breeding season.

Death tolls are reported over different periods, so they cannot be added up. Down To Earth gave 50 deaths since 2012 in August 2022, 50 since 2014 in June 2024, and 10 deaths in Kendrapara district over two years in July 2025. Kar said in June 2024: “I am worried about the human-crocodile conflict in Bhitarkanika.”

The pace of growth

BC Choudhury, a former Wildlife Institute of India scientist, told Down To Earth in August 2022 that the population had reached a saturation point in Bhitarkanika long before. The newsletter figures show growth slowing. Kar estimated a mean annual increase of 2.45 per cent over the 20 years to 2024, and the 2025 census report puts the rate for 2022 to 2025 at about 0.6 per cent a year, adding that continued monitoring will show whether the trend toward stability holds. Kar’s 2024 paper says the share of adults in the sighted population is still rising, which means the size structure has not settled.

The 2026 count was 32 higher than 2025, a rise of about 1.8 per cent. In January 2026 the forest department said it is exploring drones and camera-based identification to supplement the boat count, after a pilot drone survey in December 2025.