For These Nearly Extinct Crocodiles, Life Found a Way

Tiny snouts and long tails. Checkerboards of black and brown scales. Eggs the size of oranges cracking alongside hatchlings mewling and chirping like a choir of baby birds.

The birth of 60 Siamese crocodiles in the wild last month was all very Jurassic Park.

The hatchlings were the largest population born this century, representing two decades of conservation efforts. While the babies slipped and waddled through their trio of nests, their marble-like eyes blinked upon a bright new world for a species once nearly as extinct as the dinosaurs.

“There’s a biodiversity crisis around the world, but in the tropics of Southeast Asia it’s particularly acute,” said Pablo Sinovas, the country director for the Cambodia program of Fauna and Flora, the conservation group monitoring the comeback. “The fact that we’ve been able to help these crocodiles recover and see this landmark breeding event, it’s very significant.”

Siamese crocodiles were first listed as virtually extinct in the wild in 1992. While captive populations lived in zoos and crocodile farms, decades of poaching of the animals for their soft, coppery hides that were used in the fashion industry, along with habitat degradation, had razed the wild population.

In 2000, a very small population was recorded in the remote Cardamom Mountains of Cambodia. The Indigenous population of Chorng people had protected the crocodiles, which they considered sacred, for generations. The species is smaller and less aggressive than its saltwater crocodile relative, and there is no recorded evidence of attacks by the animals on humans, including people who wash clothes and children who swim in the rivers the crocodiles call home.