The tiny Morelet’s crocodile moved furiously as it was pulled from the water, hissing like a cat and thrashing its scaly, armoured tail. Our field guide, Ruben Arévalo, stroked it under the chin and the reptile gurgled. Then, quick as flash, the guide slipped rubber bands around its snout.
“Crocodiles have very strong jaws,” Arévalo
said, “but only when they bite down. The muscles for opening their mouths are weak.
So you can keep a crocodile’s mouth shut with just a tiny bit of pressure.”
He turned the croc over unceremoniously and
it lay transfixed, as if in a trance. Its hazel-green eyes glistened in the
flashlight beam. Its belly was white as an egg, soft, dry and shiny like
polished leather and undulating with breaths.
“‘It’s a girl”, Arévalo said, pointing to
what were not obviously genitals. “Just a baby too – they get up to three
metres.” The crocodile was only as long as his leg, but its teeth looked like
needles. He weighed the reptile on a hand scale, pulled out a clipboard --
protected with plastic against the drizzling rain -- and made a series of
notes. Then he took the rubber bands off and gently lowered the croc into the
water. As soon as it hit the surface, it shot away in a splash into the warm
Tourism to the Lamanai Outpost jungle lodge, in the wild
heart of Belize, helps fund the Lamanai Field
Research Center (LFRC) -- a not-for-profit venture established in 1992 to
promote sustainable land use and tourism in the Central American country. The
research centre works on a handful of conservational ventures, including
ground-breaking research on the Americas’ biggest cat – the jaguar. Biologists
at the LFRC run the Morelet’s crocodile research project, and thanks to field
workers like Arévalo, the species’ population is growing in Belize.
The Morelet’s crocodile project is great
fun for travellers too. Crocodile-tagging safaris, where researchers measure
and label the crocs as part of a monitoring program, are night-time affairs,
taken after a candlelit three-course meal of delicious reef fish washed down
with chilled Chilean sauvignon blanc. On a recent trip, guests at the lodge
shuffled down the path, through the scented tropical garden and onto the river
bank, where they clambered into launches and headed off into the shallows of
the New River.
There are few experiences more thrilling than
tracking and capturing a wild crocodile in the dead of night, on a river in the
heart of the Central American jungle. After only a few minutes, the lights of
the Lamanai Outpost faded into velvety darkness and the only light was a brilliant
shaft from the halogen lamp at the front of the boat. It flitted to and fro as
the guide searched for the shine of a crocodile’s eye. The air was alive with
moths and the chirrups of frogs and cicadas. And every now and again, there was
a squawk and a splash as a heron or egret rushed startled into the night.
Then the guide spotted a pair of bright red
lights in the weeds near the riverbank: crocodile eyes reflected in the lamp
light. He cut the boat engine and drifted into the bank, hands over the edge of
the boat, poised to grab the reptile from the water. Everyone sat on the edge
of their seats and waited with bated breath.
Boats can find as many as half a dozen crocs
in an hour-long trip, so it is hard to believe that just 50 years ago, Morelet’s
crocodiles had been hunted to the brink of extinction; their gorgeous, satin-soft,
olive-brown skin a favourite for bags and shoes. Today, there are thought to be
some 10,000 in the wild, most of them in Belize.
But their survival is
not assured. Morelet’s remain a threatened species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red
list, and as such, are conservation dependent.
“The survival of the Morelet's crocodile in
Belize is threatened because of the development of their wetland habitat”,
explained LFRC biologist Venetia Briggs. “We are collecting data on the growth
and distribution of these species as part of a long-term monitoring project.”
Responsible tourism, she emphasised, is
vital for the project and for the crocodile’s survival. Visitors to a place
like the Lamanai Outpost put increased pressure on the need to preserve wildlife
habitats, thus combining an unforgettable holiday experience with the
opportunity to secure the future of a rare and beautiful wild animal.
After the sweaty, mosquito-filled safari,
travellers can retire to the rustic-chic Lamanai Outpost lodge, where mood-lit
rooms lie nestled on the riverbank near the vast and crumbling pre-Columbian
Maya city of Lamanai. Most visits to the area include a wander around the ruins
and perhaps a visit to a nearby Mennonite community. For a tiny country, Belize
packs in astonishing diversity.