Crocodile conservationist in Laos have shared heartwarming footage of incredibly rare baby crocs hatching.
The video comes from a conservation project between WCS Laos, government partners and local communities, which aims to restore one of the world’s most endangered crocodilians: the Siamese crocodile.
The group is encouraged by the project’s successes, which have been outlined in a new report in the Newsletter of the Crocodile Specialist Group.
In the clip, the conservation team can be seen picking shell fragments off an egg to help the hatching crocodile wriggle free from inside.
Eggs collected from nests by local teams are incubated to help the little ones’ chances of survival. After hatching, the newborns are reared until they are ready to be released back into the wetlands.
The group says hundreds of little Siamese crocs have been “head-started” in this way since 2019.
“The teams build on long-held cultural beliefs that crocodiles are spiritual guardians, creating powerful incentives for protection,” says Santi Saypanya, country director for the WCS Laos Program.
Siamese crocodiles are categorised as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Experts believe there are fewer than 1,000 mature adults in the wild.
“Recovery is possible – even for species on the edge of extinction – when conservation is built around local knowledge, cultural values, and sustained scientific monitoring,” says Steven Platt, a conservation scientist at WCS.
Top image: Female crocodile in a wallow beside the nest. Credit: ÓWCS Laos
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