Camera traps. An ideal way to observe animals, in this case interactions between parent siamese crocodiles and juveniles living among them. Many know that most activity in crocs occurs at night, and a camera trip with a night vision hookup was the ideal way to observe these fascinating interactions. So, we climbed into the pen, set up the trap directly opposite where the female nests every year, under a rain tree. This was at ca. 5:30 p.m. Our head keeper, Ganga, observed the trap intact and attached to the tree at 8:00 a.m. the next day, but when I went to check at 11:00 am it was gone! Now this was ridiculous! A little investigation revealed the trap at the bottom of the pond. We fished it out with some trouble, and of course the entire unit was fried, save for the CF card, which showed images of us setting up the trap, not so useful! This is clearly a case of "neotism", the male had to have reached ca. 5 feet to remove the trap from where it was tethered, and would have actually had to brace himself against the tree to get to it. Next time I'm just going to use infra red lights and stay up at night.
The picture on the left shows the juveniles huddled with the female during a pen cleaning, this routinely happens with much vocalization between juveniles. At right is collection of the nest this year, great fun!!!
