Breaking Homing Cycle of Crocodiles

Posted on February 24th, 2009 by Wildlife Luver, under Crocodile.

Human-crocodile conflict is on raise as the crocodile population is prolifically increasing in Florida. Biologists of Florida are trying their best to prevent this incident. They are translocating the crocodile from their natural habitat to other place where less number of crocs are living.

The translocated crocodiles are returning back to their own habitat within few days because they can trace back their habitat easily and travels at least 10 miles per day. This process of returning back to their own habitat is called HOMING.

In order to prevent homing, the FWC biologists use magnets to keep the crocodiles back to their pavilion. Two magnets will be tied in their sides of their forehead and translocated to the new site because the magnets will disorient the crocodiles and disrupt their navigation, so they can’t find their way back to the capture site. while releasing the magnets will be removed from the crocodiles head. In addition to this colored tags will be tied on their tails to find out the success of the translocation.

This method proves that the crocodiles can’t find their home and stay back in the translocated site. Hats off to the FWC Biologists!!!

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