The Fort Worth Zoo is celebrating the successful hatching of critically endangered gharial crocodiles for the fourth year in a row, zoo staff announced in a news release Wednesday.
The eight new additions to the gharial habitat make a total of 16 that have been hatched at the zoo since 2023.
“The milestone further solidifies the Zoo’s leadership in gharial conservation,” staff said in the release. “Fort Worth Zoo remains the only institution in North America to have produced multiple offspring of this critically endangered species and the only institution to have successfully repeated the achievement in consecutive years.”
Gharials in the wild face significant challenges from fishing practices, pollution and habitat alteration. Historically, their range spanned rivers of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan, according to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. Today, the species remains only in Nepal and northern India.
Gharials are notoriously difficult to breed, and Fort Worth zookeepers spent more than a decade manipulating environmental conditions before the first four hatchlings made their appearance in 2023.
The Fort Worth Zoo is celebrating another conservation win with the hatching of eight gharial crocodiles in June, staff said in a Sept. 9, 2026, news release. Sixteen of the critically endangered species have hatched at the zoo since 2023.
This year, additional heated nesting logs were added to the outdoor portion of the habitat, according to the release.
Vicky Poole, the associate curator of ectotherms at the Fort Worth Zoo, said every successful hatch gives them another chance to refine their techniques.
“The knowledge we gain through this work is an important part of the Fort Worth Zoo’s contribution to gharial conservation that we can share with our partners around the world,” Poole said in the release.
Eight gharial crocodiles from two mothers hatched at the Fort Worth Zoo in June 2026, staff said in a Sept. 9 news release. They will remain behind the scenes for a time while zookeepers monitor their growth and development.
The eggs in this year’s gharial clutch came from two mothers. They hatched over a period of several weeks in June, the release states.
The baby gharials have grown to just a little over a foot in length. They will remain behind the scenes for a while longer so zookeepers can monitor their development, according to the release.
Visitors can see the juvenile gharials hatched in previous years in their indoor habitat at the Fort Worth Zoo’s Museum of Living Art.
🚨 More breaking news:
◽️ Sign up for Star-Telegram news alerts.