Madras Crocodile Bank Trust

The Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Centre for Herpetology, widely known as the Croc Bank, is a registered conservation trust and a recognised zoo under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, operating under the Central Zoo Authority. It was set up by Romulus Whitaker and Zai Whitaker with a group of conservationists to secure breeding populations of the mugger, the saltwater crocodile and the gharial. The stated mission is to promote the conservation of reptiles and amphibians and their habitats through education, scientific research and captive breeding. The trust broadened its scope in 1993 to cover turtles, lizards and snakes, and today holds fifteen crocodilian species, three of them listed by the IUCN as critically endangered, along with a further thirty-three reptile species. More than five thousand crocodiles have been bred since its founding. Alongside the zoo, the trust runs field conservation across the country, including the Gharial Ecology Project on the Chambal river and the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station in the Western Ghats. Its Snakebite Mitigation Project delivers prevention and first-aid education to school children, farming communities and forest department staff in several states, and the trust is a Core Committee member of the National Action Plan for snakebite. Education programmes for schools, colleges and families are run by a dedicated education team, and the trust also supports the Irula Snake Catchers Industrial Cooperative Society.