TEMPERATURE increases have caused a 50 percent decline in the number of young crocodiles born on Cambodia’s crocodile farms, according to a report from the General Department of the Fisheries Administration.

Some 185,000 reptiles were born to the Kingdom’s farmers last year, but hot weather had caused the number of young to be cut in half compared with last year, Department director general Nao Thuk said. “We are tying to find methods and technologies in order to help crocodile farmers get better results,” he said. Farmers often bury their eggs at depths that are too shallow, and put the young crocodiles at risk to temperature

increases.

“Farmers do not understand the problem of changing weather, which is why the number of crocodile hatchings has not been very good,” he said.

The General Department of Fisheries Administration will hold a seminar training crocodile farmers in September, targeting ways to adapt to weather fluctuations.

Kaing Sarin, a crocodile farmer in Kandal province, has hatched 10,000 crocodiles from 500 breeding animals so far this year – a number he said would have been higher if temperatures had not been so hot.

He said he sold the animals young because he had a lack of capital to raise the crocodiles to adulthood, when their lucrative skin could be sold.