Context: Recently, Odisha's Kendrapara district has earned the distinction of being the only district in India where all three species of crocodiles, salt-water, gharial and mugger, are found.

• Kendrapara now has gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), mugger (Crocodylus palustris) and saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus).

Gharial (Gavialis gangeticus)
It is also known as the gavial or the fish-eating crocodile,It is the longest among all living crocodilians.

• Conservation:  Critically Endangered (IUCN Red List)
• Schedule I: Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972
• Appendix I: CITES
• Threats: Loss of habitat because of sand mining and conversion to agriculture, depletion of fish resources and detrimental fishing.

Saltwater crocodile(Crocodylus porosus)

• It is the earth’s largest living crocodilian, with average-size males reaching 17 feet and 1,000 pounds.

Habitat

• Brackish and freshwater regions of eastern India, Southeast Asia and northern Australia.
• In and around BNP, the Sundarbans and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in India.

Threats

• Illegal hunting for their hides, habitat loss, and antipathy due to its reputation as a man-eater.

Conservation

• In 1975, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) started a crocodile breeding and rearing project.

IUCN Red List: Least Concern
Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972: Schedule I
Mugger crocodile(Crocodylus palustris)

• The mugger crocodile also called marsh crocodile or broad-snouted crocodile

Habitat

• It is native to freshwater habitats from southern Iran and Pakistan to the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka.

Conservation 

• The mugger has been listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1982.
• In India, it is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Among the six schedules in the Act, Schedule I and part II of Schedule II provide the highest degrees of protection to listed species, with the most stringent penalties for offenders.