The gharial is one of the world's most critically endangered crocodilians — with fewer than 300 adults remaining — facing habitat loss and entanglement in fishing nets that cause direct welfare harm.
Gharial welfare is inseparable from their conservation crisis. Net entanglement causes rapid drowning in animals that need to surface to breathe — a distressing death that removes individuals from an already critically depleted breeding population. Gharials that survive entanglement may sustain injuries to their distinctive snouts, which are essential for feeding. Loss of sandy river banks for nesting — through sand mining, river engineering, and agricultural encroachment — prevents successful reproduction, causing reproductive failure at the population level. The welfare of individual gharials is directly threatened by the same human activities driving population decline. River restoration, sand mining bans on nesting banks, and fishing gear modifications to reduce bycatch are direct welfare interventions that simultaneously address conservation needs.