A Sri Lankan naturalist shares his baby crocs sighting story

Chaminda Jayasekara, Experiential Manager and on-site Naturalist at Jetwing Vil Uyana resort in Sigiriya, captured on camera what can be regarded as a precious, rare sighting: the nesting and hatching of the hotel’s ‘resident crocodile’!

Travel Asia Now was thrilled to know this was the first time a wild crocodile had laid eggs at the resort.

Here’s Chaminda’s incredible experience observing a marsh crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) nest and hatch on the property.

Please share your personal experience of sighting a baby crocodile in Vil Uyana. 

The hotel celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this year, and of the 13 years I have been at the hotel, the birth of the baby crocodiles is the most amazing wildlife event I have witnessed.

Four crocodiles have chosen to join us at this incredible nature haven, and the mother crocodile has been a resident crocodile at the hotel for many years. She first sparked my attention when I found her in early August digging a small hole, around five meters away from the hotel reception. 

On the morning of August 13, I heard the mother hiss as I walked past on my way to reception and noticed she had covered the hole with soil. This was quite unusual behavior for her, so I waited, and when she returned to the water, I was overjoyed to see the outline of eggs.

This was an incredible sight, as it was the first time any croc had nested at Jetwing Vil Uyana. This was the first time in my career that I saw crocodile eggs. I set about erecting a 10-meter-long fence to protect the nest (against monitor lizards, fishing cats, and wild dogs) and placed a notice there with all the details of crocodile nesting to alert guests.

On day 77 of the hatching period, at around 9:35 pm, some lucky guests and I could hear the baby crocs hatching, and the mother crocodile started digging the nest. Ten hatchlings were born from that time to early morning the following day. Twenty croc babies in total were hatched.

When a mother crocodile hatches her eggs, she collects them gently in her mouth and takes them to safety — in this case, the water’s edge of the lake surrounding the hotel. Often misinterpreted in the past as the mother eating them, I witnessed her taking not only babies but also some eggs — which she did in two shifts.

I monitor the babies daily as if they were my own and have collated some incredible images.

Jetwing Vil Uyana remains one of the few places that have achieved this level of trust with the animals who have made the hotel grounds their home and feel comfortable enough to breed regularly. The mother allows me to check the babies daily when she is mere feet away.

Please describe the Vil Uyana environment. For someone who has not been there yet, what are the top three reasons why it should be on someone’s bucket list when traveling to Sri Lanka? 

Jetwing as a company has always believed that being environmentally conscious is the only way forward in terms of travel. Eco tourism has always been an inherent part of the Jetwing ethos, and creating hotels which adhere to environmental considerations has been a priority from the company’s inception.

Vil Uyana is a private nature reserve created on neglected agricultural land, comprising a wetland ecosystem with lakes, reed beds, working paddy fields, and reforested areas.

The 36 luxurious dwellings are integrated into a wetland reserve of just five acres despite the property spanning 28 acres. Designed by Sunela Jayawardene — Sri Lanka’s leading environmental architect — the dwellings are a haven of elegant simplicity. They are built over the waters of the lake and marshland on concrete stilts with access via wooden boardwalks.

Jetwing Vil Uyana is Sri Lanka’s first man-made wetland resort with water-based and forested habitats on land previously used for slash-and-burn agriculture, an endeavor that resulted in increasing the area’s biodiversity. Except for the native trees that were transplanted, all other animals, flora, and fauna have naturally chosen to make Jetwing Vil Uyana their home.

Rare and threatened species reliant on water, such as Otter and Fishing Cats, now thrive within the hotel premises. The forested areas also support a resident population of the protected Grey Slender Loris — first observed in October 2010, with numbers growing each year. Presently, over 150 species of birds, 27 species of mammals, 51 butterfly species, 15 species of dragonflies, 10 species of frogs, and 29 species of reptiles are found within hotel premises. And numbers are steadily on the increase.

This man-made nature reserve of Vil Uyana is a treasure trove rich in biodiversity, providing a haven for nature’s creations to thrive and prosper.

What other threatened species have been recorded at Jetwing Vil Uyana? What is the hotel doing to save and protect them? 

We have various threatened species, including the Slender Loris, Fishing Cat, Rusty Spotted Cat, and the Eurasian Otter.

To protect these species, we run three conservation programs: Jetwing Vil Uyana Loris Conservation Project (the longest-running conservation project to protect the Grey Slender Loris, which started in 2010), Jetwing Vil Uyana Wild Cats Conservation Project, and Protect Eurasian Otters Project.

How is Jetwing Vil Uyana giving back to local communities? How is the wider community benefiting from the property?

From its inception, supporting the community has been a policy that is strictly adhered to, and several methods are in place to ensure that this practice is carried out. The hotel provides sustainable income to local communities directly by providing employment opportunities to locals on a priority basis and indirectly by always sourcing local goods and services.

The hotel also organizes frequent safaris and excursions to the nearby cultural attractions, national parks, and the surrounding areas, and essentially employs drivers and guides who are local. This offers mutual benefit to both the hotel and the community.

Sustainable employment helps uplift their lives, and using local ‘experts’ gives Jetwing Vil Uyana the advantage of having local specialists who understand the community and its way of life, as well as a thorough knowledge of the area – offering a better service to the guests.

Our Loris Conservation project funded and built a local library and a community wildlife education center.

Another example of Jetwing’s community reach was during the pandemic. The hotel turned all unused land into agriculture, which provided food to feed the local community. And any leftover produce was sold to pay for the wages of staff. This enabled them to retain most staff in employment, which I believe is rare.

What inspired you to become a naturalist/environmentalist?

For as long as I can remember, nature-related activities have been my hobby; finally, it has become my Job.

I pursued Travel and Tourism Management and a postgraduate degree in Environment and Regional Development.

What project are you most proud of personally when it comes to sustainability?

It’s the Loris Conservation Project.

Sri Lanka’s mystical creatures of the night and the topic of many tales told across the centuries, the Loris is a small nocturnal primate found in Sri Lanka and India. The Northern Grey Slender Loris (Loris lydekkrianus nordicus), a subspecies of the Grey Slender Loris, is found mainly in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, including the forest around Jetwing Vil Uyana.

Between six and eight inches, the Grey Slender Loris is about the size of a chipmunk, with long, pencil-thin arms and legs and enormous inquisitive eyes. While they can live in wet and dry forests as well as lowland and highland forests, the Lorises prefer thick, thorny vegetation where they can easily escape predators and find the large assortment of insects — their main diet. Moving slowly and precisely among the top branches, Lorises spend most of their life in trees. Although not recognized as an endangered species, Loris is increasingly threatened by the loss of suitable habitat.

I host Loris-watching tours, where guests wearing specialized headlamps (less harmful to the eyes of nocturnal creatures adapted to low light) are invited to walk quietly through the forest. Here, they have a 95% chance of seeing a Loris and many other night creatures that inhabit the site.

Today, the Loris Trail at Jetwing Vil Uyana is considered the most reliable location in the country for watching these elusive creatures, with sightings recorded almost every night on the guided ‘loris watching’ excursions.

To this date, more than 1,500 sightings have been recorded. Over 7,000 guests have taken the trail and enjoyed seeing the elusive Loris in its habitat.

How would you encourage those who do little to nothing for the good of communities and the environment? What would you say to them? 

Put simply, we cannot live without nature! We are part of it. So, even in the tourism industry, we also have to think of the three pillars — people, planet, and profit. For a better future, we must protect Mother Nature.

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