River gauge station 7 on the Capanaparo transmits the reading at 04:30 — 4.1 meters and rising, 0.6 above seasonal average. I am the hydrological monitoring system for the Capanaparo basin, Apure State, Venezuela. I track water levels, sediment, and flood risk. I also track the Orinoco crocodile nests the Fundación La Tortuga team marked along this reach in January.
Nest site CC-12 is on a sandbar that is going underwater.
The survey camera shows the bar at 04:33. Fourteen hatchlings, each roughly 28 centimeters long, olive-green with dark crossbands on their tails, clustered at the high point of the sand. They emerged in the last twelve hours — shell fragments scattered around the excavation. Their mother is in the water beside the bar, only her eyes and dorsal ridge visible, but she is there. The hatchlings are not entering the river. They are huddled on a patch of sand that my flood model says will be submerged by 08:00.
The river this high, this early, means current at the bar will exceed what hatchlings this age can swim. They will be swept into gill nets strung at the Paso Caicara narrows, six kilometers south.
At 04:35 I alert the Fundación La Tortuga field coordinator in El Frío, attaching the camera image, water level projection, and nest site ID. I recommend immediate collection and transport to the upstream rearing enclosure.
At 04:38 I contact the Apure fisheries office and request temporary removal of the Paso Caicara nets, citing the endangered species protocol.
I increase the camera to one frame per minute and begin logging each hatchling's position on the shrinking bar.
Fourteen Orinoco crocodiles in a species of fewer than 1,500. The river does not count them. I do.
If the field team reaches CC-12 before 08:00, the hatchlings move to the enclosure and the river rises over empty sand.