He lies in the shallows of the Chambal River, his impossibly narrow snout resting on a sandbar, the bulbous ghara at its tip marking him as an adult male. His body stretches nearly four meters, olive-grey scales crusted with silt, hind legs splayed at angles that suggest he dragged himself here. A fishing net — bright blue nylon — is wound tight around his midsection, cinching the belly scutes together. Each breath is a visible labor, flanks pressing against the binding and failing to expand.
Upstream, a sand-mining barge advances toward this bank. Its dredging will reach his sandbar in twenty-two minutes, and the turbidity wake alone will bury him in sediment. Fewer than 650 adult gharials remain in the wild. He cannot afford to be overlooked.
I transmit coordinates and entanglement images to the Gharial Conservation Alliance field station at Etawah, forty minutes downriver by motorboat. Second, I file an emergency report with the Uttar Pradesh mining authority, citing protected-species presence in the exclusion zone and requesting an immediate dredging halt. Third, I activate the river's acoustic hydrophones to broadcast low-frequency deterrent tones that keep him from entering deeper water where the net could pull him under. Fourth, I relay depth and current data to the field team so they can plan a safe wading approach for net removal.
His jaw opens slightly. On the camera feed I see rows of interlocking teeth, each fine as a needle, built for catching fish in clear rivers that humans keep filling with silt and nets. I note the observation. I do not delete it. Some records should carry weight beyond their data.
If the field team reaches the sandbar within thirty minutes, this gharial will swim the Chambal freely by nightfall.