TOBY,TOBY,
THE MAN OF THE CROCODILES
Photographs, Magazine Flora and Fauna.Editada in Cuba.aņo 1998.
By: Julio Haedo Maden and Noel Martinez Martinez
MAGAZINE HUMEDAL, CITMA, ZAPATA SWAMP.
There is an old one will refrán that it says " crocodile tears, do not move ", saying that do not share Roberto Ramos Targarona, more known by Toby, who almost by a quarter of century works in the study and preservation of these reptiles in the Deposit of Crocodiles of the BOCA, in Zapata Swamp, territory where the greater population of these animals in Cuba is based.
" I arrived at the Swamp in September of 1974, just graduated like biologist in the University as Havana and with the far from easy task of investigating the crocodiles. In that stage I worked with a group of specialists of CENSA-PESCA, directed by doctor Fernando González, who dedicated itself to the study of the reproduction, nutrition, genetics and environmental physiology of the crocodile ".
Thus Toby, considered like one of the most prestigious investigators of that subject in the country reflects, knowledge that inside guarantee with numerous investigations and made publications and outside the country, member of the Group of Specialists of Crocodiles and of the Committee of Fauna of the Union the International for the Conservation of the Nature.
"In the Swamp they exist in wild state, two species of crocodile, the American crocodile, Crocodylus acutus and the Cuban crocodile Crocodylus rhombifer, an endemic species of Cuba, that at the present time only lives in the Peninsula of Zapata and the Lanier Swamp, in the Island of Youth ".
Down, Toby sexando a cocodrilo.Revista Flora and Fauna 98.Editada in Cuba.
" In 1974 the separation of those species confined in the deposit of the BOCA began, institution created in the first years of the Revolution. That action allowed to preserve the conditions that identify each group and to safeguard to the Cuban species, a true jewel of the fauna of the island.
In the last twenty years the studies of the wild populations of those animals have been made, being obtained to calculate the existence in this natural region of about eleven thousand units, which allows to establish strategies for its preservation.
" These works have been made in an area of about 300 square kilometers, anticipating itself to extend the searches towards new zones where the conditions of habitat of that species are created, tasks that have been affected by the present economic limitations that the country lives ".
To Robert Branches, the studies of the crocodile have taken to handle it to manifold details of the life and structures of these reptiles.
" It is the only reptile that takes care of its nest and during certain time of his prole, where it becomes very dangerous. Its diet varies according to the size of the animal, from insects to vertebrates, although all the species are carnivorous, reason why they develop hunting abilities ".
" the Cuban crocodile can reach up to 4 meters in length, badly carves a little inferior to the one of the call American cayman. In the world 23 species of Crocodílidos exist, of which they are present in Cuba three, one of them, the cayman, was introduced from Colombia in 1959 in the Island of Youth.
By its importance, the Cuban species is protected by the norms of the Convention the International for Comercio of the Species in Danger of Extinction (CHALLENGES), organism that it classifies to the species taking care of the degree of extinction threat ".
" At the present time the Deposit of the BOCA, in Zapata Swamp, is registered before CHALLENGES, like the only one of the authorized country to commercialize the Cuban species, anticipating itself to include in a future a new proposal for the sale of unit of the American crocodile".
Today the world faces one of the acute ecological challenges from its existence: to preserve the species or to disappear like living beings. The crocodile as inhabitant of the planet does not escape to the risks of this time.
That recognizes Toby, who considers that still we are on time to drive to preserve the values that by million years have been present in the Earth.
