After that episode we physically examined every supposed female we caught to be doubly sure of not making any error and found that most of the supposed females turned out to be males! By then, most of the crocs had run into the deepest part of the pond and we had hardly any crocs to choose a female from. Rom suggested chasing the females out of the water onto the land, but that's not easy at all. So he came up with another idea.
We got some iron gates and tied them together with a thick mesh net over it all. Then we had to wade into the green water with the net in front of us. This would effectively push the crocs from the deep water onto the land. But the best of plans can go haywire and, instead, the reverse started happening. The crocs from the land started coming into the water colliding with those being driven out by us. Thereafter there was general commotion in the water and all the crocs started thrashing about. One almost got my neighbour's hand. I could feel the crocs at my feet through the iron mesh that I held grimly onto. However we finally accomplished our dangerous mission and when we had driven a sufficient numbers onto the land we were able to select a female for Jaws.
Imagine Jaws' surprise when he saw a companion after all those years. She was exactly half his size in length and width. Perhaps he was just very excited or maybe it was due to a normal state of male aggression, we don't know, because he just caught the hapless female croc between his huge jaws and thrashed her about. "Croc barbecue is delicious", said Tharak expecting the poor creature to perish any moment. Fortunately or unfortunately, his wish was not fulfilled. The female survived although with quite a few bloody marks. Thereafter she kept her distance from the water as any sane creature would, avoiding Jaws like the plague.
Much later, when I visited Croc Bank a second time, it was the breeding season and there were a few nests to be excavated everyday. Each nest would occupy about the space of a medium size basket. Each egg was at least three times the size of a hen's egg and they usually numbered around 30 to 35. Every female-and each one of these measured from about 2 m to 3.5 m-would determinedly guard her nest, refusing to budge when we tried to chase her into the water in order to clean the pit.