The Kanika Forest Range personnel have decided to hatch 55 eggs of a 18.2 feet long Indian rock python, which they had retrieved on Tuesday from a straw heap of one Sambhunath Giri of Paramanandapur village under Iswarpur gram panchayat. They would be hatched at the Dangamala based Crocodile Breeding and Research Centre, informed Kanika Ranger Akhaya Kumar Nayak.
According to Nayak, the forest personnel on Tuesday, after rescuing the python and its eggs, released the python and kept its eggs at a peepal tree in Gahirmatha forest. But, on Wednesday, the forest personnel found that the python had deserted the eggs. As a result, it was decided that the eggs would be hatched artificially at Dangamala. “We are going to monitor the eggs every day. After the eggs would be hatched, the baby pythons would be released in the wild,” Ranger Nayak told.