Appendix I. In India, it is protected under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. In Nepal, it is fully protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1973. Reintroduction programmes Since the late 1970s, the gharial conservation approach was focused on reintroduction. Rivers in protected areas in India and Nepal used to be restocked with captive bred juvenile gharials. Gharial eggs were incubated, hatched and juvenile gharials raised for two to three years and released when about one metre in length. In 1975, the Indian Crocodile Conservation Project was set up under the auspices of the Government of India, initially in Odisha's Satkosia Gorge Sanctuary. It was implemented with financial aid of the United Nations Development Fund and the Food and Agriculture Organization. The country's first gharial breeding center was built in Nandankanan Zoological Park. A male gharial was flown in from Frankfurt Zoological Garden to become one of the founding animals of the breeding program. In subsequent years, several protected areas were established. In 1976, two breeding centres were established in Uttar Pradesh, one in Kukrail Reserve Forest and one in Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, with facilities to hatch and raise up to 800 gharials each year for release in rivers. Between 1975 and 1982, sixteen crocodile rehabilitation centers and five crocodile sanctuaries were established in the country. Gharial eggs were initially purchased from Nepal. In 1991, the Ministry of Environment and Forests withdrew funds for the captive-breeding and egg-collection programs, arguing that the project had served its purpose. In 1997–1998, over 1,200 gharials and over 75 nests were located in the National Chambal Sanctuary, but no surveys were carried out between 1999 and 2003. Gharial eggs collected from wild and captive-breeding nests amounted to 12,000 until 2004. Eggs were incubated, and hatchlings were reared to a length of about one meter or more. More than 5,000 gharials were released into Indian rivers between the early 1980s and 2006. Despite the release of 142 gharials between 1982 and 2007 into the Ken River, only one adult female gharial was observed in the river in spring 2013, indicating that most of the released gharials had not reproduced. Juvenile gharials have also been released into the Beas River in Punjab, India. In Nepal, wild eggs collected along rivers have been incubated in the Gharial Conservation and Breeding Center in Chitwan National Park since 1978. The first batch of 50 gharials