"Crocodile Canyon"

Oued Bourâgga and El Houssaînîya, Tagant, Mauritania

Moudjéria and the Tagant Plateau expedition area

To the southwest of Matmâta is Oued Bourâgga, a large gulley containing a seasonal lake, and the settlement of El Husseînîya, in a small off-shoot with a permanent oasis.

We had reports of crocodiles from the area, especially from the oasis at El Husseînîya and we visited the area on several occasions to make a search.

To reach Oued Bourâgga we passed through the almost abandoned town of El Marshra with its many striking brick ruins.

El Marshra, seemingly abandoned apart from a few goats.

We interviewed catfish fishermen in Oued Bourâgga who claimed to have seen crocodiles over a wide area, even some distance from the known localities is small gueltas where they were carried by the occasional wet season flood waters. They also reported that Senegalese or Malinese hunters came to the region to hunt pythons for their skins and we found evidence of this trade out in Oued Bourâgga. The obvious threat to isolated crocodiles in small gueltas did not miss our notice.

Aerial view of Oued Bourâgga,	The area is still green for livestock.
But we were unable to find any standing water in which to float our boat.	We did find the remains of a skinned Central African rock python, Python sebae

El Housseînîya at the edge of Oued Bourâgga.	The entrance to El Housseînîya.
What a difference water makes.	The permanent oasis at El Housseînîya.
Hemmo interviews locals about crocodiles.	Filming GVs (general views) of the location.

We saw positive signs of at least one crocodile in the oasis at El Housseînîya, a tail-drag and lying-up place, but no live crocodiles. We did find the Tripoli dwarf sand gecko (Tropidocolotes tripolitanus apoklomax) living on rocks around the settlement.

Tripoli dwarf sand gecko, Tropidocolotes tripolitanus apoklomax