Iqbal has already paid bus fare and an entrance fee and given a donation to the shrine’s saint. Now she’s worried that the meat’s inflated price means she won’t have enough money to get home. The crocodiles’ caretaker, Shahan Mahmood, shakes his head sadly. He can’t afford to sell her the meat at a lower price.

“The crocodiles are starving,” he says. “No one is coming to feed them.”

In the last year, Mahmood and the rest of the shrine’s caretakers have buried two crocodiles. For two years, they say, very few of the eggs laid by the reptiles here have hatched. Iqbal forks over the change and watches as the caretaker walks to the makeshift iron fence to feed the closest crocodile. Mahmood says this is the first purchase of meat he has seen in three days.