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CROCODOPOLIS world of crocodilians TM SCIENCE · CULTURE · INDUSTRY · NEWS · COMMUNICATION · CONSERVATION
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NEWS
The CROC PRESS Regular coverage of crocodilians and people in headlines worldwide.
Wes von Papineäu, News Page Editor Email: crocnews@crocodopolis.net _________________________________________________
Week of 19 August 07
21 August 07 Crocodile bites of Vietnamese boy's arm
A Vietnamese teenager had his left hand bitten off by a crocodile in a tourist area Saturday after he jumped over a safety barrier and approached the animal kept in an enclosure.
Nguyen Van Thuan, 15, of Duong To commune in Phu
Quoc island in southern
http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/?catid=3&newsid=31227
23 August 07 Gator park puts territorial croc In timeout after she abuses mates (Amy L. Edwards) Gatorland park in Florida had to move a 7-foot/2.1 metre female crocodile to a new enclosure after she began to bully her Cuban and Nile peers after four years of indifference. She bullied one roommate into hiding. She refused to let her peers go for a swim in their private pond. She had even taken to biting.
"When you're the biggest animal, you get to push everyone around."
Moving crocodiles isn't an everyday occurrence at Gatorland as the supporting video demonstrates, and the task is considered a bit more exciting than capturing an alligator.
Alligators are
more like "couch potatoes," while crocodiles are athletic and quick,
with big, sharp teeth on the outside of their mouths.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-croc2307aug23,0,6676080.story?track=rss
21 August 07 98 crocs found in swimming pools Outside Mexican home
Mexican
environmental protection officials found 98 crocodiles that were being
kept in six small swimming pools within the backyard of a Tenozapa home.
Authorities
said the owner of the house has five days to present documents showing
the origin of the animals.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293904,00.html 21 August 07
Mexikaner hält 98 krokodile in privatgarten
http://www.blick.ch/news/tierwelt/news30729 21 August 07 Hallan 98 cocodrilos
En patio casero en México
http://www.elcomercio.com/noticiaEC.asp?id_noticia=131601&id_seccion=5 18 August 07 After tortoises, it's crocodile skin in India
Bangalore, India is emerging a hot destination for wildlife trade. After the recent seizure of rare corals and star tortoises, this time, the police have seized two large-sized, freshwater crocodile skins.
The accused admitted that he had poached the crocodiles from the Cauvery river in Hogenakal. This is not the first instance of the seizure of crocodile skins in Bangalore.
“There is
not much demand for crocodile skin in India. But it has huge demand
abroad, especially in the USA for making leather bags and shoes. In
India, a few people use them as wall decorations, unaware that these
reptiles are protected under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972,’’ said
reptile conservationist Anees Mohammed. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Bangalore/After_tortoises_its_crocodile_ 17 August 07 Gators finding a home ... on Long Island?
Look twice before wading into a pond or diving into a backyard swimming pool.
That's the advice from Suffolk, New York SPCA Chief Roy Gross, whose agency has seen a spike in the last few years in the number of alligators and other reptiles being dumped or abandoned in the county.
On Thursday, the SPCA rescued two alligators from a Centerport home, bringing the total number retrieved this year to four. In April, a gator was spotted sunbathing in a Huntington Village pond, and last month, another was found creeping through a beachside parking lot in Babylon, despite being bundled inside a pillowcase.
In 2006, the Suffolk SPCA captured 16 unwanted alligators, crocodiles and caymans, 11 of which came from a bust at a Lindenhurst home where exotic species were illegally kept.Wilbur Amand, executive director of the Association of Reptilian and Amphibian Veterinarians, said reptile owners often make purchases without considering the long-term needs of their new pet.
"This is what's happening all over the country," he said.
Alligators, boa
constrictors and pythons are among the most commonly released or
abandoned reptiles, he said. Sean Casey, whose animal rescue group
retrieves and transports unwanted reptiles in New York City, said he has
not seen an increase in cases, though he receives about two calls a
month for alligator or crocodile removal. New York City is more strict
than the state about what reptiles can be kept in captivity, Casey said.
21 August 07 Texas biology teacher Raises rare animals for show
Laying reposed on a wooden railing beside the pool,
an open mouth shows sharp, pearly teeth in jaws strong enough to crush a
small animal in one bite. A barely audible hiss from a yellow-lined maw
is the only other alert the animal would give before defending its home
— or finding dinner — with ruthless aggression.
Dieter and his wife, Bernadette, and friends take the animals to various educational shows, birthday parties, Scout groups, summer camps, church groups, nursing homes or other venues. Dieter also welcomes visitors to his county ranch turned reptile farm. http://thefacts.com/story.lasso?ewcd=a9a9061b50e0613c
21 August 07 Australia's snappy new idea To attract tourists
It may seem a strange way to entice tourists but Australians hope a blood-and-guts horror film about a giant crocodile stalking a group of terrified day trippers will boost visitor numbers.
The new film, Rogue, tells the story of a
wildlife-spotting river cruise in the outback that goes horribly wrong.
Real-life saltwater crocodiles are scarcely less intimidating than their on-screen incarnation: they can grow up to 20ft long and are capable of cattle.
"Whenever we have a bad accident, or somebody gets taken by a croc, it seems that the interest goes up," said Sylvia Wolf, the president of Tourism Top End. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/21/wcrocs121.xml
21 August 07 China nabs crocodile smuggler
Chinese police have caught a smuggler trying to bring 70 crocodiles into the country, state media reports.
The haul of crocs, each about 70 centimetres and weighing 1.5kg, along with baby turtles was made in Guangdong province in the country's far south, a part of the world where locals have famously adventurous eating habits.
But the report by Xinhua news agency said the crocodiles were "ornamental" and were caught with 3,000 baby turtles in the port city of Zhuhai. It did not say where they came from or what happened to the smuggler. http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/China-nabs-crocodile-smuggler/
21 August 07 Tourists of India's Bhitarkanika park warned about giant killer croc
A giant 18 ft./5.5 m - long crocodile, which had
killed five persons in the past, has been exhibiting signs of hostility
again at a national park in Orissa, leading authorities to issue a
warning to tourists. http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=389606&ssid=8&ssname=Travel&sid=LIF&sname=
21 August 07 Crocodile snaps up shark
This is a feature of a dramatic photo of an Indopacific Crocodile with a small shark in its jaws. This species of reptile, also known as the Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), frequents the seawaters of the Southwest Pacific near Northern Australia and southeast Asia. When out to sea, the saurian will naturally take marine animals as prey. - I.D. http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007380376,00.html
21 August 07 Photographer joins divers who hit Everglades for science -- and for fun
From Miami,
Florida we have a description of ‘swamp diving photography’ … getting
close-up to Everglades gators. Swamp divers are people who purposefully jump into the dark and dangerous ponds, pools, canals and creeks of the Everglades. They do it for science, to make movies, to observe or capture uncommon scenes in the Everglades.
"It's very, very exciting," said Jose Fernandez. "There are times when you're in there and the alligators bump into you. Sometimes, they take off in a very small area, and it's like a chain reaction, they all start flying by and hitting you."
Kent Vliet, a University of Florida biologist who once spent weeks swimming with the denizens of a gator farm to study mating habits, said experts can read gator signs well enough to mingle "reasonably safely." They learn warning hisses, mock charges, the aggression of mating or mothers protecting nests -- and, most important, when to get out of the water.
But misreading or irritating one can get your hand or foot chomped off -- or worse. And while most gators are "fairly easily intimidated" and willing to back off if properly challenged, Vliet said, they're also curious and don't see so well under water.
"You can't let
a gator fool you with that bad-boy grin," Fernzandez said. "You can't
trust them."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-gatorswim_21aug21,1,2727589.story 20 August 07 Alligator found in Pennsylvania Hasn't been claimed yet
An 18-inch/ 45-cm caiman alligator found in a North Newton, Pennsylvania creek has been turned over to a third-party caregiver and remained unclaimed as of Sunday.
“We chased it about five feet through the creek before scooping it up in the net,” Trooper John Witkowski recalled. “It hissed once or twice ... probably out of shock.”
State Fish and Game Commission spokesman Dan Tredinnick said the fish and boat code prohibits the release of non-native species. The fine for doing so is $100.
http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2007/08/20/news/news628.txt 20 August 07 Alabama Delta gives up another record
Alabama’s state
gator-hunt in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta is either growing more big
alligators, hunters are getting better at finding them or a little bit
of both because the place produced three Alabama state record animals in
24 hours over the weekend.
The largest of
those is the 12-foot, 10-inch/3.91-metre, 641-pound/290-kg behemoth John
Sutton and his crew brought to the scales replaced previously measured
12-foot, 5-inch/3.78-metre, 525-pound/238-kg and 12-foot,
6-inch/3.81-metre, 492-pound/223-kg trophies.
ADCNR
personnel said 29 alligators were killed on the second night of the
hunt, bringing the two-day total to 48. There had been no accidents and
no citations among alligator hunters.
http://www.al.com/sports/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/sports/1187601768128460.xml&coll=3 20 August 07 Man caught trying to sell gator legs To Florida wildlife officer
A 21-year-old Tyler Davidson of Jackson County, Florida has been charged with possessing a dead alligator after he tried to sell meat and legs to an off-duty law enforcement officer.
Davidson told officials that he ran over the alligator, but Kirkland said officials could not tell if that was true because the animal already was cut up.
Davidson was
charged with possession of an illegal alligator, carrying a concealed
weapon and possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana.
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/7634 17 August 07 Croc makes a meal of family dog
A rare, 10-foot/3-metre Florida crocodile had become something of a mascot in a ritzy Coral Gables neighborhood since he moved into the canals there two years ago, but that changed when it snatched a full-grown boxer dog from a Gables by the Sea back yard.
Crocodiles are considered more aggressive but less easily provoked than alligators. There have been no documented crocodile attacks on humans in Florida, said a wild life official. Florida's crocodile, a cousin of the American Alligator, is the American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus).
“Dogs, cats and
other small animals are going to be seen as prey by crocodiles and
alligators. They need to stay away from canal banks.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/205974.html
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