In Sarawak capture the crocodile alive but in Beijing crocodile which devoured nine year old shot
Operations to capture and after that quarantine the crocodile that killed a 24 year-old man on Wednesday evening are ubderway. The team will be armed with 10 fishing rods and eight spears, The license to hunt down the reptile was issued on Friday. Fresh chicken will be used as bait.
The crocodiles are ferocious animals. I remember last time I watched a neighbour trap its cousin, the local biawak or called by the Chinese si ka chua or alligator. It was only six feet long. He tied hooks similar to that used by butchers to hang meat from at the market and attached them to thick green ropes. For bait we used pig skin as it was tough and wouldnt break off so easily. The reptile had cost my neighbour dearly in terms of chickens and ducks.
Anyway, after catching it, somehow or other he managed to quarantine it inside a chicken coop. Its tail was so powerful that within minutes it had damaged the thick netting around the coop, brought down the clumsy wooden structure and would have escaped if not for the hook still stuck in its mouth.
After that, my friend slung it over a tree trunk and killed it after it had exhausted itself. He then made a slit in the skin right in the centre from the neck to the tail and then removed the skin. Slowly he disentangled the skin from the rest of the body with a fine knife. Then in a second, he pulled it down just like pulling down a man’s trousers. He sold the skin.
He wanted to sell the meat for RM4.00 a kg but there were few buyers as it was an old reptile and its meat was tough so he made curry for his family and friends.
In the meantime the crocodile that ate a nine-year old child, Liu in Beijing has been shot. Liu and three other boys had climbed over the fence and tormented the reptiles. They pelted the animals with sticks and rocks. One crocodile caught hold of a boy’s clothes and dragged him into the water. Altogether eleven crocodiles fed on him. The incident took place at the Yintan resort in Beihai.
I shudder to think how the adults responsible for the resort through their negligence could have allowed this horrifying incident to happen. The manager and the keeper were being held by police.
