KUCHING: As human population expands and more tourists travel to croc country, fatalities are bound to increase.
Add the ever-increasing population of crocs and it’s a recipe for inevitable disaster.
Since the crocodile hunting was banned decades ago, the reptiles have grown in number. Nobody knows how many because it’s difficult and expensive to count them.
Calls to cull them have not been heeded or allowed and for most people in crocodile-infested areas, life just goes on, that is, until someone gets attacked.
Opinions in the country are varied with some believing that the protection of crocodiles has “gone too far” and their numbers need to be controlled.
Despite witnessing the huge growth in crocodile numbers over the past 30 years, a significant number of people (especially city people and the fanatical environmental types) are not in favour of a widespread of crocodile cull.
“If you shoot some crocs, others will move in, so do you just keep killing until there is an overall reduction in numbers?” some asked.
“I don’t think that a cull would really achieve anything,” others say. “At the end of the day it is an animal that you really need to be educated about and learn to live with.”
There are those who think there are not enough food and resources to support any more animals, many of which have been moving up rivers because they are displaced further downstream.
Whenever someone is killed or injured by a crocodile, there are those cynical and sarcastic people who cryptically say, “The safest place to swim is in the shower.”
