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Man-Eating Crodilians
Not for the Squeamish – Some of the Pictures are Very Graphic!
Man-Eating Snakes I
Man-Eating Snakes II
Crocodilians
injure people under several sets of circumstances:
- Territorial defense
- Nest defense
- Self defense
- Predation
- By accident
- In the course of
handling by people
These
circumstances, of course, are not mutually exclusive. The first four, especially predation, typically result in the
death of the croc or gator if it can be caught. A website that provides excellent information on crocodilians,
including attacks on humans, can be found at:
http://www.libra-mmsystemh.demon.nl/Html/pg_enter.htm
One of the most harrowing crocodile attacks happened
at Ramree Island during World War II.
British troops had encircled a thousand Japanese soldiers who tried to
escape at night through a mangrove swamp on the island that faced the Burma
coast. Between British gunfire and
saltwater crocodiles, only about twenty Japanese survived. Because of their large size and widespread
distribution throughout Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and northern Australia,
saltwater crocs represent the number one man-eater of the crocodilians. Twelve fatal attacks by saltwater crocs
occurred in northern Australia alone from 1975 to 1988.
Protection of American alligators in Florida and
elsewhere has caused a rebound in both their numbers and attacks on
people. Alligators killed six people in
Florida from 1973 to 1978. Unprovoked
attacks ranged from 0 to 14 per year for the same period. A relatively small alligator killed and
partially devoured a teenager swimming in the Myakka River at night in
1973. Alligators also took the lives of
a scuba diver in Wakulla County in 1987, a child in Charlotte in 1988, and a
ten-year-old boy in Palm Beach County in 1993.
I can also give the circumstances of an attack on a
colleague on the Oklawaha River in the mid-seventies. While checking turtle traps in the knee-deep water of a side
slough, he was surprised by a large gator.
After knocking him down by striking his shin with its head, it grabbed
him by his armpit and started shaking.
He kept beating it on its eyes and the top of its head until it finally
released him. He stated later that he
never saw it approach or leave. He ran
his Johnboat back to the ramp, loaded it onto the trailer, and drove to the
hospital. His injuries included a
sizeable goosegg on his shin and extensive shoulder injuries that required
numerous stitches in both the skin and underlying muscle. Fortunately, the alligator did not cut any
major bloodvessels. Considering that my
colleague weighed around 200 pounds, the alligator must have been quite
large. Comparison of the distance
between the shoulder punctures from the alligator’s upper jaw teeth with the
corresponding distance in alligator skulls at the Florida State Museum
indicated that this animal was ten to twelve feet long. This attack was probably territorial or
predatory in origin.
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http://www.snopes.com/horrors/animals/golfcroc.htm http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/herpetology/brittoncrocs/attack.html |
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http://www.libra-mmsystemh.demon.nl/Html/pg_enter.htm |
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