Re: Speaking of crocs

Posted by Sylvia on October 27, 2008, 10:37 pm, in reply to "Re: Speaking of crocs"
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I've chimed in on this issue before, unsuccessfully, but I guess I'll chime in again. It would be nice if we could find a way to educate the members of the La Manzanilla village without being too heavy handed on the danger we're actually creating by feeding the crocs down by the lagoon. We saw this happen in Florida in the 60's and 70's --- when the tourists (and locals) would feed the alligators, eventually the alligator would see a human and think 'Aha! Food!. It didn't matter anymore to the croc whether the food was in the hand of the human or the human WAS the food. A campaign urging people to refrain from feeding the alligators ANYTHING --- to keep them native started while I was living on an island in Southwest Florida. It's taken a long time to get the alligators and Floridians to co-exist as we kept on encroaching on their habitat --- just like in La Manzanilla. I'm not in La Manzanilla right now and I don't speak Spanish well enough to do what I would love to see done --- speak to the town leaders about the dangers of feeding the crocs and that the solution is simple --- prohibit people from feeding them. Have the signs show the dangers of feeding them. While I've been told by locals in La Manzanilla that the crocs won't eat humans, I just can't see why a croc will always successfully distinguish the difference between a large dog for lunch ---- or a toddler. Or any of us. I love having the crocodiles in La Manzanilla. I want to see them stay. But the minute someone gets attacked by a croc, the normal hysteria may prevail and the local croc population will be at risk. All because we started to feed them. Sylvia

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