1 reactions
A personal crocodile story
> I've posted the same story to other platforms under my own name, so this might be self-doxxing. But honestly, people need to know the actual risks when we make nice motherhood statements about encouraging coexistence with large apex predators like crocodiles. Coexistence is possible. But at the same time, it will involve an incredible amount of hard work and resources on everyone's part, strict adherence to guidelines, and the acceptance that despite all your preparations and safeguards, someday, somebody might still get munched on. And whether it was the person's fault or not, it's the entire crocodile population that will bear the brunt of public anger.
I'd like to share something personal. Recent events have brought back a repressed memory, one that I've kind of downplayed in the past, buried in my mind, and never really shared widely, even with my peers in Singapore's nature community.
This is going to be a long story, so buckle up.
Several years back, through my own actions, I could have been eaten by a crocodile.
Those of you who have known me IRL for several years know that I used to work for NParks. Make of that what you will.
I was based at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, and while the main focus of my work involved fieldwork outside of the reserve, on days when we were around in the office, my project teammates and I were still actively involved in some of the day to day operations within Sungei Buloh. This included providing extra manpower for outreach activities and events on weekends, meeting VIPs and showing them around, staying overnight to ring shorebirds, an assortment of wildlife surveys, planting mangrove saplings, camera trapping, assisting with patrols, attending to visitors, and more. Fun times.
Sometimes we had to respond to wildlife encounters. For example, there were times when we had to move Shore Pit Vipers slightly further away from the trails and boardwalks, in case somebody unknowingly got too close. Or the small troop of Long-tailed Macaques would be up to some mischief and we would have to get visitors to behave themselves around the monkeys.
Crocodiles were part and parcel of a typical workday at Sungei Buloh. Like other potentially dangerous wildlife like venomous snakes and hornets, they were simply a part of the environment, but the possible consequences of a close encounter with a crocodile meant we were always on the lookout for crocodiles, especially if we were doing any sort of work close to the water’s edge. During shorebird ringing sessions, someone always had to be on the lookout for crocodiles lurking nearby, especially since the bulk of our activity took place at night.
For the most part, the crocodiles avoided people. Sure, we had large individuals like Tailless and Alpha, but we kept away from them, and they kept away from us. Once in a while though, a large crocodile would crawl out of the water onto the trail to bask (this was before the barriers were installed along the trails), blocking the path.
While dealing with the crocodiles themselves was straightforward, there was significant public concern, especially when reports of these incidents made their way to social media. Every time this happened, you’d get people saying that the crocodiles should all be culled, grumbling that the authorities would only take action after somebody was killed, and so on. You know, the typical angry people online, who would often resort to hyperbole and misinformation.
Most of these comments could be dismissed and disregarded. After all, the risks were relatively low, as long as people behaved themselves and did not do stupid things.
It wasn't long before I had a close encounter with a crocodile at Sungei Buloh, although I was never in any real danger.
One night, I was trying to catch and remove several non-native Günther's Frogs from the small, relatively shallow pond at the Wetland Centre, close to the former Main Bridge. As I started to wade into the pond, a large reptile burst out of the water, dashed out of the pond away from me, ran a short distance through the undergrowth, and plunged into the river that was just a short distance away.
I was very surprised by this sudden encounter, and I froze for a few moments. From the brief glimpse I had in the light cast by my headlamp, it definitely wasn’t a Malayan Water Monitor.
I walked towards where the animal had fled, stood on the top of the riverbank, and looked down: there, a few metres downslope, glaring at me from the river, was a juvenile crocodile, about 1 to 1.5 metres or so in length. So while I was certainly startled, it wasn't actually a dangerous interaction.
This incident, and several other encounters with smaller 1-2 metre long crocodiles, where they always fled from us, made me become a little complacent. After some time, I got a bit blasé about crocodiles; sure, they were potentially dangerous, but as long as I was always on the lookout, avoided the larger ones, and didn’t take stupid risks, I’d be fine.
One day, sometime in 2015, I ended up taking a really stupid risk. I cannot remember the exact date anymore, but I recall the events as they unfolded.
I was alone, in a staff area next to the Wetland Centre, where the boat we use for patrols and offshore surveys is parked when not in use. I had some very muddy containers to clean and rinse out, and while I could have opted to rinse them out with a hose, I foolishly decided to stand on the boat ramp and wash them in the river. After all, the mud came from the river, might as well return the mud to the river. The tide was high; oh good, I thought to myself at that time, I don’t have to walk too far out on the slippery boat ramp and risk getting my feet muddy while I wash things.
I approached the water’s edge, and took a quick glance around. All clear: no sign of any crocodiles in the vicinity. I squatted down, and started washing my containers. At short intervals, I would pause, look up, and scan the area for crocodiles, before resuming. Still no sign of them. I continued my washing.
But remember:
I was alone.
It was high tide.
I was squatting down, right at the water’s edge.
When you read about crocodile attacks, many of the victims were grabbed under similar circumstances, when they least expected it.
As I continued washing, I must have gotten distracted, and stopped looking up for some time. Because when I finally looked up, what I saw made me suddenly realise the terrible decision I had made, and just how vulnerable I truly was.
A large adult crocodile, some 2 to 3 metres in length, was slowly cruising past me, several metres away. It wasn’t approaching me, just heading upstream. I’m terrible at gauging distances, so I don’t know how far away it was. It could have been as little as 5 metres away, it could have been 10 metres, maybe a little more. Whatever the case, the moment I saw it, I immediately grabbed my containers and backed away from the water. The crocodile simply continued floating upriver, and swam out of sight.
But as I left the area, I realised one chilling fact: the moment I spotted the crocodile, it was already passing my position along the riverbank. Which means that I had been extremely careless, had kept my head down for way too long, and had failed to notice the crocodile while it was downstream and swimming closer.
Immediately after that incident, I mentioned it in passing to some of my ex-colleagues, and must have downplayed it, because at that time, I didn’t feel like I was in any real danger.
When your average work day can include an insane plethora of unpredictable potential hazards, ranging from hornet nests, lightning strikes, shards of broken glass and rusty metal hidden in the undergrowth, and falling trees, to venomous snakes, getting stabbed in the face by an angry heron, heatstroke, getting stuck in soft mud, drowning, or simply getting lost in the forest, a near miss like that becomes just another story you laugh about at the end of another work day. Besides, the crocodile was only swimming past, it's not like it lunged at me and I had to perform a split-second dodge.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realised just how close I came to possibly dying that day.
In this case, the crocodile was simply passing by, and did not take any interest in me. But what if it had been hungry? What if it had seen me, squatting down by the water’s edge, distracted, and decided to take a chance? What if the splashing and sounds made by me washing the containers had sounded like a thrashing fish, and drew its attention? Given the really small distance between us, it could have simply changed direction, silently submerged, and approached for an ambush. And I would have been none the wiser.
I’m sharing this story not to make myself seem brave for surviving a potentially dangerous situation with a wild crocodile.
I was not brave. I was incredibly stupid, I was careless, I took an unbelievably unnecessary risk, and under different circumstances, I could have very well been the first documented crocodile bite victim in Singapore in the 21st century.
But I dare say that among all the people in Singapore who have been thinking and talking a lot about crocodiles over the past week, probably very few people can say they've had a similar experience like mine.
The moral of the story here is that even among people who spend time around crocodiles on a regular basis, it's so easy to let your guard down and become complacent. But one momentary lapse in judgment can easily mean disaster.
You think you’re careful and cautious enough. “It won’t happen to me, what are the odds?”
The gods of the river, mangrove and coast see you, and simply watch, and wait. You take your eyes off the water, and if an opportunity presents itself, you are entirely at their mercy.
They’re experts in watching and waiting; the lineage that gave rise to our modern-day crocodilians has been doing the same thing for tens of millions of years, watching and waiting, masters of the aquatic ambush.
Their ancestors shared the world with the non-avian dinosaurs, during the Late Cretaceous period. When a giant rock fell out of the sky 66 million years ago, set the world on fire, then plunged the planet into the equivalent of nuclear winter, wiping out most of their archosaurian kin, the crocodilians simply retreated to the water and hunkered down.
Before long, they were able to resume watching and waiting, this time in a world that would eventually be dominated by mammals.
The crocodilians have honed their predatory skills on prey that is far quicker, far more agile, and far warier than us.
If you’re ever close to the water in crocodile country, never, ever assume that it’s completely safe.
So many of my ex-colleagues at Sungei Buloh have their own close encounters and other crocodile stories. Some of them had to trap and move crocodiles away from the ponds in the reserve where the risk of an attack on a human is simply too high. My ex-colleagues were also involved in the capture and relocation of the 1.7 metre crocodile at Lower Seletar Reservoir in 2019.
Staff in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve and others in NParks have been consulting with crocodile experts in Australia's Northern Territory, where so much work has been done to mitigate human-crocodile conflict, learning from the best in the field. And yes, despite having so much more tolerance and trying so hard to encourage coexistence, removal of crocodiles in some areas for human safety is standard procedure all over the Northern Territory and Queensland.
So implying that NParks doesn't know what it's doing is honestly rather ignorant.
I also need to stress that this is why it's so important that visitors stay on the trails in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve at all times.
The staff sometimes have to perform work closer to the water's edge, but they are aware of the risks and take all sorts of precautions. Even though the crocodiles behave themselves for the most part, among all the visitors to Sungei Buloh, sadly there will always be a small proportion of people who will readily put their own lives and the animals' lives in jeopardy.
People may complain about the decision to install the wooden barriers along the public trails throughout so much of the reserve, but with the large crocodiles coming up to bask on the trails and people doing idiotic things like approaching the crocodiles or taking selfies with the crocodiles, it was only a matter of time before a crocodile lunged at someone.
Now, with the barriers in place, the risk is significantly reduced. The wooden barriers exclude the larger crocodiles, while juveniles, along with all the other smaller creatures, such as monitor lizards, snakes, and otters, can still pass freely through the gaps.
The large crocodiles can still move between the rivers and tidal ponds via the sluice gates. As long as visitors keep to the trails, and never cross the barriers, the crocodiles are protected from human stupidity.
In the core area of Sungei Buloh (Route 2 and Route 3, for those of you who remember), there are no barriers, so the crocodiles are still free to bask on the trails and travel overland if they want to. This is also why it's important that visitors do not enter areas that are out of bounds to the public. There used to be so many issues with people trespassing into areas of the reserve not open to the public, until actual gates had to be installed.
In the past, we've had a camera trap showing a family with young children trespassing and walking down a closed trail, with the next sequence of photos then showing a crocodile hauled up onto the very same spot not long after the family had passed.
If you love crocodiles, and are excited about the prospects of being able to see them in Sungei Buloh, please don't do stupid shit. NParks has done so much to make things safer for ordinary visitors, but if you approach the water, cross the barriers, or enter areas that are closed to the public, your safety is not guaranteed.
If someone gets hurt through their own actions, we can easily say, "Oh they deserved it," but it's still a human life that's been dramatically affected.
And regardless of who was at fault, any incident involving someone getting hurt by a crocodile will simply make the general public even less keen on the idea of having wild crocodiles living and breeding freely in Singapore.
We already have so many people who are afraid of stepping foot in Sungei Buloh, despite the barriers and other safety measures. Sure, we don't need to pander to them, but the fact is that we cannot control how people feel.
What we can do is to manage the risks realistically so that such paranoia and fear don't come to dominate the discourse.
I still love crocodiles so much. I have so much admiration for their raw power, their amazing hunting prowess, their intelligence, their complex and rich social lives, their gentler, nurturing side, their resilience and ability to just keep surviving, despite the challenges they face at times.
But ever since that incident, I’ve gained an even healthier respect for them. And this is why I strongly emphasise that we must never ever underestimate the potential dangers that can arise when crocodiles and humans come into close contact.
Especially when we’re talking about human communities who are naive about crocodiles and what they’re truly capable of.
I was aware of the possible dangers, and yet I took an unnecessary risk, and could have paid the price. And if we do not take things seriously, someday, somebody might unknowingly take that risk, with a possibly very tragic outcome.
Learning to live with apex predators is complicated in so many ways; I am always reading about how communities all over the world are grappling with the idea of living alongside crocodilians, big cats, wolves, and bears, and there are so many stories and lessons about what's worked and what hasn't worked elsewhere.
In the near future, I'll share some of my thoughts on trying to coexist with crocodiles in Singapore, and the critical work that needs to be done if we are to prepare Singaporeans for coexistence with crocodiles outside of our northwestern coastline.
So this is my story, the invaluable lesson that one of the Sungei Buloh crocodiles taught me, and one of the reasons why I did not share in the seemingly unanimous outrage over the culling of the crocodile at Marina East.
You think you really know crocodiles and the Singapore public is truly ready to give coexistence a try? Think again. You are not prepared.
But hey, what do I know? According to some people, I'm just a smart alec trying to make excuses on behalf of NParks. 🤷🏻♂️
All I can say in response to such accusations is this, and no pun intended, BITE ME.
#local
source
> I've posted the same story to other platforms under my own name, so this might be self-doxxing. But honestly, people need to know the actual risks when we make nice motherhood statements about encouraging coexistence with large apex predators like crocodiles. Coexistence is possible. But at the same time, it will involve an incredible amount of hard work and resources on everyone's part, strict adherence to guidelines, and the acceptance that despite all your preparations and safeguards, someday, somebody might still get munched on. And whether it was the person's fault or not, it's the entire crocodile population that will bear the brunt of public anger.
I'd like to share something personal. Recent events have brought back a repressed memory, one that I've kind of downplayed in the past, buried in my mind, and never really shared widely, even with my peers in Singapore's nature community.
This is going to be a long story, so buckle up.
Several years back, through my own actions, I could have been eaten by a crocodile.
Those of you who have known me IRL for several years know that I used to work for NParks. Make of that what you will.
I was based at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, and while the main focus of my work involved fieldwork outside of the reserve, on days when we were around in the office, my project teammates and I were still actively involved in some of the day to day operations within Sungei Buloh. This included providing extra manpower for outreach activities and events on weekends, meeting VIPs and showing them around, staying overnight to ring shorebirds, an assortment of wildlife surveys, planting mangrove saplings, camera trapping, assisting with patrols, attending to visitors, and more. Fun times.
Sometimes we had to respond to wildlife encounters. For example, there were times when we had to move Shore Pit Vipers slightly further away from the trails and boardwalks, in case somebody unknowingly got too close. Or the small troop of Long-tailed Macaques would be up to some mischief and we would have to get visitors to behave themselves around the monkeys.
Crocodiles were part and parcel of a typical workday at Sungei Buloh. Like other potentially dangerous wildlife like venomous snakes and hornets, they were simply a part of the environment, but the possible consequences of a close encounter with a crocodile meant we were always on the lookout for crocodiles, especially if we were doing any sort of work close to the water’s edge. During shorebird ringing sessions, someone always had to be on the lookout for crocodiles lurking nearby, especially since the bulk of our activity took place at night.
For the most part, the crocodiles avoided people. Sure, we had large individuals like Tailless and Alpha, but we kept away from them, and they kept away from us. Once in a while though, a large crocodile would crawl out of the water onto the trail to bask (this was before the barriers were installed along the trails), blocking the path.
While dealing with the crocodiles themselves was straightforward, there was significant public concern, especially when reports of these incidents made their way to social media. Every time this happened, you’d get people saying that the crocodiles should all be culled, grumbling that the authorities would only take action after somebody was killed, and so on. You know, the typical angry people online, who would often resort to hyperbole and misinformation.
Most of these comments could be dismissed and disregarded. After all, the risks were relatively low, as long as people behaved themselves and did not do stupid things.
It wasn't long before I had a close encounter with a crocodile at Sungei Buloh, although I was never in any real danger.
One night, I was trying to catch and remove several non-native Günther's Frogs from the small, relatively shallow pond at the Wetland Centre, close to the former Main Bridge. As I started to wade into the pond, a large reptile burst out of the water, dashed out of the pond away from me, ran a short distance through the undergrowth, and plunged into the river that was just a short distance away.
I was very surprised by this sudden encounter, and I froze for a few moments. From the brief glimpse I had in the light cast by my headlamp, it definitely wasn’t a Malayan Water Monitor.
I walked towards where the animal had fled, stood on the top of the riverbank, and looked down: there, a few metres downslope, glaring at me from the river, was a juvenile crocodile, about 1 to 1.5 metres or so in length. So while I was certainly startled, it wasn't actually a dangerous interaction.
This incident, and several other encounters with smaller 1-2 metre long crocodiles, where they always fled from us, made me become a little complacent. After some time, I got a bit blasé about crocodiles; sure, they were potentially dangerous, but as long as I was always on the lookout, avoided the larger ones, and didn’t take stupid risks, I’d be fine.
One day, sometime in 2015, I ended up taking a really stupid risk. I cannot remember the exact date anymore, but I recall the events as they unfolded.
I was alone, in a staff area next to the Wetland Centre, where the boat we use for patrols and offshore surveys is parked when not in use. I had some very muddy containers to clean and rinse out, and while I could have opted to rinse them out with a hose, I foolishly decided to stand on the boat ramp and wash them in the river. After all, the mud came from the river, might as well return the mud to the river. The tide was high; oh good, I thought to myself at that time, I don’t have to walk too far out on the slippery boat ramp and risk getting my feet muddy while I wash things.
I approached the water’s edge, and took a quick glance around. All clear: no sign of any crocodiles in the vicinity. I squatted down, and started washing my containers. At short intervals, I would pause, look up, and scan the area for crocodiles, before resuming. Still no sign of them. I continued my washing.
But remember:
I was alone.
It was high tide.
I was squatting down, right at the water’s edge.
When you read about crocodile attacks, many of the victims were grabbed under similar circumstances, when they least expected it.
As I continued washing, I must have gotten distracted, and stopped looking up for some time. Because when I finally looked up, what I saw made me suddenly realise the terrible decision I had made, and just how vulnerable I truly was.
A large adult crocodile, some 2 to 3 metres in length, was slowly cruising past me, several metres away. It wasn’t approaching me, just heading upstream. I’m terrible at gauging distances, so I don’t know how far away it was. It could have been as little as 5 metres away, it could have been 10 metres, maybe a little more. Whatever the case, the moment I saw it, I immediately grabbed my containers and backed away from the water. The crocodile simply continued floating upriver, and swam out of sight.
But as I left the area, I realised one chilling fact: the moment I spotted the crocodile, it was already passing my position along the riverbank. Which means that I had been extremely careless, had kept my head down for way too long, and had failed to notice the crocodile while it was downstream and swimming closer.
Immediately after that incident, I mentioned it in passing to some of my ex-colleagues, and must have downplayed it, because at that time, I didn’t feel like I was in any real danger.
When your average work day can include an insane plethora of unpredictable potential hazards, ranging from hornet nests, lightning strikes, shards of broken glass and rusty metal hidden in the undergrowth, and falling trees, to venomous snakes, getting stabbed in the face by an angry heron, heatstroke, getting stuck in soft mud, drowning, or simply getting lost in the forest, a near miss like that becomes just another story you laugh about at the end of another work day. Besides, the crocodile was only swimming past, it's not like it lunged at me and I had to perform a split-second dodge.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realised just how close I came to possibly dying that day.
In this case, the crocodile was simply passing by, and did not take any interest in me. But what if it had been hungry? What if it had seen me, squatting down by the water’s edge, distracted, and decided to take a chance? What if the splashing and sounds made by me washing the containers had sounded like a thrashing fish, and drew its attention? Given the really small distance between us, it could have simply changed direction, silently submerged, and approached for an ambush. And I would have been none the wiser.
I’m sharing this story not to make myself seem brave for surviving a potentially dangerous situation with a wild crocodile.
I was not brave. I was incredibly stupid, I was careless, I took an unbelievably unnecessary risk, and under different circumstances, I could have very well been the first documented crocodile bite victim in Singapore in the 21st century.
But I dare say that among all the people in Singapore who have been thinking and talking a lot about crocodiles over the past week, probably very few people can say they've had a similar experience like mine.
The moral of the story here is that even among people who spend time around crocodiles on a regular basis, it's so easy to let your guard down and become complacent. But one momentary lapse in judgment can easily mean disaster.
You think you’re careful and cautious enough. “It won’t happen to me, what are the odds?”
The gods of the river, mangrove and coast see you, and simply watch, and wait. You take your eyes off the water, and if an opportunity presents itself, you are entirely at their mercy.
They’re experts in watching and waiting; the lineage that gave rise to our modern-day crocodilians has been doing the same thing for tens of millions of years, watching and waiting, masters of the aquatic ambush.
Their ancestors shared the world with the non-avian dinosaurs, during the Late Cretaceous period. When a giant rock fell out of the sky 66 million years ago, set the world on fire, then plunged the planet into the equivalent of nuclear winter, wiping out most of their archosaurian kin, the crocodilians simply retreated to the water and hunkered down.
Before long, they were able to resume watching and waiting, this time in a world that would eventually be dominated by mammals.
The crocodilians have honed their predatory skills on prey that is far quicker, far more agile, and far warier than us.
If you’re ever close to the water in crocodile country, never, ever assume that it’s completely safe.
So many of my ex-colleagues at Sungei Buloh have their own close encounters and other crocodile stories. Some of them had to trap and move crocodiles away from the ponds in the reserve where the risk of an attack on a human is simply too high. My ex-colleagues were also involved in the capture and relocation of the 1.7 metre crocodile at Lower Seletar Reservoir in 2019.
Staff in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve and others in NParks have been consulting with crocodile experts in Australia's Northern Territory, where so much work has been done to mitigate human-crocodile conflict, learning from the best in the field. And yes, despite having so much more tolerance and trying so hard to encourage coexistence, removal of crocodiles in some areas for human safety is standard procedure all over the Northern Territory and Queensland.
So implying that NParks doesn't know what it's doing is honestly rather ignorant.
I also need to stress that this is why it's so important that visitors stay on the trails in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve at all times.
The staff sometimes have to perform work closer to the water's edge, but they are aware of the risks and take all sorts of precautions. Even though the crocodiles behave themselves for the most part, among all the visitors to Sungei Buloh, sadly there will always be a small proportion of people who will readily put their own lives and the animals' lives in jeopardy.
People may complain about the decision to install the wooden barriers along the public trails throughout so much of the reserve, but with the large crocodiles coming up to bask on the trails and people doing idiotic things like approaching the crocodiles or taking selfies with the crocodiles, it was only a matter of time before a crocodile lunged at someone.
Now, with the barriers in place, the risk is significantly reduced. The wooden barriers exclude the larger crocodiles, while juveniles, along with all the other smaller creatures, such as monitor lizards, snakes, and otters, can still pass freely through the gaps.
The large crocodiles can still move between the rivers and tidal ponds via the sluice gates. As long as visitors keep to the trails, and never cross the barriers, the crocodiles are protected from human stupidity.
In the core area of Sungei Buloh (Route 2 and Route 3, for those of you who remember), there are no barriers, so the crocodiles are still free to bask on the trails and travel overland if they want to. This is also why it's important that visitors do not enter areas that are out of bounds to the public. There used to be so many issues with people trespassing into areas of the reserve not open to the public, until actual gates had to be installed.
In the past, we've had a camera trap showing a family with young children trespassing and walking down a closed trail, with the next sequence of photos then showing a crocodile hauled up onto the very same spot not long after the family had passed.
If you love crocodiles, and are excited about the prospects of being able to see them in Sungei Buloh, please don't do stupid shit. NParks has done so much to make things safer for ordinary visitors, but if you approach the water, cross the barriers, or enter areas that are closed to the public, your safety is not guaranteed.
If someone gets hurt through their own actions, we can easily say, "Oh they deserved it," but it's still a human life that's been dramatically affected.
And regardless of who was at fault, any incident involving someone getting hurt by a crocodile will simply make the general public even less keen on the idea of having wild crocodiles living and breeding freely in Singapore.
We already have so many people who are afraid of stepping foot in Sungei Buloh, despite the barriers and other safety measures. Sure, we don't need to pander to them, but the fact is that we cannot control how people feel.
What we can do is to manage the risks realistically so that such paranoia and fear don't come to dominate the discourse.
I still love crocodiles so much. I have so much admiration for their raw power, their amazing hunting prowess, their intelligence, their complex and rich social lives, their gentler, nurturing side, their resilience and ability to just keep surviving, despite the challenges they face at times.
But ever since that incident, I’ve gained an even healthier respect for them. And this is why I strongly emphasise that we must never ever underestimate the potential dangers that can arise when crocodiles and humans come into close contact.
Especially when we’re talking about human communities who are naive about crocodiles and what they’re truly capable of.
I was aware of the possible dangers, and yet I took an unnecessary risk, and could have paid the price. And if we do not take things seriously, someday, somebody might unknowingly take that risk, with a possibly very tragic outcome.
Learning to live with apex predators is complicated in so many ways; I am always reading about how communities all over the world are grappling with the idea of living alongside crocodilians, big cats, wolves, and bears, and there are so many stories and lessons about what's worked and what hasn't worked elsewhere.
In the near future, I'll share some of my thoughts on trying to coexist with crocodiles in Singapore, and the critical work that needs to be done if we are to prepare Singaporeans for coexistence with crocodiles outside of our northwestern coastline.
So this is my story, the invaluable lesson that one of the Sungei Buloh crocodiles taught me, and one of the reasons why I did not share in the seemingly unanimous outrage over the culling of the crocodile at Marina East.
You think you really know crocodiles and the Singapore public is truly ready to give coexistence a try? Think again. You are not prepared.
But hey, what do I know? According to some people, I'm just a smart alec trying to make excuses on behalf of NParks. 🤷🏻♂️
All I can say in response to such accusations is this, and no pun intended, BITE ME.
#local
source
| 10,000 mlx | |
| 46 | |
| 1 |