The Search for a Man Allegedly Snatched by a Crocodile

Reports spread like wildfire this afternoon that a man had been pulled under water by a crocodile in the San Pedrito area of San Pedro Town. According to reports, the man was near the lagoon side of the island when a crocodile approached and attacked. A rescue team comprised of police, Triple R, ACES, the Belize Coast Guard and volunteers quickly mobilized and began a search near a canal where the attack was reported. The search then expanded to a mangrove area in the open lagoon. But up to news time, the search has yielded nothing. Earlier today, our correspondent on the island got a comment from Volunteer Rachel Sept of the American Crocodile Education Sanctuary.

Rachel Sept

Rachel Sept, Volunteer, ACES

“They tend to avoid us and we are very lucky we don’t have overly aggressive species and stuff. But what happens is when humans start to intervene, throw food, feed them and stuff and we’ve had reports of that in this area, then the crocodile start to see us as a food source. They don’t necessarily look at us as their prey because they go for like birds, unfortunately dogs, cats raccoons and stuff – so they are really good for the ecosystem and stuff. But unfortunately when we intervene or we inadvertently change their behaviour, so what happens is then it can cause human croc conflict. So in this situation, we don’t know all the details yet of what’s happened. This is an area that does have a very large croc that has been croc fed. Could that have caused this? I cannot a hundred percent guarantee that. But could it have led to the problem? Yes. And it has been something we do need to look into and address. But this is very abnormal behaviour. I think the biggest thing is that we just don’t want the community to be afraid. We are obviously going to assess it, try and find the croc – all that kind of stuff. We are waiting for the guys to get back on the boat and kinda get more information.”

Again, up to news time no one had been found.