See ya later, alligator... in awhile, crocodile...

[samhexum]

An alligator roaming through a central Florida neighborhood head-butted a trapper, knocking him out cold in a last-ditch effort to escape.

 

The incident which was caught on video caused quite a disturbance Tuesday along a residential street in Ocoee, which is near Orlando.

 

Video from WKMG-TV shows a Florida Fish and Wildlife trapper putting the 8-foot gator in the back of a truck. The feisty, tied-up alligator lashed out and head-butted the trapper. The trapper fell to the ground as police and another trapper worked to get the gator back inside the truck.

 

Neighbors say the alligator was walking through front yards before trappers arrived.

 

There was no word on the trapper’s condition.

 

The alligator was eventually taken away.

 

A water baptism ceremony held near a lake turned into a horrific tragedy when the pastor was reportedly grabbed by a crocodile Sunday.

 

Pastor Docho Eshete was baptizing at least 80 members of his Protestant congregation at Lake Abaya, in southern Ethiopia, an area known to have a huge crocodile population, when one of the creatures leaped out of the water and grabbed him.

 

“He baptized the first person and he passed on to another one,” a local resident told the BBC. “All of a sudden, a crocodile jumped out of the lake and grabbed the pastor.”

 

Docho died from injuries on his legs, back and hands despite efforts from the congregation, fishermen and residents trying to save him, policeman Eiwnetu Kanko said.

 

The crocodile escaped as the group used fishing nets to prevent it from taking the pastor’s lifeless body.

[+ sync]

Pastor Docho Eshete was baptizing at least 80 members of his Protestant congregation at Lake Abaya, in southern Ethiopia, an area known to have a huge crocodile population, when one of the creatures leaped out of the water and grabbed him.

 

I want to have sympathy, but...

http://imagehosting.biz/images/2015/08/19/GeorgeCarlinstupid.gif

[samhexum]

Luck finally ran out recently for a plucky dog in Australia that became known for repeatedly chasing a crocodile back into the Adelaide River.

 

The dog’s owner says a recent video shows that the croc “did what crocs do.” It ate the pooch.

 

Kai Hansen, owner of the terrier, named Pippa, told Australia’s ABC Radio that the dog was performing her favorite trick for a group of onlookers at the Goat Island Lodge when the tragedy occurred.

 

The video, captured by a spectator, shows the dog barking repeatedly while running directly at the massive reptile, before the crocodile, unfazed, whips its head back and snatches Pippa in its jaws.

 

Screams can be heard in the background as the crocodile then retreats into the water with Pippa still in its mouth.

 

“It was something that had a high probability of happening sometime,” Hansen told an interviewer.

 

Hansen said he was “really sad” about losing his pet, but doesn’t blame the 220-pound, 11-foot-long crocodile for eating it, the Telegraph reported.

 

Some social media users were quick to blame Hansen for allowing the dog to chase crocodiles in the first place.

 

“Could the owner be next? Letting a dog taunt the croc puts the dog in avoidable danger,” one user tweeted, while another user simply called Hansen a “stupid dog owner.”

 

Hansen argued that chasing the crocodile was just how the dog was wired.

 

“A little terrier should not do things like that. But should I stop her? I don’t know, she got away with it for 10 years,” he said.

 

Nonetheless, Hansen plans on getting a new dog, but this one will “definitely” not perform the same dangerous stunt, he said.

[samhexum]

Hundreds of crocodiles are left stranded on a West Bank settlement after an Israeli businessman’s plans went awry — leaving officials fearing an “international incident,” according to a new report.

 

The crocodiles were initially taken to the settlement of Petza’el in the mid-1990s as a tourist attraction, but ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violence kept visitors away, the Associated Press reported.

 

Then entrepreneur Gadi Biton swooped in with hopes of selling the reptiles for their skin.

 

His plans fell through after Israel passed a law in 2012 calling crocodiles protected animals and banning raising the animals for sale as meat or merchandise. Repeated efforts to sell them overseas have tanked, David Elhayani, head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, told the AP.

 

“We found ourselves with hundreds of crocodiles in this farm that no one knows what to do with,” he said.

 

Meanwhile, the crocs have become a nuisance for the owner, the region and Israel. Dozens of them escaped on two occasions — including one incident in which 70 disappeared, only to be found after a three-day search. They are also constantly reproducing, and are expected to be thousands-strong in the coming years.

 

“I don’t want to think of what will happen if a crocodile manages to escape and reaches the Jordan River, and then we’ll have an international incident,” Elhayani added. “Maybe then someone will wake up and find a quick solution to this problem.”

 

Biton has tried to resettle the crocs in Cyprus, but residents’ opposition has halted his efforts. He declined to speak to the AP.

 

COGAT, the Israeli defense body that handles civilian affairs in the West Bank, said it has been working to find a “practical solution” to the growing problem — but accused the owner of a “lack of cooperation,” without elaborating.

[samhexum]

Alligator that survived WWII bombings still alive and snapping

 

BELGRADE — American alligator Muja arrived at Belgrade Zoo on the eve of the Second World War and is believed to be the oldest of his kind in captivity and still in good health with a hearty appetite for his age, his handlers said on Tuesday.

 

Generations of Belgraders and tourists have come to watch Muja and though he rarely moves around much, he is still agile at feeding time — when he munches on rats and quail. This is when his age shows, though, as he sometimes misses the target when he snaps at his food.

 

So far Muja’s only health issue has been gangrene, which led to him having his front right claw amputated in 2012.

 

“He is well … and healthy, eats well and is in good form for his age, so we hope that he’ll remain that way for many years,” zoo director Srboljub Aleksic said.

 

Muja arrived from Germany in August 1937. An old newspaper clipping about his arrival at the zoo said that he was 2 years old at the time, putting him in his early 80s today.

 

He survived two carpet bombings of the Serbian capital — one by Germany in 1941 and the other by the Allies in 1944 — when all the official documentation about his transfer was lost.

 

Muja eats a quail in his home at Belgrade Zoo.

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by samhexum

[samhexum]

In a bizarre and instinctual survival tactic, alligators that normally lurk in a swamp in eastern North Carolina are now “frozen” beneath the murky water. Every inch of the reptiles’ bodies stay underwater — except for their snout.

 

Officials at The Swamp Park in Ocean Isle Beach took to Facebook this week =68.ARB4VNE_ufYUA6v9qn9owVj5G1vI5kEHeQOLWuM2pfoZLX1Cw47FoIOqjzI9E545XDWBKM0BwRzsExA0QJ-j2ajHG-yWrlJcaX1ZPrrG7CAqlZG4caq_WbwGWbtQgdklsKMn3Qiz2csvgLi2wAJk9ZO4CKpKP93GbXJnp4ZbDJ4ZI4HJy1VteRdVpBiCOSbuhbKdjBJaDdSWtKKL6N5gp8o0odYb6TpMaBelmFKo7w0M2MNDSKP-qMcCuaC5myzV2dLD82LvHCvZ6b08AnAQ8LOCX5bffQDGB3e9hvW8E61FQkRHlDuCc1JmtKYjEeYczzev8-U_rIDgvtNA4OrHAbfq2lwDAHzeC26Ow9nM3_xqy81F1jbLAV-emg2Ox78KTRodR4OsaDbUPyJ3AZWS4obQbJUgE6bUVYwbyu5qrkDVKIW7_B138gjkXtqvHnGoOUnKu4mJaSDBqIiAuh-pJ273Al6DjwUJYhXO9Dkn9QN4I60ffWN6g5zreW1CBJCyOSwhInbDZT--WNB3JXKGabjK1qlUf6Rx8KtQykJP95PZW-PmN45ZISKT1qmhuvTKUjO1X6ir2nq0ZnUDlwK79WQtbS0ieXqDBbKZf4FkzEdSCI3jRZ7DzImUbxlFO9-Kts25EEPgbVCYBruvP2wGeGS5NrHIVZt-UZqeHdGXFVbNAzAtvano1Q-rPY7OLBguQkHVjZ0Zs6dLb9r8mdXLkDp3My5NYoZqlK2kHAuXkkGrNOp6JulnQLbYkHDtzsFVKP9ORYrfapcpY9bch6527EVH-ChTX5KIAoFv-_V3nlW8wBOq8jhWdEdYR_cR1Dd2agZMlnqQ-VXXK6OokFgCCAhHlXK_Yl4&__tn__=-R']with a video that shows the gators icebound in the swamp with only their snouts protruding and a toothy grin sealed in place.

 

“All our alligators in ice here,” George Howard, the manager at The Swamp Park, says in the video which had 12,000 views as of Thursday afternoon. “Eighteen American alligators are thinking ahead, as they poke their noses through the ice.”

 

The gators use the tactic to survive when the water around them reaches freezing temperatures in the frigid winter months.

 

When they sense the water is reaching a freezing point, they push their snouts just above the surface “at just the right moment” Howard said last year when a similar event occurred. Alligators, like other reptiles, are cold-blooded and “rely on their environment for temperature regulation,” the South Carolina Aquarium explains.

 

The process is known as brumation, according to Loyola University New Orleans’ Center for Environmental Communication. Brumation — similar to hibernation but not to be confused with it — occurs when the alligators “react to a cold environment by slowing their metabolic activity, but certainly not to the deep torpor of true hibernation,” the center explained.

 

Animals that hibernate fall into a deep slumber and do not eat or drink for months. In brumation, reptiles still have periods where they are active and they do not fall into a deep sleep. While they do not eat during this time, they do drink to avoid becoming dehydrated, according to the South Carolina Aquarium.

 

Brumation typically lasts for four or five months.

 

Seeing alligators frozen in water — especially in the South when freezing temperatures aren’t as common as in other parts of the country — makes this phenomenon even more unique, Howard told Fox News on Thursday.

 

Normally, he said, alligators in the wild “would burrow into the ground” as a form of brumation. But because this particular group of lives in captivity at the park, “they have to change the way they’re doing it.”

 

“They can’t move. They stay suspended [while frozen.] It’s really a fantastic phenomenon because it hardly ever freezes here,” he added, noting the amount of time the animals remain frozen depends on the weather.

 

When the gators froze at The Swamp Park last year — the first time officials at the park saw this occur — they remained frozen for a few days before thawing.

 

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1825228877582426

Edited January 26, 2019 by samhexum