The world's largest crocodile in captivity has recently died. It's been trending on Facebook and Twitter recently and if you haven't read any stories about it, you might as well start with THIS ONE before reading my blog post.
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| The crocodile just moments after it was caught. In this photo, it was still alive. |
Anyway, here's what I think:
The crocodile died because you took it away from its home.
You put it in an enclosure! Crocodiles aren't meant for enclosures with stagnant water where they're left with no option but to swim in their own filth. Crocodiles are meant for rivers, swamps, lakes and the ocean where they get to frolic and experience varying water temperatures through the year, and hunt live prey—not catch dead chickens and goats with their mouths for human entertainment.
If they die young in the wild, that's simply nature's natural course. However, if they manage to grow big and you catch them and try to give them artificial environments and end up with dead crocodiles floating in your ponds because your efforts to keep them alive didn't work, YOU ARE THE TRUE CULPRITS OF THEIR DEATHS! You should accept that and never do anything like it again.
When wild animals go on a murderous rampage in your village, there are two humane courses of action. (1) If you can manage, you may catch them and return them to the wild; or (2), if the possibility of catching them is slim and the risk of another casualty is imminent, you put them down quickly and peacefully. Catching them and turning their lives into sources of amusement is simply NOT a humane option, no matter what angle you look at it from.
You are a human being and you are not capable of providing a contrived home for a wild animal the way nature is. So unless you raised it in captivity since birth or if you performed some sort of selfless service for the animal (like successfully treating its wound) and it just happens to willingly follow you around without an intent to eat you, you have no business keeping it.
Nobody has any right to limit a wild animal's freedom indefinitely! You see, a crocodile's normal life expectancy, if it manages to grow to an adult size without being eaten by a predator, is 70 to 100 years and you caused it to die at 50. Now, doesn't this fact trigger a couple of alarms in your conscience?
