Environment     

Crocodile in suburban creek avoids capture, killed

Shanghai Daily, May 14, 2012

• Police are still trying to find out how a 1.4-meter long crocodile - which was killed after it was found - ended up in a suburban creek in Pudong.

  Police and experts killed a Siamese crocodile after the animal evaded repeated attempts to capture it. [dfdaily.com]

  Local zoologists think the reptile, a Siamese crocodile, was raised domestically rather than being from the wild. Among the theories is that it may have escaped from someone who kept it as a pet or from someone intending it for a restaurant kitchen.

  A team of animal experts from Shanghai Zoo and police officers tried for two hours to capture it alive from the Zhoupu River using a tranquilizer dart after it was spotted about 4pm on Saturday. Police said the animal evaded repeated attempts to capture it. They finally decided to kill it with a gun given that the river was busy with shipping traffic and there were many swimmers on its lower reaches.

  Witnesses notified police after they saw the crocodile surface repeatedly in the river. Some people gathered on the bank to cast stones towards the animal in an attempt to kill it before police arrived.

  The body will go to Shanghai Science and Technology Museum for use in a display, police said. It does not belong to a crocodile breed protected under Chinese law, zoologists said.

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