Indonesians’ recent run of violent run-ins with reptiles continued over the weekend with the brutal slaughter of close to 300 crocodiles in the Sorong Regency of West Papua.
Officials say on Friday morning, a local man named Sugitno was trespassing in a crocodile breeding sanctuary owned by PT Mitra Lestari Abadi (MLA) to pick up some vegetables. He was then attacked and killed by crocodiles in the sanctuary.
On Saturday, after Sugitno’s funeral, a mob of around 400 locals carrying sharp weapons, shovels and blocks of wood raided MLA’s office and the crocodile sanctuary.
“The mob damaged the office, living quarters and slaughtered all the crocodiles in the sanctuary’s pond,” said West Papua Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BBKSDA) head Manullang, as quoted by Detik yesterday.
In all, 292 crocodiles were killed by the mob. Two of the crocs were adult parents while the rest were still younglings.
Though the crocodiles lived in a sanctuary operated by a private company, they were all actually owned by the government as part of the species’ conservation program.
Authorities are still investigating the incident and no arrests have been made. Under the KUHP (Criminal Code), the killing of a protected animal species is punishable by up to nine months in prison or a mere IDR300K (US$20.83) fine.
Animal rights activists in Indonesia have long called for heavier punishments against animal cruelty, saying that current penalties may have been heavy when the KUHP was first introduced during the Dutch colonial era, but they hardly serve as any deterrent these days.
There have been numerous shocking stories about people and reptiles in Indonesia coming into conflict over the last few years, usually involving the scaly creatures attacking and sometimes devouring humans whole. As recently as last week, a teenager in Central Kalimantan died after getting bitten by his pet cobra, after which his family refused to bury him because they believe that rituals can bring him back to life. A couple of days before that incident, a fearless mother saved her 11-year-old son from being eaten by a crocodile in Jambi.
