Although stories about enormous reptiles attacking (and, in two incidents in the last year, eating) people in Indonesia seem to be on the rise recently, the capital city of Jakarta is fortunately not the traditional habitat of the country’s most fearsome fauna. But a rare sighting of several large crocodile in one of the metropolis’ main waterways has authorities on high alert to catch the beasts before they can cause any humans harm.
A crocodile was first spotted by shocked residents living near Jakarta’s Grogol river yesterday morning. Subsequent eyewitness accounts have led authorities to believe their are actually three crocodiles living in the river.
That same day, officers from Jakarta’s Fire and Rescue Agency (PKP), and Natural Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA) went down to the river in an attempt to capture them.
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Officers set off from the river location where the reptile was first spotted, near Jalan Latumenten near Grogol Station, using an inflatable boat. Their plan was to capture the crocs in a net using chicken meat as bait. But unfortunately their efforts were impeded by the many onlookers around the Grogol Bridge.
“The real obstacle was the local people, yesterday a crocodile almost ate the bait but suddenly they (the locals) were throwing stones, so the crocodile became stressed out and afraid,” said BKSDA Jakarta chief Bambang Yudi today as quoted by Detik.
With yesterday’s efforts not resulting in any croc captures, Bambang said officers would be hitting the river again today in hopes of finding the reptiles, for their safety and the safety of citizens residing near the Grogol.
Bambang said it appeared as though the crocodiles were nesting in the area and might have been for some time. Although authorities cannot be sure where the reptile originated from, one theory is that they were pets that were abandoned by their owner — although crocodiles are not legally allowed to be kept as pets in Indonesia, many people do so anyways and a few people even grow quite attached to them.
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