Monday, November 04, 2024

Has someone ever tamed a crocodile? How dangerous may be even tamed crocodile? Can it live outside the water?

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Espirito - - -

Q: “1) Has someone ever tamed a crocodile? 2) How dangerous may be even tamed crocodile? 3) Can it live outside the water?

1) Yes, but “tame” is not a word we should use with them: “habituated” is a better term.

2) Not very, once fully habituated, and if you are careful.

3) Yes, provided it has at least a bathtub or plastic pool to lounge in once per day. Example (using an alligator, similar to crocodile):

..Or using an actual crocodile:

However, it should be noted that crocodiles have a large range of personality types; different species will react with various levels of “accommodation” for their human keepers; and special ”saving” circumstances may have occurred, — such as if you save its life and it thereby becomes bonded to you, such as what happened in the Pocho/Chito episode:

Costa Rican pet crocodile (ca.1950–2011) Pocho (around 1950–1960 – 12 October 2011) was a Costa Rican crocodile who gained international attention for his relationship of over 20 years with Gilberto "Chito" Shedden, a local fisherman who found Pocho dying on the banks of the Reventazón River and nursed him back to health. The crocodile refused to return to the wild and chose to stay with Chito. The pair became famous after they began performing together. The 2013 documentary Touching the Dragon details their relationship. Chito, a fisherman, tour guide, and naturalist from Siquirres , Limón Province , Costa Rica, discovered an emaciated and dehydrated male crocodile weighing 70 kg (150 lb) on the banks of the Reventazón River in 1989. Upon closer examination, Shedden discovered that the crocodile had been shot in the head through the left eye by a local cattle farmer because the crocodile had been preying on a herd of cows. [ 1 ] Shedden took the crocodile home in his boat along with the reluctant help of some friends. [ citation needed ] For six months, Shedden fed the crocodile 30 kg (66 lb) of chicken and fish a week, sleeping with it at night in his home. [ 2 ] Shedden also simulated the chewing of food with his mouth to encourage the crocodile to eat, and gave it kisses and hugs while talking to it and petting it. Shedden later stated his belief that providing food alone would not have helped it recover, and that "the crocodile needed my love to regain the will to live". [ 3 ] Shedden hid the crocodile in an obscured pond with a thick overhead canopy of trees deep in a nearby forest until he obtained the necessary wildlife permits from Costa Rican authorities to own and raise the crocodile legally. [ 4 ] After the crocodile's health improved, Shedden released the crocodile - now named Pocho, meaning "strong" in the local dialect - in a nearby river to return it to the wild but the crocodile refused to go back to its natural habitat, [ 1 ] and so Shedden decided to allow the crocodile to live in the water outside his home. Pocho was considered a member of his family, alongside Shedden's wife and daughter. [ citation needed ] Shedden trained the crocodile to respond to its own name being called. [ 4 ] For more than twenty years, Shedden swam with the crocodile in the river outside his home, mostly at night, talking and playing with Pocho while hugging, kissing and caressing him. [ 5 ] Public performances [ edit ] For more than a decade, Chito and Pocho performed a weekly act on Sunday afternoons in a 100 m 2 (1,100 sq ft) artificial lake at Finca Las Tilapias in his hometown of Siquirres , Costa Rica, performing in the water for tourists from around the world. [ 6 ] The 2014 video documentary Dragon's Feast was made about Chito and Pocho by South African wildlife cinematographer Roger Horrocks shortly before Pocho's death. [ 7 ] [ 1 ] Horrocks speculated in his documentary that the gunshot wound to Pocho's head might have damaged the cro

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