I saw an article today about various people getting eaten by crocodiles in Zambezia and various other Z-Countries in the region. It mentions that people-eating crocodiles are then hunted down and killed to protect the public.
Hence my question: Once a crocodile eats a people, is that same crocodile considered more likely to eat more people? Or is people-eating just a random menu item that any crocodile would be equally likely to enjoy, as the opportunistic occasion permits?
From what I’ve read about bears, most wild animals don’t really know what to make of a human, so stick to more familiar prey under the assumption that anything human-sized is more dangerous than its worth. But the first time a wild animal attacks a human (out of desperate hunger, or fear, or whatever) they’re like, “These fuckers are so weak that they can’t hurt me at all! What was I worried about?” and are much more willing to see other humans as prey.
Given that they are reptiles and not high order mammals, I doubt they can put 2 and 2 together. I think they are mainly opportunistic feeders and don’t preferentially select humans over other food sources. They eat what’s available. I think they kill the man-eating crocodiles to make the locals feel that something is being done. The only way to tell which crocodile is a man-eater is to kill it and open it up, much like they do with sharks. They don’t look all that different from each other, except with regard to their size.
I don’t have any knowledge of crocs, but my experience with pet snakes tells me that they can tell the difference between mice, rats and gerbils… and will have a preference. My current snake, for example, will slowly stalk mice and might take half an hour to get one. But a gerbil? Man, he can’t move fast enough to eat a gerbil. No time for all that careful stalking when there’s something that tasty available. Makes no sense to me whatsoever. (In case anyone is wondering, the gerbils came from a nearby school that accidentally mixed up the girls and boys, and it took longer than you might think to successfully segregate them again.)
So anyway, at least some reptiles do form preferences for certain prey items.
Overall, though, I think the croc retribution serves a more psychological function in the humans. It gives us the ability to say “Yes, I’m surrounded by crocs, but none of these crocs eat people.”
I think crocodiles are very capable of being selective and are not simply eating machines. They know very well not to bite a hippo or mess with a baby hippo in the presence of his mother for instance. Usualy crocks are hunted down and killed before they develop much of a habit but at any given tie there are usually several around the globe who have developed a taste for human meat.
I’m struggling to see how it was used as a figure of speech. It seemed like a direct attempt to answer the OP’s question with an opinion not backed up with facts. HoneyBadgerDC, can you elaborate on what you were trying to say?
I don’t think it is so much of an issue that certain animals develop a taste for human flesh. It is the fact that they show deviance from normal behavior before they manage to kill their first human victim. The vast majority of even large animals will not attack people under normal conditions unless they are provoked or threatened. However, even reptiles vary in personality traits like aggressiveness and wariness and can even have their own forms of mental disorders. If an individual crocodile (or any other animal) doesn’t have the typical wariness around people for whatever reason, they aren’t going to suddenly develop it after successfully killing and eating a person and they are more likely than the others to repeat that same behavior in the future.
Certainly, small human children, like other infant/young animals, would be an understandable target of lots of predators. Maybe not when mom and dad are around, but if mom and dad aren’t, or aren’t close enough… sure, easy pickins’.
What a disturbing article! I’ve been on that cruise, and spent a few days paddling down that river.
My understanding is that crocodiles in that river will take a bite out of anything that hits the water. We were warned not to even dip our hand in the water. If you wanted to rinse your hands, you would use a cup to scoop up the water and pour it. The big fear of hippos (which we passed hundreds of a day) was not so much the hippos, but the fact that if your boat tipped over, it was pretty likely a croc would get you. My guide had some pretty terrifying stories to tell.
Crocodiles were constantly killing kids in the Cameroonian town I was a Peace Corps volunteer in. I think they are just generally dangerous animals.
Communities probably manage to clear areas for bathing and washing that are croc free, and the crocs they are hunting down may be the ones bold enough to venture into these areas.