http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/04/22/china.croc.ap/index.html
A missing nine-year-old was found in the stomach of a crocodile in a park in China. A group of children had jumped the fence and proceeded to harass and beat the crocodiles with sticks. The crocodiles were not amused.
Maybe we need to revive the old fairy tales where bad children met a gruesome end.
Sad stuff. This may sound weird, but I do feel sorry for the crocodiles as well. It looks quite likely that they’re going to be killed, but it’s not as if their reaction was particularly unusual. Heck, from what I’ve heard about crocs, those ones were remarkably tolerant. They don’t normally need provocation to attack.
The real bad guys here, IMHO, are the park owner and the crocodile keeper. If they had done their jobs properly, the kids would NEVER have been able to break into the enclosure.
I do feel sorry for the crocs. Kept in a pen for the amusement of humans, and when the humans don’t do their job and the crocs do what crocs do, they’re gonna get killed.
And I bet they got indigestion.
What?
Well, stupidity gives me indigestion!
Immediately put me in the mind of the Gashlycrumb Tinies.
How horrible. But honestly, by 9 you should know enough not to abuse animals. And certany not animals that can eat you.
I dunno. As a former 9-year old, I had a precocious knack for getting into places I was specifically forbidden to go. Unless Chinese kids are fundamentally different in character, or are periodically exsanguinated to slow them down, no doubt many of them share the ability.
Also, when designing a habitat for crocodiles, I imagine that the primary concern is keeping the animals themselves from leaving. Designing the enclosures so that people can’t break in to beat the crocodiles with sticks probably isn’t a high priority, for the simple reason that breaking in to beat crocodiles with sticks is an insanely stupid thing to do. Yes, even for a 9-year old child, it is insanely stupid-- you can’t tell me that kid somehow didn’t know crocodiles were dangerous (and, again, I say this as a former 9-year old who has done comparably stupid things involving large crocodilians-- though nowhere near as violent).
At Busch Gardens in Tampa, for example, the lions are separated from the guests by a moat with walls too steep for a lion to climb. But there’s really nothing keeping guests from hopping the fence and jumping into the display themselves, if they should feel like beating the lions up with sticks for some reason. Yet even at a park that combines deadly animal displays with conspicuous beer consumption, this is not considered especially likely.
Huh. It looks like we can honestly say that they ate stupid food for breakfast.
o/ Never smile at a crocodile No, you can't get friendly with a crocodile Don't be taken in by his welcome grin He's imagining how well you'd fit within his skin Never smile at a crocodile o/
You may very well be well-bred
Lots of etiquette in your head
But there’s always some special case
Time or place to forget etiquette.
K is for Kate who was struck with an axe…
L is for Liu who was swallowed by crocs…
N is for Neville who died of ennui.
That was always my favorite. I don’t know how he missed crocodiles.
I’m glad that you didn’t say Chinese gives you indigestion. That would have been over the line. :eek: 
Well, the crocs were hungry again an hour later…