BRIAN LIGOMEKA, Blantyre | Friday
MALAWI has defied international wildlife treaties by ordering officials and commercial hunters to begin exterminating Nile crocodiles from its densely populated southern provinces.
Environmental Affairs Minister Harry Thomson said a surge in crocodile numbers in the Chikwawa and Nsanje districts and along the Shire River had resulted in a spate of deaths and injuries amongst local villagers.
Malawi is a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which prohibits the commercial hunting of Nile crocodiles.
“We know there is a worldwide ban on crocodile hunting but have no choice because these animals are causing havoc. I have therefore deployed hunters to remove the man-eaters,” said Thomson.
The Nile crocodile, which has always occurred naturally in southern Lake Malawi and on tributaries of the Zambezi River, was declared an endangered species after ruthless hunting for its skin earlier this centaury pushed it to the verge of extinction in Malawi.
Thomson said local residents insisted crocodile numbers had boomed over the past five years, but conservationists believed villagers were simply encountering the reptiles more often as their villages grew and as rural peasants began using wetlands for agriculture.
Thomson’s views are shared by many who live along the Shire River and beside Lake Malawi.
“Conserving crocodiles is the same as keeping serial murderers in a residential area. Crocodiles and murderers are both the enemies of innocent people. They both attack and kill. I don’t think we should conserve these animals,” said one of their most recent victims, 48-year-old Labson Mkwakwa.
Mkwakwa narrowly escaped death last month when a crocodile attacked him on a Lake Malawi beach. The crocodile grabbed him by the leg and, he said, began dragging him towards deep water.
“I screamed for all I was worth. Luckily, my screams annoyed a nearby hippo, which charged. The crocodile let me go to defend itself, and I was able to crawl to safety,” said Mkwakwa.
The hippo bit the crocodile in the head, killing it instantly. The body is displayed in Mkwakwa’s village, but the subsistence farmer is still recovering from his injuries at a local community clinic. – African Eye News Service