SANDAKAN – The Sabah Wildlife Department has defended its decision to cull crocodiles that posed threats to residents, saying that the department had no place to translocate the reptiles.
Its director, Augustine Tuuga, said that it has been the department’s practice to translocate the animals to crocodile farms around Sabah when they endanger the safety and lives of residents living near humans in a particular area.
However, he said crocodile farms in Sabah were currently packed, and the department had no choice but to cull them.
“Do you think there are villagers who would accept the crocodiles being translocated to their village? It would endanger the lives of people in another area. It would also disrupt the ecological harmony of the crocodile population in that particular area.
“We have no choice but to cull. It is not an easy decision for us to make, but we hope that the people will understand this,” he told Scoop.
Tuuga was responding to a statement by Rajesh Nagarajan of Lawyers for Animal Rights who criticised the department for culling crocodiles in Sabah, saying that the reptiles should be translocated instead.
Rajesh also demanded that the killing of crocodiles be halted immediately.
Although the saltwater crocodile is a protected species in Sabah, Tuuga said that the population of crocodiles remained considerably high in the state, and it goes along with the increasing number of fatal cases caused by crocodile attacks.
He said Sabah has so far recorded 66 deaths and 31 injuries from crocodile attacks, with nine fatal cases in the last year alone.
Just last week on January 28, an 11-year-old boy died after he was attacked by a crocodile when he was cleaning his father’s boat in Sg Garinono, near Pulau Timbang.
The department shot the 16-ft-long male crocodile the same day. – February 3, 2024