NEW VISION (Kampala, Uganda) 08 February 06 Activists defend ailing crocodile (Gerald Tenywa)
Animal activists want a crocodile that has taken six months without eating at the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre, to die a natural death.
But the centre’s veterinary doctors say the 50-year-old male crocodile “big maama” should be put down to save him from pain.
Dr. David Hyerobe, one of the doctors monitoring big maama’s health, said the centre recently asked the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) to have him killed because he is under enormous pain.
Big maama is suspected to be suffering from kidney complications.
He was relocated from the agriculture ministry’s fisheries department about a decade ago.
Makerere University professors five months ago led a team of doctors from the centre and Ngamba Island to undertake surgery on the crocodile with the hope that it would recover.
Dr. Andrew Seguya, who heads the centre, said efforts to resuscitate the crocodile have proved futile and that it is an accepted practice to kill animals that are under such distress.
“We have another assessment with UWA on Thursday after which the final decision will be taken,” he said.
Dr. Josephine Afema, a veterinary doctor at the centre, said Big maama’s skin is changing colour from brown to gray, probably rotting, since an awful smell was coming from it and the reptile has been lying motionless without reacting to the flies around it.
Sources said the crocodile was feared so much that the animal keepers could not dare go close to it.
They say it seriously hurt the animal head keeper who was hospitalised about six months ago.
The centre had two crocodiles that keep in water and often bask in the sun, occasionally capturing flies.
According to the red data list of the World Conservation Union, the Nile crocodile is classified as an endangered species, meaning that if nothing is done to control habitat destruction and hunting for their skin and meat, they could disappear.
The Nile crocodile is the largest reptile in Africa and lives in freshwater and marshlands for more than 100 years, eating fish and gaining weight of up to one ton.
In the wilderness, Murchison Falls National Park takes pride in having the largest population of crocodiles. Isolated populations also occur on the shores of Lake Victoria in Mayuge, Bugiri, Busia and Rakai districts.
Activists defend ailing crocodile