Mayor rejects offer to have giant crocodile transferred to QC park

Inquirer file photo

Those better not be crocodile tears.

“I’m so attached to Lolong. I spend most of my time with the crocodile. I consider him my son now.”

With such words of affection, Mayor Edwin Elorde of Bunawan, Agusan del Sur, rejected the suggestion of Environment Secretary Ramon Paje to transfer Lolong, the 1-ton saltwater crocodile captured in the town last month, to the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife (NAPW) compound in Quezon City.

“Personally, I don’t agree with that plan,” said Elorde, who, shortly after Lolong’s capture last month, announced plans to turn the 6.4-meter monster into a local tourist attraction.

The mayor earlier also scoffed at calls from animal welfare advocates to release Lolong back to the wild, dismissing such calls as “irresponsible.”

“We are capable of taking care of the crocodile. The provincial government as well as other prominent personalities have promised to help us,” Elorde told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on the phone Saturday.

It’s up to the people

But the official later backpedaled and said he could not do anything if the people of Bunawan would support Paje’s idea, which the secretary broached on Friday following reports that Lolong had not eaten since captivity, apparently due to stress.

“I cannot decide on my own. I’m just their representative,” Elorde said.

According to Paje, Lolong might be better off in a 7-hectare lagoon at the NAPW, where it can be viewed by more students and tourists in line with his department’s mandate to educate the public about the country’s endemic species.

Lolong is currently kept in a fenced pond in the remote village of Consuelo in Bunawan.

But Elorde said the local government is working hard to make a new home for Lolong: a wildlife park being put up in Bunawan. “The first phase (of the park’s construction) covers at least 20 hectares,” Elorde said.

Elorde also took exception to reports that Lolong had become lethargic.

Bunawan’s saddest man

“Experts who visited us said the reptile is in good condition although still not eating since September 3,” the official said, adding he would be the saddest man in Bunawan if Lolong’s health had indeed deteriorated.

The reptile was trapped in the Agusan Marsh after authorities and villagers launched a hunt for a man-eater believed to be responsible for the disappearance of a local fisherman and the death of a 12-year-old girl and a carabao.

Estimated by experts to be 50 years old, Lolong is being touted as the largest saltwater crocodile in captivity, although that claim has yet to be validated by the Guinness Book of World Records.

The current record belongs to Cassius, an Australian saltwater crocodile measuring 5.48 meters.

According to Mundita Lim, director of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau which runs NAPW, a healthy Lolong can live for another 50 years.

First posted 2:42 pm | Saturday, October 1st, 2011