People in a small town in Indonesia slaughtered close to 300 crocodiles after a villager was killed by one, the Jakarta Post reports.
Sugito was a factory worker who was looking for grass to feed his cattle when he was attacked by an alligator at a wildlife sanctuary in Sorong, West Papua, on Saturday. After local villagers attended his funeral the next day, they entered the sanctuary with knives, ropes, hammers and clubs to kill the crocodiles.
"The residents used knives to slaughter the crocodiles," Olga, a local resident, told the Post. "The crocodiles were caught and dragged outside and stabbed to death. It was so horrid to see."
The crocodile farm had an official permit to breed endangered saltwater and New Guinea crocodiles.
Videos from the incident show villagers killing crocodiles with hoes and machetes and tying the reptiles’ mouths with ropes before killing them. In total, nearly 600 villagers killed 292 crocodiles, including babies they dragged from their enclosures.
Sorong Police Chief Dewa Made Suhtrahna told ABC News her force, “couldn’t do anything. We were outnumbered. The situation was so tense.”
West Papua Natural Resources Conservation Agency said the slaughter was illegal, but no arrests had been made.
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