They don’t breathe fire, but Komodo dragons — the largest lizards in the world — can kill a buffalo or any one of the intrepid tourists who flock to their deserted island habitats.
“I feel like I’m in the middle of Jurassic Park, very deep in the past,” Hong Kong visitor Michael Lien said during a recent trip to Komodo Island, the main habitat of the threatened Indonesian lizards.
Spread out before him is a landscape from the dawn of time — mountainous islands with palm trees plunging down to the azure sea. Lien and his wife are excited and a little nervous at the same time.
“What am I supposed to do if a dragon appears suddenly?” he asks Johnny Banggur, the guide on a tour of the island, an almost uninhabited speck in the east of the vast Indonesian archipelago.
Armed with 18 years experience and a hefty club for good measure, Banggur dispenses some welcome advice: Don’t wander from the track and stay with the group.
Three meter long and weighing up to 70kg, Komodo dragons are lethargic, lumbering creatures, but they have a fearsome reputation for devouring anything they can, including their own. They prefer to scavenge for rotting carcasses, but can kill if the opportunity arises.
Scientists used to believe their abundant drool was laced with bacteria that served to weaken and paralyze their prey, which they stalk slowly but relentlessly until it dies or is unable to defend itself, but new research has found the lizards are equipped with toxic glands of their own. One bite from a dragon won’t kill you, but it may make you very sick and, eventually, defenseless.
In 2007 a nine-year-old boy went into the bushes to answer a call of nature and never came back. In 1974 a Swiss man disappeared during a bird-watching walk. His glasses and camera were all that was ever found.
Komodo dragons have appalling table manners, but at least they finish their dinner — bones, hoofs and all.
Banggur explains that dragons can devour half their own weight in a single meal. Reassuringly, he adds that they “prefer” buffalo, deer or wild boar and the danger to humans is “very limited.”
Even so, the Liens have no intention of going anywhere near the menacing reptiles, with their yellow, forked tongues, powerful jaws and sharp claws.
About 2,500 dragons live on the island named after them (“komodo” means “dragon” in Indonesian). Along with neighboring Rinca Island, it is the main dragon habitat in the Komodo National Park, created in 1980 to preserve the ancient species.
The island’s brave human inhabitants — about 2,000 in all — used to hunt wild boar and deer, thereby competing with the lizards for food. Now they are the dragons’ chief guardians.
“On Komodo, everything is done for the peaceful cohabitation of humans and dragons,” park manager Mulyana Atmadja said.
Visitors pay to set foot on the islands and take guided tours on designated tracks, always in the company of a ranger. Some 40,000 tourists are expected this year, 90 percent of them foreigners.
“We need to act carefully because an excessive number of visitors will trouble the Komodos’ natural habitat,” Atmadja said.
US environmental group The Nature Conservancy has helped the Indonesian authorities shift the local economy into one that sustains both the human and reptilian inhabitants.
The villagers still fish but no longer compete with the dragons for food. To supplement their incomes they have the exclusive right to sell Komodo miniatures, pearls and other souvenirs.
“We’ve done campaigns to raise the locals’ awareness and provide other sources of income for them. The more tourists who come to visit, the more money they can earn,” the park chief added.
It’s worked so well the park managers were able to stop feeding the dragons in 1990. Some of the lizards had apparently forgotten how to fend for themselves and simply waited for tourists to offer them live goats.
Komodo Island is already listed as a World Heritage site by the UN, and there is now a push to include it on a list of the New Seven Wonders of Nature.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was