Hong Kong's celebrity crocodile -- snared this week after seven months on the run -- is apparently stunned by its captivity and has refused to eat since it was caught, a wildlife official said yesterday.
The croc, who was first spotted in a muddy creek last November, gained celebrity status here by avoiding persistent attempts at capture with dart guns, harpoons and traps set by expert crocodile hunters from across the region.
The reptile finally walked into a snare in the creek on Thursday morning. It was later transferred to an animal center where it has seemed frightened and has refused to eat, Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Director Thomas Chan (
Veterinarians plan to feed the croc, which they estimate is four years old, with medicine instead, he said, without naming the treatment.
On Thursday, government vet Eric Tai (
Experts have yet to determine the reptile's gender, Tai said, but added that they suspected it was a "baby girl."
Idy Wong (
Authorities spent around HK$300,000 (US$38,000) in their efforts to catch the croc, government spokesman Donald Lam said.
Though the croc was small -- just 1.5m long and weighing 14kg -- officials had been concerned that it would grow and become a public danger. Even so, this rare visitor won the hearts of Hong Kong's urbanites who are more likely to spot crocs on nature TV shows or as material for designer handbags and shoes. Some locals called it "Gucci" after the Italian designer brand, and one radio station named it "personality of the year."
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
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