FEATURE - Paraguayan crocodiles die in muddy cemetery
Date: 22-Aug-01
Country: PARAGUAY
Author: Jose Maria Amarilla
That's the sign for another hunter to beat the creature's cranium with a stick until it cracks open.
"To the shore," shouts the man who measured the reptile before carrying it on his back to a boat as blood and brains drip from its broken skull.
Even before it was killed, the crocodile was at death's door, one of thousands in a former "crocodile paradise" that were effectively buried in tombs of drying mud as the hibernating reptiles waited in vain for summer's seasonal waters.
In this remote corner of Paraguay, a poor, landlocked country the size of California, thousands of yacare crocodiles are slowly dying as their traditional river habitat along the border with Argentina dries up.
It is the result, scientists say, of a decision 11 years ago to divert the two countries' border river, the Pilcomayo, to boost agriculture in the area.
The Paraguayan canal, notably smaller than its Argentine counterpart, was filled with sediment brought by heavy currents in 1996 and since then, most of the water has kept to the Argentine side.
Over the last two years, the water in the Paraguayan lagoons has slowly receded, leaving the crocodiles exposed to the dry sun and depriving them of food, such as fish, that the seasonal waters brought.
The animals, which farmers said were too weak to survive anyway, will be skinned and their leathers sold to raise money to save the other crocodiles living deeper in remaining waters.
Rancher Oscar Gonzalez, who received a government permit for the hunt, wants to set up a refuge for the crocodiles on his land with proceeds from the skins.
CRUEL TO BE KIND
Farmers also planned to feed the meat of the 2,500 crocodiles killed to the remaining, stronger reptiles.
"The other 10,000 crocodiles in this lagoon will die if we don't kill these," Gonzalez said at his San Jorge ranch, 340 miles (550 km) northwest of the capital city of Asuncion.
The government says the plan is being cruel to be kind.
"Here we have adopted a method called 'controlled hunting,' that is to save the species that are in better condition to survive through eating the meat provided by those that would not survive," said Edmundo Rolon Oznagui, Paraguay's environment secretary, who watched the hunt a week ago.
Years ago, this 185-mile-long (300 km) valley flooded each year with the waters of the Pilcomayo, creating one of the main refuges for yacares in this part of South America.
"This was a crocodile paradise," says Gonzalez, a baby-faced 24-year-old. "In the old days, the water from the Pilcomayo spilled into the countryside and flooded it up to here," he said, holding his hand about 3.3 yards (3 metres) above the mud.
"It was full of flamingos and cranes of all colors and female and baby crocodiles all along the tall grasses of the shore," he added.
In winter, the nearly nine-foot-long (2.5 metre) yacare buries itself in the mud and hibernates until summer, when seasonal river water brings the animals that young yacares feed upon.
But in 1990, Paraguay and its neighbor to the south, Argentina, decided to build canals to separate the waters of the Pilcomayo, which originates in the Andean mountains in Bolivia, so that they could be used for agriculture.
The result was the drying up of some of the river channels.
The Paraguayan canal is now a gorge whose sides are piled with the skeletons of crocodiles and other creatures that have died waiting for water.
There seems little chance of government help. Paraguay, a country of about 5.5 million people, has been in an economic slump since 1995 and it is one of the poorest countries in South America.
"There's no way the (Environment) Ministry can even attempt to rescue these poor animals," says Ricardo, a leather tanner who is helping hunt the reptiles.
Gonzalez's ranch was the only one to get a permit from the government to sacrifice some of the animals.
The putrefied meat of hundreds of crocodiles that have been skinned or t
