Crocodile Attack - Background

Background

An accurate count of annual crocodile attacks on humans is difficult to obtain. Many of the areas in which humans and large crocodiles come into contact are remote, impoverished, or in areas of political unrest. Thus, crocodile attacks are not always reported to local authorities, and some reports are difficult to verify. However some information does exist; for example, it was reported by the Campfire project in Zimbabwe that in the first ten months of the year in 2005 Crocodiles were the number one cause of death in humans where wildlife was involved – with the number of deaths cited as 13.

Unlike other "man-eating" crocodiles, such as the saltwater crocodile, the Nile crocodile lives in close proximity to human populations, so contact is more frequent. Although most attacks do not get reported, the Nile crocodile is estimated to kill hundreds (possibly thousands) of people each year, which is more than all other crocodilian species combined. One study posited the number of attacks by Nile crocodiles per year as 275 to 745, of which 63% are fatal, as opposed to an estimated 30 attacks per year by saltwater crocodiles, of which 50% are fatal. In both species, the mean size of crocodiles involved in nonfatal attacks was about 3 m (9.8 ft) as opposed to a reported range of 2.5–5 m (8.2–16 ft) or larger for crocodiles responsible for fatal attacks. Since a majority of fatal attacks are believed to be predatory in nature, the Nile crocodile can be considered the most prolific predator of humans among wild animals.

The most deaths in a single crocodile attack incident may have occurred during the Battle of Ramree Island, on February 19, 1945, in what is now Burma. Nine hundred soldiers of an Imperial Japanese Army unit, in an attempt to retreat from the Royal Navy and rejoin a larger battalion of the Japanese infantry, crossed through ten miles of mangrove swamps that contained saltwater crocodiles. Twenty Japanese soldiers were captured alive by the British, and almost five hundred are known to have escaped Ramree. Many of the remainder may have been eaten by the crocodiles, although since this incident took place during an active military conflict, it is impossible to know how many deaths can be directly attributed to the crocodiles instead of to combat-related causes.