21ft, 4,500lb croc !=============

If anyone is interested, the books by Peter Capstick are very good. (generally) Authentic stories of hunting and being hunted in Africa. Several stories deal with crocs.

Crocs can learn, they are not just mindless instinct driven killers. If that is one which specialized in man-eating, you wouldn't have a chance if you were anywhere near the water. They can run on land faster than a person for short distances too. If its size is genuine, it is probably 100 years old or more.

 

In one of the aformentionmed Capstick books he tells the story of personally witnessing a croc exit the water and actually run down an astonished antelope. Obviously he had the element of surprise, but considering the acceleration the little guys usually have to outrun cheetahs and leopards, it is a pretty remarkable display of speed for a large reptile.

Looking at the pictures again, the beast probably is dead. Certainly the jaws would be secured if not. I've read that tranquilizers are dangerous in eptiles, not sure if that is correct. If this thing really was a man-eater, they were probably just glad to get rid of it any way they could, dead or alive.

 

I don't know, thankfully I've never been chased by one. What I took from it was to just stay away from the water entirely. If they see an arm or foot dangling off the edge of a boat, your best hope would be to lose that appendage if they clamped onto it. A croc that big could no doubt dump a canoe without much effort as well.

One thing that was discussed in a few of the Capstick books, which was also on a National Geographic special I happened to see a few weeks ago, was the fatalistic view of the natives with respect to being eaten by crocs. A woman will be taken while washing her clothes, and the next day another person will be at the exact same spot wading into the water to fish. Perhaps it has to do with the superstitions of their culture, maybe they feel protected for one reason or another, or it is their inalterable destiny. Who knows.

I've also seen a film where 6 or so crocs waited in the water for a herd (25 or so) small gazelles to cross. When one jumped in, the whole herd followed. The crocs instantly started killing them as fast as possible, only a handful made it to the other side. You would think that a dumb animal would clamp onto one and that would be it. But to kill and disable as many as they could showed they knew killing more than they needed at the moment would provide later meals as well. Scary.