A Cambodian man was eaten alive recently after he fell into the crocodile enclosure on his family’s reptile farm, police said.
Luan Nam, 72 was attempting to shoo a crocodile out of the cage where it laid an egg. The farmer was using a stick to move the croc, and when the reptile grabbed the stick with its teeth and pulled, the elderly farmer fell headfirst into the croc pit. The 40 crocs then proceeded to ‘pounce” on the hapless Nam as they tore him limb from limb, and even ate one of them.
CBS News reported:
“While he was chasing a crocodile out of an egg-laying cage, the crocodile attacked the stick, causing him to fall into the enclosure,” Mey Savry, police chief of Siem Reap commune, told AFP.
“Then other crocodiles pounced, attacking him until he was dead,” he said, adding that the remains of Luan Nam’s body were covered with bite marks.
Crocodiles are extremely dangerous, and much more aggressive than our American version, the alligator. They also grow much larger. They are farmed in Cambodia and are kept for their eggs, skins and meat as well as the trade in their young. Unfortunately with this type of trade, tragedy will happen. Also unfortunately, this is one of the primary ways to make a living in the region. The area is dotted with croc farms.
Cambodian man eaten and killed by 40 crocodiles. https://t.co/ZKiar3iaNt
— Complex (@Complex) May 27, 2023
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There are a number of crocodile farms in this part of the world, and other people have been killed in a similar manner. CBS News continued:
A two-year-old girl was killed and eaten by crocodiles in 2019 when she wandered into her family’s reptile farm in the same village, the police chief said.
Crocodile attacks aren’t just relegated to remote, third-world portions of the globe, however. There have already been a number of reported attacks this year and last.
The incident marks at least the second person killed by a crocodile this month. In early May, the remains of a missing 65-year-old fisherman in Australia were found inside two crocodiles.
Last year, two American tourists were injured by a crocodile at a resort in Mexico when one went swimming in the ocean at night and the other went in the water to help him.
Maybe it is best practice to assume any body of water where there is a known dinosaur presence is infested with apex predators? Yet still, people and pets in America and beyond end up on the business end of a snapping reptile.
For Luan Nam, one of his arms was completely swallowed. The man was the president of the local crocodile farmers’ association but his family is considering selling his stock. They urged him for years to stop raising the reptiles, and now their worst fears have been realized. I wouldn’t want to be the next president voted in.
It was a gruesome and untimely end for someone who was an experienced croc farmer. It is a dangerous trade and underscores how lucky we are to be Americans. People here claim they can’t find a job while in other parts of the world folks are content to raise dinosaurs, even when they know they could be eaten with even the slightest misstep.
God bless America, and RIP to Luan Nam, who gave his life so his family could eat, and the crocodile trade could continue.