That immense, formidable tail, which had been such a powerful lever on the ground, now instantly became a colossal rudder that allowed him to repeatedly barrel-roll, snapping and thrashing as he went, with such massive force it was a wonder the strap held. The dam of water, serene and motionless just moments before, was now a violent, churning, chaotic storm. The crocodile’s power on land was exponentially increased in the water, so the task of maintaining any element of control over him was now utterly impossible.
With every roll, whip and thrash from the crocodile, the three men precariously holding on to the lasso, were dragged ever closer to the water’s edge, and in a flash the situation could have become extremely dangerous: the slightest loss of concentration, the slightest slip, and Piet and the others would be plunged into those primal waters. This was the critical moment we had been briefed about earlier, and before we could even register a conscious thought or verbalize the action required, we all responded instinctively and in unison, momentarily oblivious to the 119 other dangers within the enclosure. Scaling the metre-high wall, we sprinted to join the tug-of-war, grabbing on to a section of strapping that lay on the ground behind the three men. Three became four – five – six – but the still the crocodile dominated the contest. Seven – then eight – then nine – and finally, with ten bodies pulling against the crocodile, we were able to stabilize and hold fast against him. Like playing a fish on the end of a line, it was now a case of letting him tire himself out, so he could eventually be pulled back out of the water.
The storm he generated in the water made it impossible to see him, but the relentless pull on the taut strap left us in no doubt as to his power. As seconds turned into minutes, it seemed like an eternity, and still he showed no signs of fatigue. The thought occurred to me that maybe we would tire first; how would that play out? I tried to shake the image out of my head.
After what must have been twenty minutes of us holding fast, heels dug into the grassy bank, sweat dripping from every brow, and fingers numb from holding the strap so tightly, we got our first sense of his ebbing strength as we felt a shift of momentum away from, rather than towards the dam. Over the course of a further few minutes, step by step, little by little, inch by inch, we found ourselves retreating from the dam edge, gradually pulling our enormous catch onto the shore.
Once landed, he seemed to have given up the fight entirely, but our job was still far from complete. With the rest of us still holding fast, Derik peeled off to grab his pole syringe and draw up the Gallamine to inject into the crocodile.
One of the characteristics of reptiles is the presence of scales, from the soft, slimy covering of a snake to the hard, bony shell of a tortoise. Crocodiles have a bit of a mixture, with softer tissue on their underside and hard bony plates or ‘scutes’ over their back and flanks. These scutes complicate the procedure of administering an injection, since they are so strong that a needle will simple break off or bend if it makes contact with too much force. It is therefore esssential to insert the needle between these scutes, allowing it to penetrate through this outer layer into the underlying muscle, for the drug to be safely delivered into the body. The best location to do this is at the base of the tail, just where it joins the body, where there is more of a gap between these bony plates, and a larger injection site to aim for. This is also the greatest area of concentrated muscle in the animal’s body, and that is the tissue we want the drug to enter, since muscle has a rich blood supply, and thereby facilitates the speedy absorption of the drug.
Derik returned with the 6-foot pole syringe – a simple light metal pole with a heavy-duty plastic syringe and needle attached, allowing the safe injection of a dangerous animal from a pole-length away. He wasted no time injecting the Gallamine, the crocodile responding with a final, violent thrash of his tail – and then we settled down to wait for the fifteen minutes of the final countdown. The test to ensure the efficacy of the drug was to push down gently on the crocodile’s upper jaw: if it had worked, the crocodile would struggle to reopen his mouth; if it hadn’t … We made sure to give the head end a wide berth.
After ten long minutes, Derik gently touched the crocodile’s nose with a long stick: no response. Then, applying greater force, he tried to push the jaw shut – and in an instant the crocodile responded, snapping up at the stick and crunching it to a pulp. We obviously had longer to wait.
Five minutes later, the same graduated provocation from Derik met no response. Gingerly removing the stick from the top of the nose, he brought it to the front of the snout, gently tapping at the exposed gleaming canines: still nothing. The Gallamine was working, it seemed. A few of us relaxed our hold on the strap to ready ourselves for the final phase. What we needed to do now was loop another lasso around both the top and bottom jaw, which we would then hold fast, and with the jaw tightly secured, Derik would tape the mouth shut with four or five rounds of industrial-strength gaffer tape. Even to approach the jaws of this monster crocodile required immense trust in the science and pharmacology of our profession. It is one thing to read about a drug in a book, to know how it works, what receptors it acts on, and the effect this causes in the body, but – believe me – to put yourself in harm’s way on the basis of that knowledge requires colossal faith the first time you do it. This wasn’t Derik’s first time, and so without a moment’s hesitation, as we held the animal down, he rapidly secured the lasso and applied the tape, circling the jaw multiple times to ensure its total restraint.
Now we were in complete control. Releasing the strap that had taken up our energies for over half an hour, our focus now became the securing of his legs so they wouldn’t get damaged in the move, and then the larger task of lifting him onto a stretcher. The transport vehicle was a truck with a large crane attached. With the crocodile safely secured on the stretcher, we signalled to the truck driver to lower the crane, and within moments 700 kg of Nile crocodile were being hoisted through the air and lowered onto the truck. With the animal safely contained, the driver set off on the two-hour journey to his new home, and, after bidding Piet and his team farewell, we followed him on his way in our minibus.
We successfully and very easily offloaded him at his destination, the Gallamine still flooding his system to give the necessary muscular relaxation to allow us to work safely. It would be another few hours before the effects wore off, and then it would be time for him to explore his new environment. As we drove away, I felt it would take far longer for me to process the amazing experience I had gone through that day. It was another successful job well done, but I felt completely wrung out, both physically and emotionally. I had definitely stepped out of my comfort zone with this one. I had certainly learnt a lot about crocodiles’ behaviour, and how to interact with them, but I tried not to think about the range of possible disasters that had all been averted – rather too narrowly, I couldn’t help but think.
I still can’t quite decide if the day had gone so well because of luck or skill.
Crocodiles: fast facts
Crocodylus niloticus: The Nile crocodile
Distribution: Widespread throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Names: A male is called a ‘bull’, a female a ‘cow’, and the young a ‘hatchling’. A group of crocodiles is called a ‘float’.
Life span: 70–100 years.
Habitat: It is the largest freshwater predator in Africa, inhabiting freshwater lakes, rivers, freshwater swamps, coastal estuaries and mangrove swamps.