What do alligator hunters do with their catch?

Images of the black caiman

The black caiman is endangered. This species is one of the six varieties of crocodilids (Crocodylidae) that inhabit the country and whose population was considerably reduced in the mid-20th century.

“In the Magdalena Medio region, groups of fishermen have been observed hunting caiman because they consider them a threat not only to livestock, but also to the people who use the river,” the Red Book states.

“These also include caimans, babillas and cachirres. Unfortunately, half of the species are in some category of threat. In descending order we have the Orinoco caiman (Crocodylus intermedius), critically endangered; the caiman needle (Crocodylus acutus), endangered; and the black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), in vulnerable category.

According to Morales, in the past the population of these species was decimated due to hunting, since their skins were traded. “Today they are in conflict with humans because they share territory.”

Black Cayman characteristics

The state of Florida is plagued by alligators. There are so many that it is common for them to sometimes leave their natural habitat to wander where they don’t belong. On this occasion, one of these reptiles has appeared in a neighborhood where it has spread panic.

An impromptu but successful captureBozzi decided it was best to capture the reptile before it attacked anyone. To do so, he knocked over a container and slowly approached it while the reptile backed away. In a change of speed he managed to get the animal inside despite the fact that the alligator was trying to attack with its tail, visibly nervous about the situation.

When the brave reptile was inside the container, the only thing left to do was to set it upright so that it could be returned to its natural habitat. All he had to do was cross the road, walk down a hill and open the container in front of the lagoon.

Bozzi told The New York Post that he was quite scared when he had the alligator in front of him because “it was very powerful” and he didn’t quite know how to get it into the container, so he “improvised as he went along”.

Black caiman drawing

The FWC estimates that there is currently a population of 1.3 million alligators in the Sunshine State. They are frequently sighted in residential areas, both on the streets and in private residences, whether in their gardens, swimming pools or even inside the homes themselves.In May, a Clearwater family found an 11-foot alligator that had entered their home after breaking a glass kitchen window.In June, police had to investigate the death of a man who was discovered floating in a canal in Polk County. His hands and feet were found inside an alligator that measured nearly 12 feet and weighed about 450 pounds.

Where the black alligator lives

However, now that the hecatomb has apparently been controlled through the enormous efforts of the government and scientists (efforts as effective and suspicious as those made to blame the ELN for the attack on the General Santander Cadet School in record time), the caimans can once again be killed to make wallets and jackets. It has been possible to control the number of individuals so that they are sustainable, which means, among other things, that we have, apparently, the possibility of killing needle caimans without running out.

We lasted a long time without killing them because they were running out. Now that we have understood how not to finish them, we can kill them indefinitely, and indefinitely take advantage of them. In cases like this we can say of the needle alligators what the historian Yuval Noah Harairi said of the livestock industry: “The numerical success of the species is a poor consolation for the suffering that the individual endures”.

Editor’s note: After publishing this column, several readers asked us for clarification on the information it refers to. The author, David Díaz, sent us the following response to complement what was written.