People are pretty awful, on the whole. If we aren’t chopping down forests and pumping out toxic fumes into the atmosphere, we’re chucking trash all over the damn place. And that includes used tires, which keep showing up around the necks of unsuspecting animals — like this poor beast of a crocodile.
After a deer was freed from a tire trapped around its neck for two years in 2021, a group of brave, if slightly mad, rescuers has now cut a tire off the neck of a 13-foot crocodile.
That’s right. For six years, an Indonesian crocodile has been swimming around with a motorbike tire stuck round its neck.
Now, a savvy group of locals has managed to capture the crocodile and hold it down while they cut the tire away from its neck. Wildlife experts were eager to remove the tire, as the crocodile was still growing and they feared it may be suffocated by the stuck rubber.
Two years ago, CNN reported that authorities in Indonesia were offering a reward for the safe removal of the tire.
Despite several attempts to capture the croc over the years — seriously, would you want to get too close to this guy’s jaws? — it took the mind of one savvy local to finally assist the beast.
According to CNN, it came down to a local man called Tili, who uses just one name. The 35-year-old managed to capture the crocodile late on Monday evening.
CNN said:
“‘I caught the crocodile by myself. I was asking for help from people here, but they were scared,’ said local resident Tili, 35, who like many Indonesians uses one name.
“He set up a basic trap with a rope tied to a log and using live chickens and ducks as bait.”
The chickens proved ample enticement for the croc, and it was soon captured by Tili’s trap. Once the animal was under control, he set about cutting through the aging tire with a saw.
Once it was cut away, the animal was released back into Indonesian waters. Presumably, any onlookers quickly fled as soon as the croc’s leash came off.