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Cameron Spencer/Getty Images file
A crocodile drifts past a hippopotamus in the Limpopo River at the Pafuri game reserve in South Africa in July 2010.
JOHANNESBURG -- Some 15,000 crocodiles escaped from a South African reptile farm during a flood this week and about half of them are still on the loose in and around one of southern Africa's biggest rivers, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
"There used to be only a few crocodiles in the Limpopo River. Now there are a lot," Zane Langman, whose in-laws own the farm in the northern part of the country told Beeld newspaper.
Langman said only half the escaped crocodiles from the Rakwena Crocodile Farm close to the Botswana border had been recaptured, the report said.
Langman added that farm gates were opened out of fear the rushing flood water would crush the crocodiles.
Officials from the farm were not immediately available for comment.
One crocodile apparently from the farm was captured about 75 miles away at a school rugby field, it said.
The heavy rains and flooding have claimed at least 20 lives in Mozambique and South Africa and led to the evacuations of thousands of people.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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Does somebody have Mick Dundee's number?
Call 1 800 G U S T O .
You would think someone would have noticed when the first crock jumped over the fence.
I think it is amazing that 15000 escaped and half are still on the loose. The recaptured 7500 crocodiles!!! They already have Mick Dundee!!
The article said they actually opened the gates because they were afraid the crocs would be crushed by the rushing water. They didn't climb over a fence unnoticed.
Lets go huntin' boys!
Who the heck has 15,000 crocodiles? And why?
Ask the shoe and handbag manufacturers
Sounds like a croc to me.
Someone remind me why we still need crocodiles and alligators roaming loose. Eating them to extinction would feed a heck of a lot of people while making the waterways across the world a lot safer for humans to enjoy.
READ. The animals escaped. The owners just said to themselves "DAMN, there goes 15,000 hand bags, shoes, and belts."
Not to mention the meat that won't be able to feed anyone.
Crocs. Scariest wild animals hands down.
Hippos kill more than crocs, lions and elephants combined.
Yeah, but hippos don't kill for food... Read a story about a vacationing couple who decided to go on a nice canoe ride one afternoon while on their dream photo safari in Africa. She was in one boat with a local guide, he was in the other. Croc rolled the boat and ate him while his screaming wife watched. I scuba dive and I've been told by people who are absolutely fearless when it comes to any kind of shark that the one thing that will make them get out of the water immediately is seeing a salt water croc.
Yeah I'll try and remember that if I'm ever being stomped to death by a hippo. I'm sure it will make me feel a lot better about the whole experience.
Go crocs! Go hippos!
@!$%# happens in the wild. Stay in the house if you can't accept that.
All right SF. I'll agree. They would scare the crap out of me too.
Africa has a lot of scary creatures. Face to face with a male lion would be a rush.
Just Google Hippopotamus aggression. There are a lot of sites that will show you just how BAD ASS those big guys are!
"Someone remind me why we still need crocodiles and alligators roaming loose. Eating them to extinction would feed a heck of a lot of people while making the waterways across the world a lot safer for humans to enjoy."
Wow where to start?
Why do people think the earth is only for them, we should kill and eat everything we don't like? just kill them right out of existence? perhaps they play a vital role in the ecosystem?.. Darwin ring a bell? they pick off the weak and diseased animals. which would ruin it for the healthy animals just like lions, tigers, wolves, and most any Apex predator do.
So not only are Apex predators needed , how do you justify killing off an entire species that has been around since the dinosaurs walked the earth? Hell, I don't like narcissistic, uneducated people who do not care about the proliferation of species. Shall we kill them off as well?
Dude. What's with the anger issues? My original statement was just that to me crocs are the scariest animals around, not that I can't deal with nature or the sh!t that happens in the wild. Jeez.
Because in their habitats, they are the apex predator. They are better at maintaining natural balance than humans are. I just wish we could find a way to expand their territory for them, say Iran and North Korea maybe?
Parachute in the 125Th Croc Commando and they'll all be too busy trying to eat one another to cause any trouble. See three problems solved> LOl
Hide your poodles.
I wonder if they prefer white meat, or dark? Hopefully those crocs aren't holding any resentment from Apartheid...
Tey're all headed on a mass migration to the NYC sewer system.
What a croc of sh*t
15,000 crocs don't escape, - they are released!
Trippy story.
They will struggle to find enough food.
The fisherman will kill them to protect what few fish there are.
Nature will restore balance one way or another.
OH, SORRY We didn't see the 15,000 crocodiles escape.
Farming them for their skin.
I think there would be very few over 6 feet.
That farm must have some kind of food budget.
So, who cares?
More exciting than a shipwreck.
"One crocodile apparently from the farm was captured about 75 miles away at a school rugby field, it said."
Trying to get a job as a mascot I guess.
He wasn't noticed on the bus ..
I wonder if people taste like chicken to crocs ?