In an extraordinarily unusual move, following years in which a historic crocodile farm in the Jordan Valley operated without oversight and without feeding, as the crocodiles became cannibalist and began consuming one another, the Civil Administration and Nature and Parks Authority recently decided to perform mercy killing of the animals and dismantle the complex.
The crocodile farm was established during the 1990s as a tourist attraction, but closed during the Second Intifada. Initially, the owner requested to continue breeding the crocodiles to sell their hide and meat, but legislation from 2013 that prohibited this practice, classifying crocodiles as a protected species, halted the enterprise. Consequently, for decades the crocodiles located at the facility have been living without any oversight or feeding.
Examinations by authorities revealed that the crocodiles became cannibals as a survival strategy. Most horrifically, while previously there were approximately 700 crocodiles at the location, at the time of their killing there were only about 200 left.
The farm became a clear and immediate hazard to residents, and multiple times crocodiles actually escaped from the location and endangered human lives. Consequently, the Civil Administration decided to act with maximum possible speed to prevent continuation of the charade. The owner, administrators state, refused to secure the location and provide appropriate care for the animals, and all efforts to find solutions for them, including their sale, proved futile.
Given the danger, the Civil Administration decided, in partnership with the Nature and Parks Authority, the chief veterinarian and a range of additional professional sources, to eliminate the crocodiles that were at the location, and this was accomplished. The Civil Administration states that prior to executing the unusual action, expert and veterinary assessments were obtained indicating that the conditions under which the crocodiles live constitute animal cruelty.
The IDF Spokesperson's Unit provided the following response:
"Following a series of measures advanced by the Civil Administration in partnership with the Nature and Parks Authority for finding solutions to the crocodile farm in Petzael and following a series of professional consultations conducted with experts and veterinarians, it was determined that given the genuine life-threatening risk to area residents, the risk must be addressed immediately through elimination of the specimens at the farm with complete veterinary coordination."
It should be noted that the decision was also reached based on urgent expert and veterinary assessments stating that the Nile crocodiles at the farm are maintained in the abandoned complex under degraded conditions constituting animal cruelty, and without sufficient access to food which pushed them toward cannibalistic conduct.
"It should be stressed that since the farm closed in 2013, fencing infrastructure at the location deteriorated and was destroyed, leading to multiple incidents where crocodiles fled from the farm to communities and nature reserves in the region, thus creating genuine life-threatening danger for area residents. The Civil Administration contacted the farm owner regarding fencing the farm and caring for the animals but encountered non-cooperation and the actions were not implemented. Despite this being a private farm neglected by its owners and attempting to rescue the crocodiles living in the region, the Civil Administration in recent years executed re-fencing of the farm at a cost of hundreds of thousands of shekels ($56,400), but even this failed to provide hermetic protection."
"Following 12 years of advancing solutions and given recent events that demonstrated immediate and genuine danger to human life, it was clarified that the risk must be addressed."
