A tourist has lost an arm in a Crocodile attack close to Victoria Falls. Collin Miller, 21, from Zambia, jumped into a pool containing Crocodiles on the Zimbabwe side of the Falls, where he was attending a wedding, while apparently under the influence of alcohol. He was airlifted to a hospital in South Africa, where he is described as being in a stable condition.
A Nile Crocodile close to Victoria Falls. Victoria Falls Adventures.
The Victoria Falls area is home to a large population of Nile Crocodiles, Crocodylus niloticus, which are popular with tourists. Nile Crocodiles are large animals, reaching about five
meters in length, and are ambush predators capable of taking large
prey, including, on occasion, Humans. The animals are thought to be at
their most dangerous around September on the Zambezi, when the water is
lowest, and females are guarding eggs buried in nests by the river, however they can clearly be dangerous at other times of year if provoked.
Nile Crocodiles are considered to be of Least Concern under the terms of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, but are still protected in many countries, due to historic hunting which decimated populations in many areas. However, the rising number of attacks on Humans by the animals has led to calls for regulated hunting to be introduced to control the population.
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