Chinese child eaten by crocodiles

Submitted by 羽之助 on Tue, 2007-04-24 10:36. ::
 

Yes, it's trite. Yes, it's been on every other message board. But the Duckpond has been quiet as a tomb for too long!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/04/22/china.croc.ap/index.html

Quote:
BEIJING, China (AP) -- A crocodile shot to death in south China during a search for a missing 9-year-old student was found to contain the child's remains, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The crocodile was shot Saturday in a park in Beihai, a city in the Guangxi region, by investigators looking for the missing child. Investigators confirmed that human remains found in the reptile were that of the student, the report said.

The child, surnamed Liu, disappeared Friday after Liu and three other children climbed over the fence around a pool in the park that had been used to stage crocodile shows, Xinhua said.

"The children shot the animals with catapults and beat them with wooden sticks," the agency said. "One of the irritated crocodiles bit Liu's clothes and dragged him into water, where he was eaten by a swarm of crocodiles."

Snipers used pork to lure the reptiles from the pool on Saturday and shot the first one that crawled ashore, the report said.

No other details were given, and it wasn't immediately clear what would happen to the other crocodiles.

Local residents said the park's owner had hired a keeper for the crocodiles, but it was not clear why the man was not at the site when the students broke in, the report said.

The manager and the keeper were being held by police.

Now, the only description I've ever heard of a Chinese zoo was from Sinobling, so I'm prejudiced. Therefore, I ask; is clambering into a zoo enclosure and beating animals for the hell of it a normal occurence?

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justLuke
Chinese child eaten by crocodiles
Submitted by justLuke on Tue, 2007-04-24 17:08.

I hate to say this (because the death of a child is always a shame) but anyone who attempts to cruelly torment and beat dangerous wild animals deserves anything that happens as a result.

Generally speaking, there is a lot of animal cruelty in China. I remember seeing a bunch of adult guys kicking what appeared to be an injured or ill rat around from one to another like a football. It's not that unusual to see Chinese people casually torturing animals in this way. Of course, I'm not implying that this is the norm - only that it does happen, and more often than in some other countries.

I'm not sure why this is. It's probably something to do with the egocentric nature of contemporary chinese society. In such an environment it is no wonder that empathy (for animals or for one's neighbour) might be be seen as a weakness.

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Mister Tea
Chinese child eaten by crocodiles
Submitted by Mister Tea on Wed, 2007-04-25 02:47.

I went to one Zoo in one unnamed Mainland Chinese city with my Chinese buddy and his family. I stayed about 10 minutes to the point of absolute disgust, and then proceeded to wait outside the Zoo's main gate for three hours for them to leave--I never regretted leaving that zoo, so yeah I didn't shed any crocodile tears over hearing this story. They were all probably jabbing the reptile for hours, the croc got fed up, and then finally broke out a can of whoop ass. There's a universal moral in that story. :?

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