#Black baby used as alligator bait serial#

The second illustrates the man negotiating with a native family for a baby. The first shows a European hunter measuring the spoor of a crocodile to estimate its size. Sri Lankan herpetologists Anslem de Silva and Ruchira Somaweera dug up a set of three illustrations published on 21 January 1888 in a newspaper in London, The Graphic. If such news reports are to be believed, hunters’ use of human babies appears to have been prevalent in Sri Lanka and the United States. Then he will have his native servant soothe it and refresh it from a nursing bottle, which is part of a crocodile hunter’s equipment.” “A considerate sportsman, though, would not work his baby more than fifteen minutes at a time. But these hunters were apparently not heartless. A rifle shot would kill one and send the rest diving into the water.

“I’ve seen half a dozen crocodiles come hurrying from as many different parts of the river toward a baby five minutes after it was set,” he wrote. The babies were brought back alright as a rule, but once in a while some sportsman was a trifle slow with his rifle, or made a bad shot, and the crocodile got away with the bait, but that didn’t happen often.”īabies that cried loudly were the best bait. “Some mothers required a guarantee that their offspring should be returned safe and sound, but the most of them exacted no such agreement. He claimed all a hunter had to do was announce his intention to go hunting for crocodiles and mothers flocked to him, offering their babies as bait. This account of hunting crocodiles in India is based on his letter published on 1 July 1894 in the New York-based newspaper The Sun. “She was a real siren in luring the big reptiles to their fate, and I was sorry to see her grow and get too big for bait and have to give her up,” wrote the hunter. The baby proved to be his most successful crocodile bait, getting him more than 100 crocodiles in this manner. His assistant untied the toddler and she started bawling her head off.īack in the village, the hunter, a former officer of the British army, paid the child’s mother the equivalent of 6 cents. A white hunter emerged from behind a bush and walked over to the dead crocodile. The crocodile thrashed for a few seconds before dying. A large scaly beast emerged quietly from the water and lumbered towards the child.Ī loud explosion rent the air, stopping the crocodile in its tracks and silencing the baby’s cries. Her screams rose above the gentle murmurs of the river. She crawled as far as the rope tied around her waist allowed. Udaipur tailor beheaded for purportedly supporting Nupur Sharma, curfew imposed in several areas.

#Black baby used as alligator bait serial#

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