An angry mob in Indonesia has butchered nearly 300 crocodiles in an act of revenge after a local man was killed by one of the reptiles.
Images from the scene showed dozens of dead crocodiles lying on top of each other and covered in blood after the attack at a breeding farm in Papua province.
According to Basar Manullang, head of Indonesia’s Natural Resources Conservation Agency in West Papua reported that one of the crocodile farm employees heard someone screaming for help and ran to the scene where they saw a person being mauled by a crocodile.
The incident happened Saturday following the funeral of the 48-year-old man who was killed after he entered an enclosure while looking for grass to feed his livestock, police and conservation officials said.
The man’s family and numerous of other locals, marched to the police station demanding for compensation from the breeder but were not satisfied with the response and headed straight to the farm with clubs, knives, machetes and other crude weapons which they used to slaughter some 292 crocs, ranging from palm-sized babies to two-meter adults, authorities said.
Outnumbered police and conservation officials said they were unable to stop the grisly attack.
“For now we are still questioning the witnesses,” said district police chief Dewa Made Sidan Sutrahna who also highlighted the dangers of trespassing into a breeding farm and also raised concerns about its safety.
The Southeast Asian archipelago is home to a vast array of wildlife, including several species of crocodile that regularly attack and kill humans.
In March authorities in Borneo shot and killed a six-meter-long crocodile after it ate a local palm plantation worker.
