Czechs bite back over crocodile law

THE PLAN was to transform the crocodile farm into a park that would offer the Czech general public a wide variety of animals to see, two restaurants to dine in and a pond for fishing.

But the finances didn't work out and now the owner has another plan: slaughter 100 of the farm's 215 Nile crocodiles and sell their exotic meat and valuable skin.

The new proposal has caused an outcry in the Czech Republic, however, where killing crocodiles is currently illegal. But the nation's Ministry of Agriculture is drafting a law that would make it possible.

The move has outraged animal rights campaigners, and even some crocodile farm owners oppose it.

"We strictly reject the legislation," said Eva Hodek, director of the Prague-based Foundation for Protection of Animals. "There's no reason to be the only country in the EU to allow the slaughter of crocodiles."

Hodek said butchers in the country have no experience in killing such animals, meaning they would suffer terribly.

Hodek also said activists suspect the current owners of the farm, who have operated it since February, wanted to slaughter the crocodiles from the start.

"That must have been the real business plan," she said.

Magdalena Dvorackova, the spokeswoman for the Czech Republic's agriculture ministry, said the change in the law regarding crocodiles is necessary and that a similar move in the past allowed farmers to slaughter another exotic animal, the ostrich. Nile crocodiles are not listed as an endangered species in the republic.