Today is Friday, April 17th, 2009 and it is now exactly 3 PM here in the Philippines.
Those couple of people who used t read mu Journal might remember a day in 2007 when I told about how Dad swore up and down he had seen a small croc swimming in the creek beside our compound...and perhaps also remember how Mom always derisively said no way...
Well it must be a good week for dad (though certainly a bad week for another local family as you will see in a bit). In Agusan Marsh, right off of my main Mitragynine strand (trees we raise for lumber as well as my Kratom trade) a 9 year old Agusan Manobo (Malay tribe, Animist though many now are joining those horrid Missionary spawned nonsense) was eaten by a croc said to be well over 6 meters, with some claiming that it was around 9 meters (for any Americans, roughly 27 feet).
Agusan Manobo often live in floating villages deep in the marsh, she had been near our lands because she was taking, it is suppossed, the picturesque route to her floating school.
She was in her little outrigger with 2 other small children, with an older man travelling in his craft, in the opposite direction when the croc snathed her as she sat legs in the water.
They did fish part of her skull out but that is all the found.
After we had that sighting in the creek, maybe a while later after I had returned from Cambodia, I was watching the reality cable channel they have here and saw this naturalist, an expert on the crocadillians who was popping a woody over Nat Geo paying his sorry white ass a pretty penny to travel the globe and catch (and release) each one of the world' species.
So, the man is yammering away, shwing graphic images of this one and that one, prior to hitting the road, and he talks all excitedly about the chance to see the world' rarest breed. Lo and behold, that breed happens to be the fresh water croc we have!
I am ashamed as hell to admit that the first thing that crossed my mind was to take Joash, my 12 year old brother in law and fishing partner and try our hand at what promised to be a pretty penny.
The one Dad saw though was roughly .5 meter, a young one but where there are juveniles there is going to be a breeding population! Ergo, rare but viable as far as a single harvest goes if all goes well.
Yet, as I thought about it I really was ashamed of myself. By the Grace of G-D I do not want for money or any materiel items, so why kill vaingloriously? IF I were to kill or even capture a specimen it would inevitably spell doom for the breed.
In any apart of the Philippines, hell any part of SE Asia the poor people will eat anything moving, heck Bisaya are known to be cannibals (TadTad is a Bisaya phenomenon) and so, IF word got around the population would be erased...if not for food then certainly for the cash such a rare creature would bestow.
I am actually amazed that a specimen would be able to live in the creek. It is not deep at all, perhaps less than 1 meter in rare deep spots, though in Monsoon it can go 3 meters easy, for short periods of time. Yet, it runs through huge rice fields, and all the labourers traipsing about, plus all the starving poor scouring even rice fields for edible insects would not leave much eoom for a healthy or long existence.
Sometimes I see young men with battery packs strapped to their bodies electrocuting the water to collect the stunned creatures...and then in larger bodies like the marsh you get "Grenade Fisherman," who simple toss a live grenade into the water and simply scoop the dead or dazed wildlife.
Anyway, for a very long time I have been thinking about going deep into the marsh (several times bigger than the American Everglades) simply to explote.
My G-Dfather (sponsor in my civil marriage) is an Agusan Manobo from the Marsh but he is what is sadly known as a "Civilised Manobo," meaning he took an education and now lives with and like a Bisaya or Illongo. He happens to be a provincial politician but that is neither herw nor there.
Aside from seeing incredible scenery and
G-D knows what animals, I would love to see very traditional Agusan Manobo before the Missionaries accomplish what decades of insurrection could not.
I will close here due to the character count...
Those couple of people who used t read mu Journal might remember a day in 2007 when I told about how Dad swore up and down he had seen a small croc swimming in the creek beside our compound...and perhaps also remember how Mom always derisively said no way...
Well it must be a good week for dad (though certainly a bad week for another local family as you will see in a bit). In Agusan Marsh, right off of my main Mitragynine strand (trees we raise for lumber as well as my Kratom trade) a 9 year old Agusan Manobo (Malay tribe, Animist though many now are joining those horrid Missionary spawned nonsense) was eaten by a croc said to be well over 6 meters, with some claiming that it was around 9 meters (for any Americans, roughly 27 feet).
Agusan Manobo often live in floating villages deep in the marsh, she had been near our lands because she was taking, it is suppossed, the picturesque route to her floating school.
She was in her little outrigger with 2 other small children, with an older man travelling in his craft, in the opposite direction when the croc snathed her as she sat legs in the water.
They did fish part of her skull out but that is all the found.
After we had that sighting in the creek, maybe a while later after I had returned from Cambodia, I was watching the reality cable channel they have here and saw this naturalist, an expert on the crocadillians who was popping a woody over Nat Geo paying his sorry white ass a pretty penny to travel the globe and catch (and release) each one of the world' species.
So, the man is yammering away, shwing graphic images of this one and that one, prior to hitting the road, and he talks all excitedly about the chance to see the world' rarest breed. Lo and behold, that breed happens to be the fresh water croc we have!
I am ashamed as hell to admit that the first thing that crossed my mind was to take Joash, my 12 year old brother in law and fishing partner and try our hand at what promised to be a pretty penny.
The one Dad saw though was roughly .5 meter, a young one but where there are juveniles there is going to be a breeding population! Ergo, rare but viable as far as a single harvest goes if all goes well.
Yet, as I thought about it I really was ashamed of myself. By the Grace of G-D I do not want for money or any materiel items, so why kill vaingloriously? IF I were to kill or even capture a specimen it would inevitably spell doom for the breed.
In any apart of the Philippines, hell any part of SE Asia the poor people will eat anything moving, heck Bisaya are known to be cannibals (TadTad is a Bisaya phenomenon) and so, IF word got around the population would be erased...if not for food then certainly for the cash such a rare creature would bestow.
I am actually amazed that a specimen would be able to live in the creek. It is not deep at all, perhaps less than 1 meter in rare deep spots, though in Monsoon it can go 3 meters easy, for short periods of time. Yet, it runs through huge rice fields, and all the labourers traipsing about, plus all the starving poor scouring even rice fields for edible insects would not leave much eoom for a healthy or long existence.
Sometimes I see young men with battery packs strapped to their bodies electrocuting the water to collect the stunned creatures...and then in larger bodies like the marsh you get "Grenade Fisherman," who simple toss a live grenade into the water and simply scoop the dead or dazed wildlife.
Anyway, for a very long time I have been thinking about going deep into the marsh (several times bigger than the American Everglades) simply to explote.
My G-Dfather (sponsor in my civil marriage) is an Agusan Manobo from the Marsh but he is what is sadly known as a "Civilised Manobo," meaning he took an education and now lives with and like a Bisaya or Illongo. He happens to be a provincial politician but that is neither herw nor there.
Aside from seeing incredible scenery and
G-D knows what animals, I would love to see very traditional Agusan Manobo before the Missionaries accomplish what decades of insurrection could not.
I will close here due to the character count...
