It is the stuff of nightmares : a lake is stained red with blood
of slaughtered pigs which is attracting hundreds
of man-eating crocodiles who prowl a nearby neighbourhood and family kill dogs.
Those who live along the shore next to the lagoon can do little but watch as the crocodiles snatch their treasured
livestock and pets - and pray their children won’t be next.
The Lake of Blood, as the locals call it, has attracted 300 deadly crocodiles since a nearby slaughterhouse began dumping pigs’
blood and offal into the water.
Polluted : Nicknamed ’The Lake of Blood’ this lagoon is turned red by pigs’ blood and
offal from pigs killed at a nearby slaughterhouse.
It has attracted 300 man-eating crocodiles to the lake
Useful : The lake is also attracting poachers to the area who kill
the crocodiles and sell them to exotic animal traffickers for £7 a centimetre
£500 per crocodile
Nursery : The lake has become a magnet for five-metre long crocodiles who prowl the nearby neighbourhood
and eat livestock and pets
Terror : Lauren Villaney’s pet dog Pepper was killed last year.
‘There was nothing I could do, I just had to watch in horror through a
hole in my wall,’ she told MailOnline
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It is here in Chetumal, 200 miles south of Cancun on Mexico’s Caribbean Coast, the reptiles raise
their young, which swim in the murky waters as the older, larger predators bathe in the Central American sunshine.
It is at night that the residents fear the crocodiles the most.
That’s when they pick off their chickens and, worse, pet dogs.
And there is nothing anyone can do, should a crocodile come within striking distance
of a dog.
Dani Hernandez lives in constant fear for her children’s lives ; malaria-ridden mosquitos swarm her
slum shack night and day, which sits not 50 yards from the blood-filled lake.
‘I’m kept awake at night by the biggest males roaring and fighting just metres from
my door,’ Ms Hernandez, mother to Gael, four, and Brian, seven months,
told MailOnline.
‘It’s terrifying, because there’s no way my tiny shack could stand up to a five
metre monster if it wanted to come in.’
Frightened : Dani Hernandez lives in fear of her children being caught by one of the crocodiles.
’There’s no way my tiny shack could stand
up to a five metre monster if it wanted to come in,’ she
told MailOnline
Stuck : The families who live near the lake, and the slaughterhouse, pictured, which
is 500 metres from the border with Belize, have no choice but stay there as they
are too impoverished to move
Nightmares : The crocodiles, which can be seen swimming
in the festering water, hunt at night. This also
attrats hunters who come to kill the crocodiles
Insects : The water has also attracted thousands of disease
carrying mosquitoes to the area
Lauren Villaney’s pet dog Pepper was killed last year.
‘There was nothing I could do, I just had to watch in horror through
a hole in my wall,’ she told MailOnline.
‘Since that happened I’ve built a large fence around the shack,
but that doesn’t stop them from prowling around the yard at all hours.’
But another resident, fed up losing his loyal companions
to the crocodile’s jaws, has taken a more proactive approach.
The man, who declined to be named, said : ‘The last
time they ate my dog I took a shotgun down to the lakeside and blasted the larger adults
while they sat basking in the sun in the reeds.
‘You have to shoot a crocodile directly in the
brain first time - otherwise they simply don’t die.
‘Even if you get a good shot in you can expect to be chased
by the others. But eventually the others reptiles
smell blood and cannibalise the dead crocodile.’
But they are far from the only danger the community faces.
Fear : Residents are frightened the crocodiles could eat their children next.
Lauren added : ’I’ve built a large fence around the shack,
but that doesn’t stop them from prowling around the yard at all hours.’
Business : As well as fears over the animals
killing their pets and livestock, residents have to put up with hunters coming to the area
Profit : It is a lucrative business as hunters catch the
dangerous crocodiles, which are worth hundreds of pounds on the
black market, prized for the leather their skin creates
Trapped : Lauren says people ask why she lives so close to the
crocodiles, but she says : ‘We simply do what we can when there’s no other option. A human being can get used to living alongside anything’
In addition to the crocodiles, Lauren says that
boa constrictor snakes, which are native to the Western Caribbean, often hunt both her and her animals.
‘The snakes are the most terrifying because they are enormous and have
no fear,’ she told MailOnline.
MAYAN LEGEND : HOW THE CROCODILE LOST ITS
TONGUE
One of the oldest of the Mayan deities, the Crocodile god Sobek once had a tongue with which it spoke to the other animals and offered them counsel.
One day Xolotl the Dog, the Mayan god of death and trickery, came to the crocodile and complained of its terrible
thirst.
‘Dear crocodile’, said the dog, ‘I cannot drink water
for I have no tongue in my mouth, and I will surely die
of thirst if you do not help me.
‘Please lend me yours for a short while that I may satisfying my thirst’.
The crocodile agreed, on the condition that the following day the
two would meet in the midday shade of sacred Ceiba tree to
return the crocodile’s tongue.
The dog departed with a tongue in its mouth and overjoyed at the
ability to drink freely from any lake or river,
never arrived the next day to return it.
Robbed of its tongue and left without speech,
the crocodile was banished to the hellish swamps between the sea and the land, and to this
day will attack any dog that comes close as revenge for
the trick played upon it.
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‘If a crocodile sees a human it will generally move away, but
a boa constrictor will just keep silently moving towards you.’
Meanwhile, swarms of mosquitoes envelop any thin-skinned
creature within a 500-metre radius of the lake’s edge in a cloud of
angry black specks, inflicting bites which last
for weeks - threatening the local residents at every moment with dengue fever, malaria and zika virus.
‘My baby Brian has been made very sick by the constant mosquitoes,’ says
Dani, pointing out the myriad insect bites across the
little boy’s face and arms.
‘Malaria is a terrible disease, and sooner or later we all get it
living here.’
‘A lot of my friends ask me why I don’t move away, but it’s not that simple,’
Lauren admitted, holding one of her hens under her arm beside the
rancid lake.
‘This is a slum, we simply arrive and build our houses without official permission. The only reason we have been left
alone by the government is because no one else wants the land.
‘We simply do what we can when there’s no other option. A human being can get used
to living alongside anything.’
And there are other people who can see the profit in what the Lake of Blood has
to offer.
The crocodiles’ leather is worth £7 a centimetre once properly cured - £500
per crocodile.
One Chetumal-based animal trafficker, El Cuerno, told MailOnline that the start of the mating season in February is the
best time to poach live crocodiles from the lake.
Infection : Dani’s baby Brian, pictured with his four-year-old brother Gael, is covered in bites from mosquitoes.
’Sooner or later everyone gets malaria,’ Dani said
Danger : ‘A lot of my friends ask me why I don’t move away,
but it’s not that simple,’ Lauren admitted, holding one of
her hens under her arm beside the rancid lake.
Uninhabitable : ’The only reason we have been left alone by the government is because no one else wants the
land,’ she acknowledged. Pictured : A raided crocodile egg nest
‘The start of the mating season is when the male crocodiles are at
their fattest and most powerful,’ he told MailOnline.
‘The ideal animal is around five years old and beginning to fight for territory.
‘A skin is worth less if it’s covered in scars and battle wounds so it’s important to get the animal when it is reaching adulthood,
but before it has started battling for dominance.’
The municipal slaughterhouse staff declined to
comment on the environmental damage caused by their improper
disposal of biological waste when approached by MailOnline.
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