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One Stupid Girl FromTexas – And An Alligator

Who does she think she is – the next Doctor Dolittle![1]

Or, perhaps, John “Grizzly” Adams, reincarnated.

Only last year I wrote a post entitled, “”Heaven Preserve Us From Animal Lovers” about an image of a very stupid girl standing neck deep in water while kissing a crocodile/alligator. It was a smaller reptile than this latest four metre monster.

When will folk stop thinking they have some magical power over wild animals that the rest of us mere mortals don’t have? This girl is in an incredibly dangerous situation, one she thinks she can handle because she has some power, a “special relationship”, with the alligator. All it will take is for one instinctive notion to fire off in the creature’s reptilian brain and she’ll be its next meal.

I wonder if she’s ever heard of Dicko Toke…

…he was a keeper charged with caring for crocodiles at the sacred lake Yamassoukrou on the Ivory Coast.

Here’s an excerpt from the International Business Times dated September 2012:

Dicko Toke had been a crocodile keeper at the sacred lake Yamassoukrou, Ivory Coast, for 30 years when “The Captain” dragged him underwater to eat him.

The artificial lake had been built by Ivory Coast’s founding father Felix Houphouet-Boigny Le Vieux around his presidential palace in the early 1980s.

Houphouet-Boigny wanted the lake to be blessed by animists and filled with massive crocodiles as the animals were considered almost sacred by his ethnic group – the Baoule.

Toke was responsible for looking after the animals, who all had fancy names such as Capitain, Vice-president and Parliamentary speaker. He would call them by name to the shore and feed them live chickens to entertain tourists.

His pose for a group of Pakistani UN soldiers, however, proved fatal. Capitain grabbed his robe and did not relax his grip despite being stabbed twice with a machete by Toke.

Toke, who was close to retirement, was pulled into the middle of the lake and dragged underwater with the help of another crocodile – Chef de Cabinet.[2]

Dicko Toke lasted thirty years before his charges finally ate him alive. I wonder if the young lady from Texas in the image above will last that long.

I doubt it.


[1] “Texas student poses with alligator in graduation snaps” BBC, August 7th 2018

[2] “Ivory Coast: Presidential Crocodiles Eat Feeder Dicko Toke” International Business Times, September 13th 2012

2 Replies to “One Stupid Girl FromTexas – And An Alligator”

  1. Remember that well-known TV personality who did stuff with crocodiles years ago, and eventually he was killed by one of ’em. Googled – Steve Irwin? They all think they’re Crocodile Dundee don’t they?

  2. Twilight ~ yes, exactly! Irwin was killed by a short-tailed stingray, but it could have been any predatory creature that took a fancy to him. He tangled with all sorts: snakes, crocs, alligators, and presumably thought he was invincible.

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