Videos of a crocodile wading in the surf and swimming near a beach in Ixtapa, Guerrero, went viral this week, prompting local officials to issue a crocodile warning.
The videos were taken Wednesday at El Palmar Beach in Ixtapa’s main hotel zone, about 3 kilometers away from where an animal attack just off the shore killed one person and severely injured another two weeks earlier.
Authorities in the resort area of Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo responded to the videos by warning about the presence of crocodiles, who live in the area’s mangrove swamps and lagoons.
Moreover, there is a small wildlife/crocodile reserve located near Quieta Beach, where a Belgian tourist staying at the adjacent Club Med Ixtapa Pacific resort was killed Dec. 13.
The type of animal that killed him has yet to be specified by local officials, but it was definitely a shark, according to the husband of the woman who was severely injured in another attack moments later.
In a detailed email sent to Mexico News Daily that included grisly photos of his wife’s injuries, Mark Maerowitz of California said he wanted to “put an end to what seems to be an effort to obscure the truth in favor of preserving revenue.”
He wrote that his wife, a nurse practitioner at the Veterans Administration in Los Angeles, “absolutely saw the tell-tale shark fin, and estimated the shark’s size to be at least two meters.”
The shark’s “razor-sharp teeth” cut through his “wife’s skin like a scalpel, and you can see the radius of the bite,” he added, noting that “this information was given to multiple emergency personnel.”
Still, the warning this week was for crocodiles, which are often seen in this area of Guerrero. The specimen Wednesday was reported to be 3 meters in length.
The municipality’s Ecology Department issued a six-point list of “General Recommendations for Crocodile Sightings.” One of them is to maintain a body-length distance from the crocodile, both on the shore and in the water.
“Do not approach or stay close if you notice the presence of a crocodile,” the warning states. “If you see one while in the water, stand up, move calmly toward deeper water and leave the area.”
It also warns to avoid “risky hours” at night or very early morning, do not sleep or nap on beaches in crocodile areas and mind your pets.
After the Belgian man, 76-year-old Joseph Bynens, was bitten — “which severed the femoral artery” in one of his legs, “and by the time they dragged him to shore, he had already died,” Maerowitz wrote — Quieta Beach in Ixtapa’s secondary hotel zone was closed for a few days but then reopened for the holiday period.
After that attack, Zihuatanejo Mayor Jorge Sánchez Allec said an analysis would be conducted to determine if it was a shark or crocodile, but to date no results have been provided.
With reports from El Universal and EFE
I’ll be sure, when I’m in the water with a crocodile, to maintain a body distance from him.
Also, I’ll go to where the water is deeper.
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If you take the headline and put it in Google, you will come up with free sources of the same news story I too miss the free stories.
You can’t afford $5 a month? Mexico news daily is the only news service I subscribe to. I have lived in Mexico over 30 years, but still find alot of interesting stuff here. It always gives me something I can chat to my Mexican friends about who watch the news on TV which i don’t.
A person gets more value in things they subscribe to. It would be interesting at the end of each month to look at people’s budgets and see what they wasted $5 a day on and this is only $5 month. I paid yearly for $50.
I subscribed for 3 years, saved money by doing so and am very happy to be able to read what is going on in
Mexico, which interests me very much after spending 26 winters there. I feel it is worth the money and definitely
will try to subscribe for many more years.
It costs $$ to publish good, original content, that’s the bottom line. We all hate paywalls, but the alternative is falling into the abyss of corporate media’s broken record of global conflict and human tragedy that dominates our 2024 present and future.