Black Caiman

[Dark Jaguar]

Health check up Management for Wally, a 4.12 meters long and over 40 years old male Captive Black Caiman from Brazilian Zoo.
credits: Wild Vets

part 1  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTAORMP7a1E

part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vrA8uqwPcQ

NOTE: I am gonna summarize Rodrigo Rabello who is a massive reptile fan and who also worked on a course in Africa capturing wild animals such as Eland, Elephant, Giraffe, Rhinos, Cheetahs.... his serious security warning to the team on the management process of such a large reptile and when he mentions about the man from IBAMA who got his neck broken by a black caiman tail slap/swipe.

Rodrigo Rabello -  ''Black Caiman is an animals people normally freak out and get too frightened to manage it but obviously within all the security control which is the main thing nothing wrong shall happen, With the animal outside of the water means its our chance of getting him but if he gets into the water it will be much harder so we gotta approach him cautiously with a very reduced number of people, we'll try to lace the animal out of the water hopefully everything will be alright and may he stay still so the lace/loop will be correctly done and once we pass the lace we're gonna need a team a bit more further away so when we pass the lace and put on the pressure on him he tend to get on other, they do what we call the tug war so he will get further away gripping on the steel cable starting to spin around, all those normal reactions  of a Crocodilian but he's got around 5 meters so we won't have enough strength to hold and in this moment I am gonna need you guys, you'll easily identify the moment we tighten  the lace and the fight/struggle will start and you guys will rush there to help us hold on the steel cable and keep the animal out of the water which only me and him vs this 5 meter long animal we have no chance at all so stay tuned and alert we'll hold the steel cable on a secure position so becareful with it, always keep the steel cable behind the animal never to the sides and much less to the front so we'll form a queue and will all pull together. We'll probably anchor this animal and drag it to a safe corner, tie it up so it won't escape so the rest of the team can approach so we'll start the whole procedure we'll jump on top of it, shut its mouth, pull its 4 limbs to the back and the Black Caimans use its tail, this animals utilizes its tail with alot of dexterity what I mean by that is it will easily throw its tail into your face and getting a tail smack/swipe from an animal this size... For those who knows Tiago from IBAMA knows what happened, he broke his neck by a Caiman's tail slap/swipe so we gotta be careful all the time, with this animal you can't blink, don't neglect in no moment if you get close to it even if he's completely tied up he yet can bruise a person, if he brutally shakes to the sides and if its head hits your leg it will break your leg. He is a dinossaur his head is like an anvil its extremelly hard and durable so don't make any mistake.''

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During Wild Vets team hard work of moving Wally out of the water, He ended up tearing apart the steel cable.

After many attempts they try to capture him 4 times with the lace and didn't work, they even makeshifted the steel cable that day but it did not work either and the team after all the tirering attempts and even getting into the risk of trying to lace Wally in the water and also everybody being attacked by a swarm of bees in the process, they decided to leave him alone to not stress him too much and capture him the next day.

The Beast strength.

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On the Following Day...

Now they got a locking system done to the steel cable in order to get Wally out of the water and with more people to help.
They tried to lace the reptile on the head, on the mouth, on the tail and another one at same time but Wally is yet destroying all steel cables they throw on him.

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After so many effort done, headaches and after Wally destroyed so many more steel cables he was Finally captured and dragged out of the water.

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After that they used a stiff tube and a trunk to keep Wally's mouth open and then wrapped around his Jaws.

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Massive hind paws.

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4.12 meters in length.

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Wally's health is fine and also don't forget that lengthwise Wally is ''only'' around an average sized male for Black Caimans as their average length being 4 meters long for males as mentioned by (Vasquez, 1991). Just imagine how much more trouble it would be for their capture if it was a 5.5 m to 6 m long specimen.

Wildwise unfortunately due to massive hunting, The local people interest on its meat and even by the the management procedure without reducing the population size (in numbers), its clear that most of the times the big looking ones (in size) will be slaughtered for their meat for commercial local consumption and also the massive hunting in order to use their meat as bait to capture other species such as Piracatinga and many other reasons its a bit difficult to find many of those 5.5m-6m large sized individuals in nature. But I think in the isolated areas of the Amazon away from humans is where the true Dinossaurs live. Reply