Mpumalanga man kills giant crocodile with panga

Johannesburg, South Africa



24 October 2006 08:37

A Mpumalanga man is being hailed as a "Crocodile Dundee" after surviving a four-hour battle with a huge crocodile at the weekend, News24 reported on Tuesday.

Alex Masinga (58) of KaMhlushwa in Nkomazi said he first defended himself against the 2,7m female by wrestling with it.

Finally, he plunged his arm down the reptile's throat and drove his new panga into her vital organs.

Fellow-villagers initially refused to believe Masinga's story, but doubt turned to hero worship when he took them to the corpse.

Masinga spent much of Monday posing with the crocodile for local photographers, showing off his gnawed calf where she bit him on a tributary of the Umlati River.

"I was farming my vegetable patch on Sunday, and it was very hot. The stream was right there, so I grabbed my panga and water bottle to collect some water," said Masinga.

He was ankle-deep when the crocodile latched on to his calf from behind and started dragging him into the water.

"I fought fiercely ... but the crocodile was too strong. The water was up to my chest and I told myself the only way to survive was to use my new panga," he said.

Masinga said he shoved his panga down the crocodile's throat and started twisting it.

"Once that panga was in there I kept on twisting and twisting until the crocodile started to float and I knew I had survived," he said.

Conservation officials found no panga inside the reptile, and doubted Masinga's story.

They suspected he was a poacher who deliberately trapped and killed the crocodile, the website reported. - Sapa

A four hour battle? While the overall story may be true, that I doubt very much.

'Crocodile Dundee' behind bars
23/11/2006 14:14 - (SA)


Suspected croc slayer in court


Thabisile Khoza


Malelane - Mpumalanga's self-styled Crocodile Dundee is behind bars after failing to raise R1 000 bail.

Tonga villager Alex Masinga was arrested and charged with poaching after his claims of an epic four-hour battle with a "vicious" crocodile was exposed as a lie.

Masinga enjoyed a brief period of hero worship in his rural community after telling astonished neighbours that he fought off the three metre reptile after it attacked him on October 22.

Masinga posed for photographs with the crocodile, claiming that it ambushed him by biting his leg when he took a break from farming to fetch water from the Mlumati River.

He said that he first wrestled with the predator, before grabbing his panga and shoving it down the crocodile's throat.

Wildlife authorities smelled a rat, however, after failing to find the panga or any of the injuries Masinga claimed to have inflicted on the reptile. Instead, a fishing net was found entangled around the crocodile's head.

Masinga and a friend, Robert Khoza, were arrested shortly afterwards and charged with poaching.

The two appeared briefly in the Tonga magistrates court on Wednesday and were remanded into police custody when they were unable to pay R1 000 bail each. They will appear on December 11 again.

Police dockets tabled in court say that the crocodile, which is a protected animal, was pregnant with it was killed. Wildlife experts retrieved 37 eggs from it during the post mortem.

The docket claims that the fishing net and various other evidence indicates that Khoza and Masinga were deliberately hunting crocodiles. Their skin and meat are prized on the muti black-market.