US professor killed by crocodile in Botswana

Seattle, United States 22 March 2006 09:29

A professor at the University of Washington Medical School who moved to Botswana to help alleviate a shortage of doctors there, was killed when a crocodile dragged him from a canoe, his family and colleagues said.

Richard Root (68) was on a wildlife tour of the Limpopo River in remote north-eastern Botswana with his wife, Rita O'Boyle, on Sunday when it happened. The couple had been visiting a clinic in the area.

A nationally known expert in infectious disease and the former chief of medicine at Harborview Medical Centre in Seattle, Root went to Botswana to train health care workers to deal with HIV/Aids. Botswana's rate of HIV infection is at about 40%.

The move and his marriage last year had given him a new purpose in life after some difficult years, which included having bypass surgery, suffering with depression and caring for his previous wife until she died in 2001 of a neuromuscular disorder.

Root's son David Root, a Seattle architect, said he had spoken with his father on Saturday, and that he was happy about his work at Botswana's Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone.

"Dad had gone through hell and had to take stock of his life," Root told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Another son, Richard Root of Los Angeles, said his father, who had worked as a doctor in Iran in the 1970s, now wanted to dedicate himself to helping Africa.

Root taught at Penn in the early 1970s before moving on to Yale and then, in 1982, to Seattle. He first served as chief of medicine at the Veterans Administration Hospital, then took over the same position at Harborview in 1991.

He was former president of the American Federation of Clinical Research; editor in chief of a textbook, Clinical Infectious Diseases; and, from 1986 to 1991, he directed the National Institutes of Health's Aids Advisory Committee.

Steve Gluckman, medical director of the Botswana programme, said Root was in a lead canoe with the tour guides when the crocodile rose out of the water and grabbed him. He was not seen again. The tour guides were wary of hippos, but there had been no reports of crocodile attacks in the area.

Survivors include sons Richard, a college and high school teacher in Los Angeles; David, a Seattle architect; and Daniel, a Seattle physician. Root also had eight grandchildren.
- Sapa-AP

Macabre ... words fail me.

I wonder if even the most prepared for DG would have been able to do anything in that situation. It probably happened in a flash. Crocs scare the daylights out of me.

I guess those crocs always get someone else!

Living near Seattle as I do this has been a big news item here. Also having this happen on the limpopo where I have my hunts each year struck home for me on the Africa side too!

Sometimes I get complacent and don't pack a rifle when my hunters are plains game hunting. However Things like this remeind me it's still Africa regardless of the species hunted!

There are plenty of things like an angry bushbok, wounded gemsbok or waterbuck, mambas cobras and such. Folks put a lot of importance on their DG rifles and buffalo and lion trouble. The bigger trouble really comes from far more common and less romantic speices and situations.

A little correction of a typo: Not northeastern Botswana, but southeastern or maybe just far-eastern Botswana, along the northeastern border of RSA. The Limpopo River is that border.

Must have been a big croc, and a hungry one. Having wet my sneakers in the Limpopo at the Tuli Block game farms, watching bushbuck and croc sneaking about, I recall the greasy green Limpopo at low ebb. It can be deceptively peaceful and safe appearing I guess.

Aren't there croc farmers in the area who sometimes lose their stock to the wild when the Limpopo floods and washes out the pens?

Maybe an old pen raised croc with no fear of humans has been lurking and growing for years?

I also cruised the Okavango in a mokoro dugout a bit, and had to do some barefoot wading after red lechwe. I never saw a croc when we were poling about in the mokoro in the wild.

I did see crocs in the Limpopo, anytime I looked for them.

One time I also saw a little band of domestic goats grazing on the bushbuck banks of the Limpopo. There was a large shepherd type dog that rode herd on those goats, shooing them away from the river when they got near the water, and rounding them up and herding them home as night fell, all by his doggie self, with no human instruction. Like a mother hen with her chicks. Funny as hell.

I can see that Limpopo crocs might be pretty aggressive at snatching life away.

I hope someone kills some crocs in the Limpopo River soon. May The Good Doctor Root rest in peace.

I've got a long term ambition to catch one of the Limpopo flatdogs with rod & line..... hope to have a go at it later this year when I have a few days between clients...... I reckon it'll be funny as hell!

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
I've got a long term ambition to catch one of the Limpopo flatdogs with rod & line..... hope to have a go at it later this year when I have a few days between clients...... I reckon it'll be funny as hell!

That's the spirit!

quote:

got a long term ambition to catch one of the Limpopo flatdogs with rod & line..... hope to have a go at it later this year when I have a few days between clients...... I reckon it'll be funny as hell!

Don't forget to use a steel leader!

RIch Elliott

Some shots of the Limpopo River (from 2002). The area shaded in red on the map indicates the approximate area where I hunted. (Shaded area is not the size of the game farm; it just roughly indicates the general area I was in.)







In the two photos above, the opposite bank is Botswana.

Croc sunning on the sandbar:


-Bob F.

BFaucett-Spent some time in that same area in 2000 hunting bushbuck along the banks of the river.It was August when I was there and I remember the river being lower at that time but it was the same area ,no doubt.

Don't pay too much attention to the water level. some of the farmers built dams many years ago when it was legal and consequently some stretches hold a fair bit of water throughout the year.... other (undammed) parts dry out very quickly......

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
Don't pay too much attention to the water level. some of the farmers built dams many years ago when it was legal and consequently some stretches hold a fair bit of water throughout the year.... other (undammed) parts dry out very quickly......

Very true. In fact, the first photo I posted above is looking towards the back side of one of those dams.

Here's a couple of views of the river on the other (dryer) side of the dam.





And we were also hunting Bushbuck. Hunting Bushbuck along the Limpopo was my favortie part of that trip. I managed to get one too!


(This is not the spot where I shot him. We posed this later by the river.)

-Bob F.

Great looking bushbuck.I did not get mine on that trip but did enjoy hunting the river.We saw loads of critters and tracks where a jumbo had crossed back and forth during the night.

The pictures of the dry side of the dam more resemble what we saw.Looked like a person could wade across if a croc did not cause him grief.

Last year I shot a huge spurwing that fell into the thick reeds in the Mogol (trib. of the Limpopo near Ellisras). I wanted him bad for a mount and cautiously waded in. about twenty meters out I stepped into a hidden channel over my knees and decided it was a bad idea. My wife told our host's wife at lunch that day and she got a gastly expression. Asking specifics of just where this took place she scolded me like one of her children - seems it was the exact spot a croc had taken one of their dogs three months earlier... I still regret not recovering that goose though!

Its interesting how the lack of hunting pressure quickly makes crocs more aggressive. I read a report from Australia wherin a croc chased a dog right through the living room of a farmer's house coming in one door and out the other. Many years ago Max Davidson told me that if you slept on the beach on the Coburg Peninsula they would come out of the sea and take you off the beach.

I am very familar with Nile crocs in the Kilombero Valley where they are very heavily poached. Fishermen can safely sleep at night on the same beaches where crocs lie in the day during the dry season. If the fishermen are in the river they are fair game and i know of about 39 being taken but on the bank they are out of bounds.

The odd very big croc takes drunken fishermen out of their boats at night but it does not happen often. In the rainy season the crocs come right up near the villages and more frequently take fishermen from their boats than during the dry season. I guess they have less food in the rainy season.

Hunting definitely makes it safer for people walking along the banks.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Gorsline:
Its interesting how the lack of hunting pressure quickly makes crocs more aggressive. I read a report from Australia wherin a croc chased a dog right through the living room of a farmer's house coming in one door and out the other. Many years ago Max Davidson told me that if you slept on the beach on the Coburg Peninsula they would come out of the sea and take you off the beach.

Ted

Good points.

The worst example I have heard of, was a woman was sleeping in a tent on a beach in a National Park in Far North Queensland some 200 metres from the water. A saltwater crocodile attempted to take her and drag her to the water, and the other campers could not stop it, until one of them who had a pistol got it and shot the crocodile. Thankfully the police declined to press any charges against him. True story from early last year (I think).

Made me think twice about how close myself and friends (in our youth) used to sleep out close to rivers when we knew there was a large salty less than 40 metres away.

The crocs in the Northern Territory in touristy areas will not react at all to human presence except often to move towards you on the bank. Sometimes as many as seven adult crocs in a 50 metre distance.

In Aboriginal areas the crocs seem more shy even though they are there. Aboriginals are permitted to harvest various animals for traditional hunting (food).

A good point in re-opening controlled safari hunting.