Saltwater crocodiles on 'Born to be Wild'

BORN TO BE WILD
July 21, 2019

In Mindoro, experts say that the last recorded sighting of a saltwater crocodile in the wild was in the 1900s. But in December 2018, a saltwater crocodile was caught in a rice field in Calapan. The croc was brought to a gene pool farm in San Jose, Mindoro. Doc Ferds and the team travel to Mindoro to inspect the crocodile and investigate where it could have possibly come from.

Doc Nielsen visits another croc, this time in Liguasan Marsh. He meets Kanluran, a saltwater crocodile housed in a rescue center. Kanluran was caught by a fisherman after the croc damaged his fish pens. But there’s a twist.

In 2016, a freshwater crocodile named Silangan was also caught in Liguasan Marsh. Silangan died from an infection in February of this year. Because of the two types of crocodiles present in the area, experts are concerned that Kanluran may be a hybrid species. Kanluran undergoes DNA testing to see if a hybrid croc has already been bred in the marsh.