Butler native nabs 14-foot crocodile
A Butler native and her husband appeared alongside a suspected killer crocodile last week in an episode of Animal Planet's “Search for a Killer: Monster Croc.” The show featuring 1989 Slippery Rock University graduate Cherie Chenot-Rose and her husband Vince Rose, both of whom founded and run the American Crocodile Education Sanctuary (ACES) in Belize, aired May 24.
Chenot-Rose said the monster crocodile they captured alive was “14 feet long and weighed 1,000 pounds. On the show, he was named Croczilla. But we renamed him George because we felt Croczilla was too dramatic a name for him.”
George, presently residing in the ACES sanctuary in Ladyville outside Belize City, is a saltwater crocodile. Belize is also home to freshwater crocodile species, she said.
“For several years, he's been blamed for several attacks and deaths,” said Chenot-Rose. “Can we guarantee that this is the one that did all the attacks? No. But it is possible for a crocodile to range hundreds of miles in a day or two.”
George, said Chenot-Rose, “was originally from Ambergis Caye where the locals have been illegally feeding him for years as a tourist attraction.”
“The crocodile is an apex predator,” said Chenot-Rose. “It's the only reptile with a developed cerebral cortex. That means it can plot, plan and remember.
“The crocodile can watch you, study you, learn your behavior and when you are the most vulnerable attack you,” she said.
“The natives by feeding him have drawn him in and now he no longer fears man,” she said.
“Search for a Killer: Monster Croc” is the pilot for a new series which features wildlife filmmakers, Jim Incledon and Jason Giberti, embarking on an adventure to uncover the truth about the most deadly animal-human conflicts to date.
“We are basically using our 20-some combined years of experience of filming, the investigation process, setting up the camera hides, night-vision cameras, camera traps, being on long lens, stalking the animal, learning its behavior, then trying to capture it on camera,” Giberti told the San Pedro Sun newspaper in Belize before the show aired. “These skills can ultimately be used to capture a problematic animal and relocate it. We are basically using our experience in the field filming wildlife to help solve a specific wildlife problem.”Chenot-Rose said she and Vince earlier appeared on UK Animal Planet's “Wildlife SOS,” which was filmed by Incledon and Giberti.Chenot-Rose said they were great to work with and in the latest show, Incledon and Giberti are stepping out from behind the cameras to act as hosts.“They came in and filmed ahead of time for about a week,” she said. “They filmed us for a three-week period to get enough for an hour program.”“I am happy with the way that they made it perfectly clear that the reason the crocodile was this way is because it was fed by man,” she said.Chenot-Rose not only appears in the program, but was the acting production fixer for Double Act Productions Ltd. and the Belize Film Commission, and she and her husband were responsible for overseeing the humane and safe handling of the crocodiles during filming.The ACES founders appeared in Animal Planet's “Wild Recon”; UK Animal Planet's “Wildlife SOS”; Poland's National Geographic “Women at the End of the World”; Poland's World Wildlife Federation “A Hellish Beach”; French TV's “Somewhere on Earth”; and Travel Channel's “Another Shade of Blue.”The appearance on Animal Planet was a bit of good news for Chenot-Rose.She was back in Butler last week visiting her grandmother, Catherine Coleman, 89, of Butler, who was experiencing health problems.And the court case against the government of Belize for the arson that destroyed their former crocodile sanctuary continues to drag on.Chenot-Rose and Vince Rose founded ACES in 2006 as a nonprofit organization, permitted by the Belize Forest Department, dedicated to the conservation of Belize's critical wetland habitats and protected species, specifically crocodilians.But in 2010, the original sanctuary in the fishing village of Punta Gorda was burned to the ground by an angry mob when the two were accused by a psychic of feeding two missing village children to rescued crocodiles.Chenot-Rose said their home, all their possessions and two guest bungalows were destroyed and 15 crocodiles were killed.They rebuilt the crocodile sanctuary on a 266-acre shrimp farm in Ladyville and sued the Belizean government for $500,000 in damages.“The judge ruled in our favor in September 2013, but then it was appealed, and we have been tied up in appeal ever since,” said Chenot-Rose.Still she said, the effects of the attack linger.“I have personally forgiven them, but my husband has not,” she said. “We can't go into the village. Some of them still believe we have fed those missing kids to the crocs.”“The Belize police are doing nothing to find the missing kids, and the U.S. Embassy won't help out at all,” she said.Still she said, they never gave up, rebuilding the crocodile sanctuary and continuing their research on Ambergris Caye.Their CSI: Belize (Crocodile Scientific Investigators) educational eco-expeditions received TripAdvisor's 2014 Certificate of Excellence.The expeditions help pay to keep ACES running, she said, as do contributions from the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in France, Canada's Edmonton Reptile and Amphibian Society, the Summerlee Foundation and LightHawk in the United States and the Rufford Small Grants Foundation in the United Kingdom.Chenot-Rose left last week for Louisiana to meet with her husband, who is attending a crocodile specialist meeting.“We're talking about moving ACES to southwest Florida in the future,” she said. “We are getting old and our families are getting old. But we would make sure to keep ACES going in Belize.”
