HANOI (AFP) — Authorities and residents in a Vietnamese coastal province are on the hunt for crocodiles that escaped a state-owned farm damaged by flash floods, officials and media said Tuesday.
According to state media, hundreds of baby and adult crocodiles were washed into nearby streams from Yang Bay farm in Khanh Hoa province on Saturday.
The farm manager Tran Van Son said the exact figure of escaped animals was not available. But he said that "two consecutive flash floods came so quick that they completely destroyed the brick and steel fence of our farm, which is home to about 5,000 reptiles."
"We have taken back 66 crocodiles, both big and small, but we don't know how many still remain in the wild," he said.
The company has offered cash rewards to any local resident who catches the reptiles, dead or alive, Son told AFP, adding that hundreds of forest rangers and staff have been mobilised for the effort.
"This was the first time natural disaster damaged cages, resulting the escape of so many crocodiles," the Thanh Nien newspaper quoted Do Quang Tung, of Vietnam's office of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, as saying.
"We have never thought of how to build crocodile farms to avoid the effect of natural calamities," he said.
Crocodiles are farmed for their skin and meat.
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