CROCODILES IN THE PHILIPPINES: SPECIES, ATTACKS, THE WORLD'S LARGEST ONE

CROCODILES IN THE PHILIPPINES

There are two species of crocodilians in the Philippines: in addition to the endemic Philippine crocodile Crocodylus mindorensis there is also the Saltwater crocodile Crocodylus porosus. The Saltwater crocodile occurs from India to Australia and is not globally threatened with extinction. In the Philippines however, saltwater crocodiles are now very rare and the species is locally extinct from most locations where it historically occurred. [Source: mabuwaya.org]

The Saltwater crocodile is normally found in coastal waters, mangroves, rivers and large lakes that are connected to the sea. It is also known as the Estuarine crocodile. This species is able to survive long periods in saltwater and is capable to travel long distances through open sea. It is the longest crocodile in the World with recorded maximum lengths of up to 6 meters. Because of its size, large adult Saltwater crocodiles are potentially very dangerous to people and are feared as occassional man-eaters.

The Philippine crocodile in contrast is much smaller with a maximum recorded length of about 3 meters. This species lives in freshwater habitats such as lakes, rivers and creeks but is also known to occassionaly venture into saltwater habitats such as mangrove forest and intertidal coastal areas, possibly when moving between coastal rivers. It has been found from sea level up to an elevation of 800 meters in the Cordillera Mountains although it normally does not live that high.

World’s Biggest Crocodile Found in the Philippines

Lolong, the world's biggest crocodile National Geographic

In July 2012, a huge crocodile known as Lolong was officially named the largest crocodile in captivity, by the Guinness World Records. Lolong measures 20.24 feet (6.17 meters) and weighs more than a ton, The Guinness website said: “Lolong’s weight was also measured at a nearby truck weigh-bridge and verified as approximately 1,075 kilograms. The reptile took the top spot from an Australian crocodile that measured more than 17 feet (5 meters) and weighed nearly a ton. The Guinness listing is based on data by experts including crocodile zoologist Adam Britton, who measured the beast in his home, the new Bunawan Eco-Park and Research Centre in the Philippines.

AP reported: “The news sparked celebrations in Bunawan, a farming town of 37,000 in Agusan del Sur province on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, but Mayor Edwin Cox Elorde said it also fostered concerns that more giant crocodiles might lurk in a marshland and creek where villagers fish."There were mixed feelings," Elorde said by telephone. "We're really proud because it proves the rich biodiversity of our place but at the same time, there are fears that Lolong may not be alone." Lolong has become the star attraction of a new ecotourism park and research center in the outskirts of Bunawan and has drawn thousands of tourists since news of its capture spread. Elorde said his town has earned 3 million pesos ($72,000) from the modest entrance fees at the park, with most of the money being used to feed and care for the crocodile and maintain the park. [Source: Jim Gomez, AP, July 1, 2012]

National Geographic News reported: “Initially wary of claims of record-breaking size, Britton blogged his congratulations to Lolong "for amazing the skeptic in me." "I didn't expect to ever see a crocodile greater than 20 feet long in my lifetime, not an experience I will forget easily," wrote Britton, senior partner of the Australia-based crocodilian research and consulting group Big Gecko. The previous captive record-holder was a 17.97-foot-long (5.48-meter-long) Australian-caught saltwater crocodile.[Source: National Geographic News, July 2, 2012]

Philippine Crocodile

The Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis), also known as the Mindoro crocodile or Philippine freshwater crocodile, is one of the world's most endangered crocodilian species. The species was historically distributed across much of the Philippines, including Busuanga, Jolo, Luzon, Masbate, Mindanao, Mindoro, Negros and Samar. Its current distribution is much more restricted, and it has been reported as extirpated from several islands where it formerly occurred. Wild populations are now concentrated in a small number of freshwater habitats, including isolated rivers, tributaries, lakes, ponds and marshes. Earlier estimates placed the number of non-hatchling Philippine crocodiles remaining in the wild at no more than 100 in 1995, although later surveys and conservation programs have produced updated population estimates.

The Philippine crocodile is a relatively small crocodilian with a broad snout and prominent dorsal armor. Males can reach about 3 meters (9.8 feet) in length and weigh up to about 200 kilograms (440 pounds), while females are generally smaller and can weigh up to about 100 kilograms (220 pounds). Adults have about 66 to 68 teeth. The species was formerly classified as a subspecies of the New Guinea crocodile (Crocodylus novaeguineae), but it is now recognized as a distinct species. Its morphology is similar to that of the New Guinea crocodile, which contributed to the earlier taxonomic classification. [Source: lowryparkzoo.com, crocodilian.com]

Adult Philippine crocodiles generally feed at night and consume a variety of aquatic and terrestrial animals. Their prey includes fish, crabs, birds, turtles, snakes and small mammals, while young crocodiles feed mainly on small fish and crustaceans. Females construct mound nests approximately 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) wide and 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) high. A female typically lays between 7 and 20 eggs, which incubate for about 85 days. Females provide parental care to the young, an important behavior because hatchlings have relatively low survival rates.

Crocodile Attacks in the Palawan

There have been several crocodile attacks in Palwan. In February 2019 a crocodile grabbed a 12-year-old boy as he swam at a Balabac river, but he escaped when his siblings hit the reptile's head with oars until it let him go, Pabello said. A Balabac crab fisherman was killed and half-eaten by a saltwater crocodile in February 2018three months after his 12-year-old niece was dragged away by a crocodile in late 2017. The girl was never seen again. [Source: AFP, August 14, 2019]

In August 2019, a 10-year-old boy was killed by a saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) near Balabac in Palawan, Philippines, after the animal pulled him from a boat, according to authorities. The boy was traveling with his 2 older siblings when the crocodile dragged him into the water. His father searched for him overnight but was unable to locate him. A fisherman later found the child's partially eaten remains in a mangrove swamp, according to a police report. [Source: AFP, August 14, 2019]

Balabac has experienced repeated encounters between people and saltwater crocodiles. Jovic Pabello, spokesman for a government council responsible for environmental conservation in the Palawan island group, said that the area had recorded crocodile attacks every year since 2015. "Since 2015, we've never had a year with zero (crocodile) attacks," Pabello said. He described the problem as "a conflict on water use." Residents depend on waterways for transportation, fishing and other activities, bringing them into areas also used by crocodiles.

Habitat loss has increased the potential for encounters between people and crocodiles in parts of Palawan. Population growth, development and the conversion of wetlands have reduced and fragmented some crocodile habitats, bringing people and animals into closer contact. Balabac is particularly known for conflicts involving large crocodiles because communities use the same waterways in which the reptiles live. The resulting encounters have sometimes caused serious injuries and deaths.

The Palawan island group is often described as the Philippines' "last frontier" because of its extensive forests, wetlands, coastal habitats and high biological diversity. These ecosystems support a wide range of plants and animals but face pressure from development and other human activities. Protecting remaining wetlands and mangrove habitats while reducing dangerous interactions between people and crocodiles is an important conservation challenge. The recurring attacks in Balabac illustrate the risks that can arise when human activities increasingly overlap with the habitat of large crocodiles.

Balabac, Palawan — the Town Besieged by Killer Crocs

Aurora Almendral wrote in the New York Times: On the November day when Cornelio Bonite disappeared, a crocodile was spotted in the water with a human arm clasped in its jaws. It was like he was showing off,” said Efren Portades, 67, a watchman in the town of Balabac, a marshy island community in the Philippines near the sea border with Malaysia, who led the search for Mr. Bonite, a 33-year-old fisherman. [Source: Aurora Almendral, New York Times, March 3, 2019]

The month before, another crocodile — or the same one, for all anyone knows — had grabbed 16-year-old Parsi Diaz by the thigh after she jumped into the bay for a swim. She escaped. The year before that, a 12-year-old girl had been attacked while crossing a river. A few months later, that girl’s uncle was ripped in two. And more dogs and goats than anyone could count had been snatched from Balabac’s shores.

Saltwater crocodiles once roamed the Philippines, but a century of habitat depletion, dynamite fishing and hunting has left them in just a scattering of places. They are now a protected species. But their numbers are bouncing back — even as the human settlements near them keep growing. That means more encounters between people and crocodiles, and more that end badly.

In Balabac, crocodiles have become a fact of life. Every year since 2015, there has been a fatal attack in the town, forcing the authorities to capture another “problem crocodile,” said Jovic Fabello of the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, a government agency in Palawan Province, which includes Balabac. In February 2019, a 12-year-old boy in Balabac was attacked but survived.

Making matters worse, villagers in Balabac, and elsewhere, have been poaching mangrove bark, which can be sold illegally to offshore buyers and used to make leather dye. That disrupts crocodiles’ habitats, driving the predators closer to towns and villages.

Seeking Revenge for the Crocodile Attacks in Balabac

Aurora Almendral wrote in the New York Times: Some people were ready for revenge. I wanted to blow the crocodile up,” said Mr. Portades, who intended to use the dynamite that some villagers use to bring up fish to do in the crocodile. “They can arrest me if they want, I will answer to it. I love the people here.” [Source: Aurora Almendral, New York Times, March 3, 2019]

After Mr. Bonite’s body was found half eaten on a riverbank, Jonathan Montalba, Balabac’s wildlife protection officer, had to remind Mr. Portades and other angry villagers that killing a crocodile would have legal consequences. Worried about the crocodile’s well-being, he sent urgent messages to the Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center. Salvador Guion, the head of the crocodile rescue team, assembled five veteran wranglers and left for Balabac the same day. Their mission? To capture the crocodile.

Mr. Guion doesn’t believe the crocodile in Balabac hunted Mr. Bonite. He thinks it may have been lying in the mud near his boat and been startled by his movements. “Crocodiles are afraid of people, too,” he said. Understandably, people whose neighbors have been eaten are less likely to take the long view, and retaliatory attacks on crocodiles are not unheard-of.

Not everyone in Balabac was happy...To the Molbog, a Muslim tribe indigenous to the area, crocodiles are sacred, the embodiment of their ancestors. The Molbog word for crocodile, opo, is the same one they use for their grandparents. Crocodiles must be respected,” said Dianauya Diaz, 67, a Molbog elder. They can try to catch them, but they will not disappear,” Ms. Diaz added. “By taking Singko, they planted the seeds of vengeance in his children and grandchildren.” Conservationists have found that such cultural veneration of crocodiles, also practiced by other Indigenous groups in the Philippines, encourages peaceful coexistence.

Catching a Killer Crococile in Balabac

Aurora Almendral wrote in the New York Times:Nine hours from the nearest airport over half-paved roads and choppy seas, Balabac, a town of about three dozen islands and 40,000 people, still has the natural beauty that was once found across Palawan. Mr. Guion said that when he arrived in the town, he thought, “If I were a crocodile, this is where I would want to live.” Its mangrove forests are thick and streaked with winding estuaries, where fresh water mixes with salt. There are muddy embankments for basking in the sun. Chickens, dogs and goats roam the riverbanks, and there are plenty of fish to eat. [Source: Aurora Almendral, New York Times, March 3, 2019]

Apprehending a crocodile was not a task Mr. Guion relished. Conservationists would rather leave them in the wild. Part of Mr. Guion’s job is teaching people to live alongside the creatures and see them as an essential part of the ecology, not a threat. In his view, it doesn’t help that buwaya, the Tagalog word for crocodile, is used to describe corrupt politicians and unscrupulous businessmen. Mr. Guion considers that a slander against crocodiles. They’re being dragged down by politicians, and they have no idea,” he said. “Crocodiles aren’t greedy. They only eat once or twice a week, and even then, just 3 percent of their body weight at each feeding.”

On the morning after their arrival in Balabac, Mr. Guion and his team began setting cable snares, strung with slices of goat steak. They named their quarry Singko, the Spanish-Filipino word for the number five, after Barangay 5, the neighborhood where Mr. Bonite and Parsi Diaz were attacked.

Barangay 5, tellingly, is in the town center — not the mangrove forests where crocodiles once tended to stay. Singko was a well-known resident. He had been attracted by the runoff from a pigsty, and he lived on a diet of wandering dogs and chickens. He was accustomed to people; as Mr. Guion was setting the traps, Singko loomed in the water 30 feet away.

The next morning, the snares were empty. Crocodile hunts can go on for weeks, but living near people had made Singko bold, and that undid him in just two days. In broad daylight, as noisy onlookers watched Mr. Guion mend a broken snare, Singko leapt from the water and snapped up the goat steak dangling over the surface. As he dragged the bait underwater, the snare tightened around his jaw, snapping the poles and tearing the trap apart. The crocodile hunters tugged at the trap’s rope and heaved him onto land.

With the help of dozens of townspeople and a pulley, Mr. Guion’s team lifted Singko — 15.7 feet long, 1,050 pounds and estimated to be 50 years old — onto a flatbed truck to be driven to Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan Province, where he will live out his life in a swampy pen.

About two weeks after Singko’s capture, a mesmerized crowd stood on the Barangay 5 pier at dawn. Another crocodile had moved into Singko’s territory. It rose to the surface and dipped back under, its scales cascading like ripples into the water. Our crocodiles are kind,” said Segundo Rapales, 75, as he gazed into the water. “Just don’t disturb them.”

Philippine Billionaire’s Crocodile Business

William Belo, founder of Philippine home-improvement retailer Wilcon Depot Inc., developed a large crocodile-farming operation after initially starting an egg farm as a side activity. Belo established the egg farm in 1989, but by the mid-1990s he was looking for a way to use chickens that were no longer producing eggs. He considered feeding the chickens to tigers before deciding to use them as food for crocodiles. After learning that a crocodile conservation farm in Palawan was selling animals, he acquired about 1,200 crocodiles over a 3-year period. "My plan was just to have a farm with a small number of animals and fresh eggs for personal consumption," Belo told Bloomberg, adding, "One thing led to another." [Source: Bloomberg, December 24, 2019]

Belo's crocodile operation eventually expanded to about 23,000 crocodiles. The animals were raised for both their skins and meat, with skins supplied to luxury-goods manufacturers, including companies under the LVMH group. Crocodile meat was processed into products such as Hungarian-style sausages and sisig, a popular Filipino dish, and sold under the Dundee brand, named after the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee. Belo operated 2 crocodile farms, including a 10-hectare (24.7-acre) breeding facility and another facility about 7 times larger used for culling and animal-waste management. The broader agricultural operation also included about 800,000 chickens and 5,000 hogs.

The business sold approximately 2,000 to 3,000 crocodile skins annually at about US$200 to US$250 each. Belo said expansion was constrained by the cost of feeding the animals and by inbreeding, which could reduce skin quality. Philippine regulations also restricted the importation of crocodiles from other countries that could otherwise be used to broaden the breeding population. "It's hard to turn this into a larger scale because food can be very expensive and there are issues of in-breeding which affect the quality of the skin," Belo said. He also noted that the limited number of crocodiles remaining in the wild made maintaining genetic diversity more difficult.

The value of crocodile skins declined during the period covered by the Bloomberg report because of an oversupply and weaker demand for luxury goods among Chinese consumers. Belo estimated that Chinese consumers accounted for about half of global demand for high-end bags. He said that limited access to breeding stock and market conditions made it difficult to expand crocodile farming into a much larger industry. Nevertheless, the crocodile operation became a significant commercial side business alongside his primary retail company. The operation illustrates how crocodile farming in the Philippines can combine livestock production, meat processing and the supply of skins for international luxury markets.

Belo's principal business was Wilcon Depot, which he established after studying engineering at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila and working for a construction-supply company partly owned by his father. In 1977, he opened his first store in a space roughly the size of a one-bedroom apartment. By 2019, Wilcon had become one of the Philippines' leading home-improvement retailers, with 57 stores, while its sales increased 18 percent to 11.8 billion pesos in the first half of that year. The company's growth benefited from increased construction activity associated with the government's "Build, Build, Build" infrastructure program. Bloomberg reported that Belo and his family controlled about two-thirds of Wilcon and estimated his net worth at approximately US$1 billion at the time.

a small one

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; National Geographic, Live Science, Natural History magazine, David Attenborough books, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Wikipedia, The Guardian, Top Secret Animal Attack Files website and various books and other publications.

Last updated August 2026