Over-development in Puerto Vallarta is forcing crocodiles into the streets

This Thursday, animal protection authorities and firefighters caught a crocodile two and a half meters long, which was loitering on the beaches of Puerto Vallarta.

Logic has prevailed, and authorities assure us there is not a crocodile problem in Puerto Vallarta, but rather an over-development problem creeping into the natural habitat of these animals, forcing them into urban areas.

“The human is basically within the natural distribution areas of these species and rather we must raise awareness and we must be informed, this is what happens in Puerto Vallarta, we are in a mangrove area, in an area that by nature still maintains species of wildlife, in this case, the crocodiles,” explained Joel González Moreno, wildlife inspection and surveillance agent of the Federal Attorney’s Office of the Federal Attorney’s Office for Environmental Protection of Mexico (Profepa).

Profepa said there is no increase in crocodile attacks in Puerto Vallarta. They assure that the meetings are propitiated by the rainy season.

“We are talking about a species that is distributed naturally, is a healthy population within its habitat,” reiterated the inspector of Profepa.

In Puerto Vallarta, civil society and the authorities work to prevent encounters with crocodiles from having tragic outcomes.

The hotels have been organized, they have brigades to attend to this type of emergency control of copies,” he said.

“We have been doing environmental education activities, signage has been placed in the hot spots in Puerto Vallarta, but people continue to vandalize them,” said Armando Rubio Delgado, coordinator of the SOS Cocodrilo de Jalisco Foundation.

The Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) has a protocol for attention to conflicts with crocodiles in Mexico that details how to react in case of an encounter with a specimen.

Non-lethal measures are used, they are the first ones that must be applied, the capture and translocation or relocation of the specimens are the most common,” said the Profepa inspector.

Earlier this week, a crocodile was found lynched in Puerto Vallarta with a note warning more deaths would come if the crocodile population in the area wasn’t controlled.