KARIBA, Zimbabwe - Crocodiles are some of the most feared predators
in Africa, ruthless reptiles renowned for tearing their prey to
pieces before swallowing hunks of meat raw.
But in the baking sun at Nyanyana crocodile farm on the shores of
Zimbabwe's Lake Kariba, feeding time has a surreal edge as the
beasts nibble lazily at bowls of vegetarian pellets.
Besides being cheaper than meat, the diet of protein concentrate,
minerals, vitamins, maize meal and water is said to enhance
crocodile skin destined to become handbags or shoes on the catwalks
of New York, Paris, London or Milan.
"We don't feed them meat anymore," said Oliver Kamundimu, financial
director of farm owner Padenga Holdings.
"It actually improves the quality because we now measure all the
nutrients that we are putting in there, which the crocodile may not
get from meat only," he told Reuters in an interview.
Four hundred kilometers (250 miles) northwest of Harare, Nyanyana
is home to 50,000 Nile crocodiles and is one of three Padenga farms
around Kariba, Africa's largest man-made lake.
The company has 164,000 crocodiles in all and started feeding
pellets in 2006 at the height of an economic crisis in Zimbabwe
that made meat scarce and very expensive.
Initially, the pellets contained 50 percent meat but that has
gradually been phased out to an entirely vegetarian diet.
"We have moved gradually to a point where we reduced the meat to
about 15 percent then to seven percent and where we are now there
is zero meat, zero fish," he said.
"It's a much cleaner operation and the crocs are getting all the
nutrients they want from that pellet."
Fed every second day, the crocodiles are largely docile and lie
asleep in their enclosures as workers walk around casually cleaning
up leftovers.