Reports that a large crocodile may be cruising the banks of Dubai Creek are absolutely false.
Unfounded accounts on Thursday were based upon a fake picture sent to news outlets by a man identifying himself as a UK resident named Ed Jones who claimed to have taken the picture while on holiday in Dubai.
The picture, however, according to a report last year in the Daily Mail, were done by original creator Richard Allenby-Pratt as part of an imaginary wildlife series, which included the very same crocodile picture.
Jones provided his phone number but could not be reached on Thursday by Gulf News.
Reza Khan, specialist, wildlife and zoo management, public parks and horticulture department at Dubai Municipality, said the idea of a crocodile living in Dubai Creek is absurd.
“The picture although looks like a crocodile it must be a fictitious and concocted picture probably created through Photoshop. We cannot have either the Saltwater Crocodile or the Nile Crocodile because there is no proper habitat for these massive reptiles,” Khan told Gulf News on Thursday.
“The world distribution of Saltwater or Estuarine Crocodile ends in the Odisha state of India and failed to reach other parts of coastal areas of mid and western India. It ranges from Odisha, through Bangladesh to South-South-East Asia to Australia. The Nile Crocodile lives in freshwater and some brackish water in Africa, south of Sahara. Although sometimes people do get baby Nile Crocodiles for pet trade. These poor creatures when left in our salt water environment would die in no time.”
"In the historical past none of these crocodiles ever occurred in coastal waters of the Arabian Gulf, barring fossil records of a crocodile species that occurred here thousands of years back."
"So, none should panic from such news item and if required people should check with the local departments like the municipalities or concerned ministries whose biologists are well suited to answer such public queries,” Khan said.
Were you fooled by the hoax? Would there really be a crocodile living in Dubai creek? Share your thoughts with us below.
