Natural Disaster Escapees

It's pretty miserable to live right within our environment. Which is to say without the distance humankind has achieved over the millennia by building for itself separations between the exterior and the interiors which we have so long inhabited. When exterior forces impel themselves upon the comfort of our living interiors our peace of mind is dreadfully disturbed, to say the least. And havoc is visited upon human settlements when the environment which we strive so forcefully to control lifts itself out of our illusion of control.

Which is what has been occurring in Thailand with steadily rising floodwaters erupting within Bangkok's outskirts, swallowing up fields, farms, suburban homes and buildings. The discomfort and fear that people have been suffering is a misery beyond description. Everything familiar has been turned upside down and inside out. Homes have become inhabitable, and people have had to flee the floodwaters in the hopes they will soon be able to return.

Hundreds of people have been killed as a result of the environmental disaster. The hope is that the waters will soon recede and things return to normal. Because of the flooding there has been a forced stoppage of industry with factories also impacted by the floodwaters. The cost to the economy has been enormous as production plants have been forced to shut down.

And then, there's the issue of the flooded environment impacting in other ways. Crocodiles from hundreds of farms have been loosed within this new flooded environment. Both crocodiles and venomous snakes are known to have infiltrated areas that were formerly settled suburbs, now inundated by slowly receding floodwaters.

Reward money has been posted for crocodiles captured and brought in live, encouraging bounty hunters to go hunting for them in their boats. Once captured the crocodiles are tied securely with ropes and hauled out of their watery hideouts. Professional catchers are skilled in the trade, using electric cattle prods to shock the reptiles and patience to accomplish the capture.

The idea is not to harm the beasts, but to haul them in to restore them to the farms that rear them. They're a valuable resource, apparently, in response to worldwide demand for crocodile hides to be used in shoes and handbags.