A week after the reptile escapees wriggled free, state media in China reported on Tuesday that all of the dozens of crocodiles that left a flooded farm have been apprehended.
After a typhoon flooded the area earlier this month, more than 70 reptiles fled from a commercial crocodile farm in the southern Chinese city of Maoming.
Authorities in Guangdong Province started a massive search, and state television CCTV aired footage of employees wearing rain boots carrying a crocodile by its rope out of the water.
“The escaped Siamese crocodiles have all been caught, with the last one being hauled to shore on the night of September 18,” the Communist Party-run Beijing News reported on Tuesday.
Twelve crocodiles were captured on camera by Beijing News writhing in the mud while having their mouths tied together with rope and fabric as employees stood nearby holding umbrellas.
According to Beijing News, the escapees included two juveniles and 69 crocodiles that were fully grown.
In China, crocodiles are raised for both their skin and their meat, which is occasionally utilized in folk medicine.
According to China National Radio, the impacted area is also home to a “crocodile theme park” and “the largest crocodile breeding base in the nation.”
The worst rainstorm to hit Guangdong province since records began in 1952 struck areas of the province earlier this month, including the city of Shenzhen.
