A fisherman who rescued a crocodile 22 years ago before taming it is now trying to train another after his ‘pet’ sadly passed away.
Gilberto “Chito” Shedden has had the killer reptile as his best friend for over two decades after he rescued it from a riverbank when it had been shot.
As the Daily Star reports, Chito named the croc Pocho and spent six months nursing it back to health – feeding it 70lbs (31kg) of chicken and fish every week until it was strong enough to hunt again.
They became inseparable for the next 22 years but now sadly the croc has died, and Chito is trying to train a replacement – but said the ‘closeness’ is gone.
hito would perform every Sunday afternoon with the 15-foot beast ( Image: REUTERS)
Recalling his first pet crocodile, Chico said: “I kept giving him and giving him food. At first, he wouldn’t eat it, but then he began to eat. I kept feeding him chicken until he started looking good. I would try to pet him so he would feel that I cared about him.
“When I would touch him, he would sometimes get a little irritated, so I kept on caressing and caressing him. And I would say, relax, relax. I want to be your friend. Behave nicely ’cause you won’t be bothered anymore.”
But “food wasn’t enough,” Chito said. “The crocodile needed my love to regain the will to live.”
Pacho would even let Chito kiss him on the snout ( Image: REUTERS)
Chito spent so much time with his beloved crocodile that his wife left him but he wasn’t too bothered, and said: “Another wife I could get. Pocho was one in a million.”
Eventually the animal was well enough to be returned to the wild and he released it in a river near his home.
But the following morning, Chito found his scaly friend sleeping outside his home. The croc had “made a decision” to remain with his human friend.
He began performing with the reptile for small crowds, saying: “Once the crocodile followed me home, and came to me whenever I called its name, I knew it could be trained.”
Chito’s first wife left him because he insisted on sleeping with the massive creature ( Image: REUTERS)
Costa Rica’s Channel 7 News broadcast a clip of Chito and Pocho together in July 2000, and after that their fame rapidly spread across the globe.
Every Sunday, for over two decades, Chito, wearing nothing but a scruffy old pair of leopard-print board shorts and a bandana, would dive into a lake near his home.
Pacho would race towards him, deadly jaws wide open as if he was about to attack, only to close his mouth at the last moment and receive a kiss on the snout from his human soulmate.
Sam Van Everbroeck, a fan of the pair who would regularly watch Chito’s unique performances in the tropical town of Sarapiqui, told reporters: “It’s incredible, I come every week to see it.”
Chito would charge onlookers just $2 for the weekly shows, saying “He’s my friend. I don’t want to treat him like a slave I don’t want to exploit him.”
Alongside tourists, noted scientists and animal behaviour experts would go to see Chito and Pocho splashing around in the lake.
The croc’s gentle behaviour was unprecedented. South African filmmaker Roger Horrocks, who made a documentary about Chito and Pocho, theorised that the bullet wound – caused by a farmer trying to protect his livestock – might have affected Pocho’s brain and destroyed his natural predatory instincts.
Horrocks warned that even after years of appearing to be tame, wild animals can revert to their true nature without warning. But Chito believed in the bond between him and his reptilian pal: “After two or three years, something could happen, maybe… but after 23 years of loving each other, nothing has ever happened, so I don’t think so.”
Eventually, Pocho died of natural causes – nearly 23 years after being shot in the head. After a touching “human-style” funeral in which Chito sang to his dead pet and held its scaly paw, the animal was stuffed and mounted in Chito’s home.
Chito is now trying to train a second Pacho, but the magic that created the bond between man and beast may never be recreated.
“It’s a little harder,” he told NPR Radio. “There’s less closeness now, but with time, a little love, peace, patience for the animal – and then you can achieve a lot. I am on track, little by little.
“Hopefully in two years we can be good enough friends to do shows.”
source: mirror.co.uk
