Crocodiles kept as pets in Nubian village

(2 Mar 2018) LEADIN:
Crocodiles have become a popular pet for a village in southern Egypt.
The local Nubians keep them to entice tourists to visit.
STORYLINE:
Welcoming little fishes in with gently smiling jaws.
This feared predator has practically become a household pet in Gharb Sohail.
The small village on the banks of the Nile, not far from Aswan, prides itself as a place specialised in raising crocodiles from hatchlings to almost-full grown.
Croc keepers like Naser Abdel Satar wanted something unique to attract tourists.
"We thought: why not get a crocodile and raise it at home?"
"We really got two small crocodiles, and we put them in a glass tank, and they grew up with us, and we learned how to raise a crocodile," he explains.
And he's formed a strong bond with his reptilian housemates.
"You consider the crocodile like one of your children. You feed him, you play with him, you feel for him when he's sick," he says.
The villagers return the crocs to the river when they're fully grown.
But if they don't survive to adulthood, they are stuffed and placed on the village houses.
The people who live here are Nubians, an ethnic minority in Egypt.
The crocodiles hold a special place in their culture, being one of the most dangerous predators in the region for millennia.
"Just like there are people who love cats and so on, we raise crocodiles," says Ayman Rabie, another crocodile keeper.
"Crocodiles are our thing, a Nubian thing. As they say, it's a symbol for the Nubians."
Finding baby crocodiles to raise at home requires some sneaky hunting by the Nubians.
They wait for the eggs to hatch and try to intercept the young before they reach the waters of the Nile.
"The person who takes the hatchlings covers his face, so the mother doesn't see him. If she sees him, she'll recognise and go after him, even a year later. The crocodile is very smart," says Rabie.
Crocodile hunting is outlawed in Egypt, as is the sale of crocodile leather or the animals themselves.
But keeping one at home is a bit of grey area.
The villagers insist they are doing nothing wrong.
Inside their brightly painted homes, many have a courtyard where the crocodiles are kept in a cement enclosure.
Here, tourists come to drink tea, buy snacks, purchase handmade souvenirs and, of course, see a crocodile.
"It's the first time for me to see a crocodile in real life. It looks nice, but it's also scary," says one visitor.
Crocodiles are common in Lake Nasser, the body of water formed by the massive Aswan High Dam, but poaching, though illegal, has lessened their numbers.
According to the Egyptian Ministry for the Environment, there are currently fewer than 3,000 crocodiles living in the Nile river, many coming from Lake Nasser.
Tourists take ferries across the river from Aswan to visit the village.
For many, it might be the only opportunity to get up close and personal with one of the world's most famous predators.

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