eggs over hard

Bad news often rides shotgun with good news.  Ready to buck shot its way into the conversation.


That truism came visiting this week on the shores of my laguna.


The good news is I now know the sex of Lumpy – the medium-sized crocodile I have been writing about for the past seven months.


Out of habit, I assumed the crocodile was a guy.  Nasty disposition – and all those other male stereotypes.  Of course, there would be no crocodiles unless some of them were female.  (I do recall some of those biology lessons.)


And it turns out Lumpy is a she.  That is her smiling face at the top of this post.


We know her sex because my neighbor just discovered what she has been up to on our little beach.  She established a nursery in the loose sand – and filled it with just over a dozen crocodile-sized eggs.


I would very much have liked to watch them hatch out – just as my blog pal Sparks did several years ago.  For all I know, Lumpy may have been the mother in his back yard.  It is just around the corner from me.


But it is not to be.  And this is where the bad news elbows its way into the conversation.

 

For whatever reason, my neighbor decided no baby crocodiles were going to hang around his end of the laguna.  Or maybe he was worried that a maternal Lumpy would show up and do her mother bear impression.


To prevent that, he dug up the eggs, tossed them into the laguna, and hauled away the loose sand to prevent recidivism. The water will drown the embryos – through hypothermia and drowning.  Almost like going down on Titanic.  No cocodrilitos on this beach.


The whole incident saddens me.  For two reasons.


First, it is simply wasteful.  People fear crocodiles.  But crocodiles have far more to fear from us.  We can hunt them, destroy their young, and foul their habitat.  And we do.  It is the same mentality that causes people to reach for a machete whenever they see any snake.


The second reason is far more personal.  And hardly philosophical.  I have not seen Lumpy since the nest was dug up.  But I have not seen little Alfonso either.


Maybe they are taking a crocodile holiday elsewhere in the laguna.  At least, I can hope.  Their presence has added a bit of exotic adventure that I will not get in the highlands.


That is, unless Lumpy wants to ride shotgun with bad news on a road trip to San Miguel de Allende.