Snake Harvest Threatens Cambodian Lake

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2006/aug/19/081908875.html

Deep inside a flooded forest oozing with wildlife, Ly Vy pries another struggling creature from a gill net, whacks its head against the side of his skiff and adds it to a coiled heap that will add to the world's largest snake harvest.

A day later and across the Tonle Sap, the vast lake that is Cambodia's most vital ecosystem, it's not a very pretty sight. Bucketfuls of lifeless water snakes are tossed into algae-green pools and pits seething with crocodiles, which gulp them down in a few power-packed bites.

Some of the farm's 2,000 crocs fall back into their almost continual sleep with bits of snake still dangling from their clamped jaws.

"They prefer snakes over fish. They have red blood and good protein," says Sen Rith, owner of one of Cambodia's 900 or so crocodile farms, which are growing increasingly dependent on snakes as stocks of fish are depleted in the Tonle Sap's once bountiful waters.

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