the zoo of London, United Kingdom, has a plot dedicated to the Siamese crocodile. But visitors will not see a monumental animal three meters long that will show its teeth, but a wallet.
“This wallet used to be found swimming in the slow-flowing rivers and streams of Southeast Asia and Indonesia”, reads the poster of the old institution of the British capital. This exhibit at the zoo London It is already a few years old, but this week a person highlighted it on Twitter and it went viral, something that the zoo authorities also celebrated.
“In the last 75 years, more than 80% of the Siamese crocodiles have disappeared. Many, like this one, were hunted for their fur as part of the illegal wildlife trade.”, add the poster. According to what the zoo reported London To the BBC, the wallet came to this place after being confiscated by British border officials at an airport in the capital of the island country.
A critically endangered species
It is estimated that there are only between 500 and 1000 Siamese crocodiles left in the entire world. and none of them are in the zoo London. Habitat loss is behind their disappearance, but the biggest culprit is poaching, which boomed in the mid to late 20th century.
“(Siamese crocodile) populations are fragmented and how functional those populations are is questionable,” said Dr Ben Tapley, curator of reptiles and amphibians at the London institution. With this species on the brink of extinction, many on Twitter celebrated the zoo’s initiative.