Just another urban legend: Crocodiles in the Yarkon

[Colorado Blue]

Uh oh. Now here we have A Serious Problem.

Not far from the headquarters of the Council for a Beautiful Israel on Rokeah Avenue in Tel Aviv, the mixed waters of the Ayalon and
Yarkon rivers gurgle by, running one last kilometer to the sea. It was here, beneath highway overpasses - in a place that by no means appears to be an instance of 'beautiful Israel' - that a team from the Nature and National Parks Protection Authority, members of the Yarkon River Authority, met Tuesday night, hunting crocodiles.

"Gentlemen, who here is Mr. Keller?" an announcer from a Russian television station, dressed in a handsome, pale suit, politely asked the bored team sitting on the banks of the Yarkon, trying to find his interviewee for the night. Two other television crews were present. Mr. Keller - Aryeh Keller - is a veteran parks ranger. He spent Tuesday on a boat in the Yarkon with his colleague, Amitzur Boldo, with whom he trained in Kenya years ago at capturing gigantic crocodiles.

But it seems the two were out after a natural phenomenon much more common than crocodiles in the Yarkon River: the urban legend.

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Apparently, the rumors actually turn out sometimes to be true!

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"The hysteria started last year, when in two weeks we caught 16 young crocodiles in various parts of the country," said Keller. "We know the crocodiles were part of a group stolen from one of three ranches in Israel that grow crocodiles. The crocodiles fell into the hands of a criminal, and from there, they made their way to all sorts of places."

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=577696&contrassID=1&subContrassID=7&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Enough trouble we don't have without CROCODILES?

Oy.