By Tim Binnall
A Texas man on safari in Zimbabwe took down an enormous crocodile that had been something of an apocryphal monster said to lurk in the pond of a village. The remarkable kill was reportedly made by Garrett Wales during a hunting trip at the country's Humani Ranch earlier this month. Shortly after his ten-day excursion began, the man learned of a local legend which claimed that a massive crocodile called an area irrigation pond home. "No one we knew had actually seen" the mysterious beast, Wales explained, but the creature apparently boasted a rather fearsome reputation among area residents who use the water for all manner of needs and understandably feared encountering the 'monster' whenever they visited the site.
Sensing something of a challenge and hoping to help the people of the village reclaim the pond for themselves, Wales set about taking down the apocryphal croc. His initial attempts at baiting the creature proved futile and suggested that the tale might have been a merely a myth, until one of his guides spotting the animal sunning itself. "He lays eyes on it right before it slides back into the water," Wales recalled, "I didn’t see it but he confirmed the crocodile was a monster." The positive sighting caused the Texan to redouble his efforts, which led to one instance wherein the croc narrowly escaped and, after five days of hunting, culminated with a fatal encounter for the creature.
Moments before breaking for lunch one day, Wales said, the group decided to perform a final sweep around the pond which proved to be rather fortuitous.."Lo and behold," he marveled, "we come around the corner and were expecting to maybe see him in the reeds, but he was on our side of the bank just 5 to 7 yards from us." With the croc clearly in sight, Wales squeezed off a shot that took the animal (seen below) down for good. Upon examining the creature, it was found to measure around 15 feet long and weighed around 1,100 pounds. The beast was so sizeable that it took a staggering nine people to pull its remains back to the village where, one presumes, residents celebrated the slaying of the monster that had haunted their pond.