Amid Tourism Push, Concern Grows Over Indonesia’s Komodo Dragons
- 5 years ago
Amid Tourism Push, Concern Grows Over Indonesia’s Komodo Dragons
How’s this for adventure tourism? A close encounter with a 10-foot long lizard with razor-sharp teeth and a venomous bite from a mouth swimming in noxious bacteria.
It can be yours in Komodo National Park in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province, about an hour’s flight east of Bali. It’s one of the areas the central government has targeted in its plan to create “10 new Balis” in order to meet its goal of 20 million tourist arrivals to Indonesia this year — 5 million more than last year.
The park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site spanning 29 islands, is home to some 5,500 Komodo dragons, the world’s largest lizard species, usually weighing about 150 pounds.
“They are carnivores, and they eat any kind of meat,” says Agus, a park ranger who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name. “Monkey, deer, wild pig, water buffaloes, even the young one, the young Komodo.”
They’ve also been known to go after the occasional human, which is why the rangers carry a long, forked staff when they lead visitors on treks on Komodo and Rinca islands, where most of the park’s Komodo dragons live. The rangers use the staff to to immobilize the animal’s head from behind.
The lizards lounging outside the mess hall at the ranger station on Komodo island, though, look like slightly bored refugees from Jurassic Park. Their eyes are barely open. And they’re not moving. At all.
How’s this for adventure tourism? A close encounter with a 10-foot long lizard with razor-sharp teeth and a venomous bite from a mouth swimming in noxious bacteria.
It can be yours in Komodo National Park in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province, about an hour’s flight east of Bali. It’s one of the areas the central government has targeted in its plan to create “10 new Balis” in order to meet its goal of 20 million tourist arrivals to Indonesia this year — 5 million more than last year.
The park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site spanning 29 islands, is home to some 5,500 Komodo dragons, the world’s largest lizard species, usually weighing about 150 pounds.
“They are carnivores, and they eat any kind of meat,” says Agus, a park ranger who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name. “Monkey, deer, wild pig, water buffaloes, even the young one, the young Komodo.”
They’ve also been known to go after the occasional human, which is why the rangers carry a long, forked staff when they lead visitors on treks on Komodo and Rinca islands, where most of the park’s Komodo dragons live. The rangers use the staff to to immobilize the animal’s head from behind.
The lizards lounging outside the mess hall at the ranger station on Komodo island, though, look like slightly bored refugees from Jurassic Park. Their eyes are barely open. And they’re not moving. At all.