Man-eater crocodile in Mankulam

by Junglewallah

(Continued from last week)

Before leaving Mankulam area, I had an experience worth relating on one of my visits to Karupaddaimurippu . It was in July or August, the time of the drought. In a little hamlet called Olumadu, situated about a mile from Karupaddaimurippu, there was a tiny village tank that had dried down to about half its normal size. Visiting this village I was shown a villager who about a week earlier had been seized around his head by a small crocodile, approximately four feet long, whilst bathing. The wounds around his head had still not healed completely. The villager told Master and me that whilst ducking his head under the water, in the customary village style of bathing, he suddenly found himself gripped round his head.

Since the crocodile was small and he was close to the shore, he had struggled ashore with the crocodile still grimly gripping him by the head. The villagers who were close by had killed the animal. Its skin was shown to me, thus confirming both the story and the miniature size of the man-eater. One can only imagine that it was the absolute drought and scarcity of food that had made the crocodile attack a prey so much larger that itself. Since Olumadu is an isolated village tank, some 20 miles from the sea-coast and away from any estuarine river, the animal was almost certainly a marsh or tank crocodile (Crocodilus palustris) or geta kimbula. The skin shown to me was badly removed and too poorly preserved to make any definite identification possible, but for the reasons earlier stated it was in all probability a marsh or tank crocodile.

What was interesting is that the tank crocodile, unlike the estuarine one, is not reputed to be a man-eater but primarily a fish eater. It would appear, however, that hunger would make any animal forget its normal behavioral pattern and attempt to secure any kind of food that it thinks is edible.

Fishing in east coast

I had the good fortune, before the beautifully scenic east coast of our Island became a troubled area, to camp out and engage in fishing at practically all river and lagoon estuaries of the area. Starting from the north at Mullaitivu as far as I could recollect, they were Nayaru, Kokillai, Yan Oya, Puduvaikattumalai, Irakkakandy (Nilaweli), Salapai Aru (Kuchaveli), Kinniya, Kiliveddi, Genge (the main mouth of the Mahaveli), Ilangatturai (the mouth of the Ullakelle lagoon), Verugal, Vakarai, Batticaloa lagoon mouth, Oluvil (where the old Gal Oya flowed out to sea), Sinnamuttuvaram (where there was an idyllic little rest house, now alas no more), Komari lagoon, Kottakal,Arugam Bay lagoon, Heda Oya (or Naval Aru); Wila Oya (at Panama) Panakala, Kunukala, Andarakala, Itigala, Girikula, Yakala, Helawa and Kumana (where the Kumbukkan Oya flows out to sea). The other two estuaries on the east coast that I have visited but was unable to fish at, were Pottana in the Strict Natural Reserve (a lagoon mouth) and Pilinnawa, where the Menik Ganga flows out to sea. Both these estuaries lie within protected areas.

With regard to my experience as an angler, my mentor from schoolboy days and close friend in later years, from whom I learned virtually everything as an angler, was the late Lionel Gooneratne of the Excise Department. This Department had spawned a breed of outstanding anglers in addition to Lionel, such as Willie Obeysekera and Ronnie Grenier, but the one whom I knew most closely was Lionel. I have been his companion on trips to practically all the east coast estuaries named in the list, with the exception of Panakala, Kunukala, Andarakala, Itikala, Girikula, Yakala and Helawa, where my guide and mentor was the legendary Menika, de facto headman of the purana village of Kumana and jungle man par excellence. Menika had been presented with a fibreglass rod and a Penn 209 multiplier reel by one of his other jungle friends, Dr. Douglas de Zilwa (formerly Police Surgeon). When I came to know Menika, he was quite an adept at casting with that rod and reel. I learnt a great deal from him. Another close friend andngling companion from whom I gathered a lot about fishing was the late Frank Kelly of Trincomalee, who was employed in the Irrigation Department.

Yet another close friend from whom I learnt a great deal about trolling for fish in the Eastern seas, ranging from the Great and Little Basses up to the mouth of the Mahaweli, was Cedric Martenstyn. Cedric’s knowledge of fish and their habits gained through years of diving and fishing, could not be surpassed.

I was also fortunate in associating very closely and camping with two professional fishermen, Manuel Silva alias Vedamahatmaya of Nayaru, whose home at Negombo was in Pitipana, and William Nanayakkara of Kallarawa Yan Oya, whose west coast home was at Bopitiya, Pamunugama.

Another close fishing and shooting companion on the east coast was M. Rajavorathiam, the sub-postmaster of Komari and known throughout the area as “Raju”. I learnt a great deal from him of wild boar shooting in the east coast areas, and fishing at Komari Kalapu. Last but not the least of my mentors was Peter Jayawardena, who retired as Game Ranger at Lahugala in the Eastern Province, whose knowledge of the east coast estuaries, particularly from Sinnamuttuvaram down to Kumana, was unparalleled. Peter was also a close friend of Lionel Gooneratne, and what I learned from these giants, both by discussions and by the camping trips we made together, could not have been gathered anywhere else.

At the outset, it must be explained that at any estuary mouth, the fishing is best within the first hour or so of the change of the tide, and at the time of slack water (mandiya) just before the change of the tide. At some estuaries fishing is most productive on the incoming tide and at others on the outgoing, and it is difficult to say which is the case until one tries a particular estuary. Generally however, both changes of tide at the early stage produce fish, and the fishing is much better during the evening tide change towards dusk. It must also be mentioned that fishing is best about three or four days before the full moon, when the tidal flows governed by the waxing moon are strong. Additionally, ,the moonlight in the water eliminates the luminous effects of the sea plankton (called kabba in Sinhala), which otherwise has a tendency to scare off any predatory fish that is tempted to attack the artificial bait that is cast and retrieved by the angler. The kabba makes the retrieved artificial bait look like a miniature comet and no fish would go near it.

A tide change takes place approximately every five hours 55 minutes each day with about a 10 minute period of slack water between tidal changes. The outgoing tide, where the river or lagoon water flows strongly out to sea (ba dhiya) is followed by an approximately 10 to 15 minute spell of slack water (mandiya) where it is neither flowing out nor flowing in. Then follows the five hour 55 minutes of incoming tide when the sea water flows into the river or lagoon (vada dhiya). Each day the tide changes about one hour later than the previous day, governed by the rising of the moon, which takes place an hour later each day. My most extensive east coast fishing and shooting experiences were at Nayaru, south of Mullaitivu where I camped for a continuous spell of about three months from around March 1961. I was looked after like a member of his family by Manuel Silva (Vedamahataya), who built a small wadiya for me to live in. I used to visit Nayaru subsequently as well, at regular intervals.

My next most intimate knowledge of east coast estuaries was of Yan Oya. I have camped there every year in March or April from about 1965 till the 1980s, when conditions in the east became unsettled; and at Kumana and Komari again, where I camped regularly till the 1980s. The incidents recounted hereafter relate to both fishing and shooting, and also contain bits of local history gleaned from my outdoor friends.

Nayaru

Dealing with Nayaru first, in the early days I used not only to fish at the estuary mouth, but frequently joined Manuel Silva and his two stalwart sons, Philip and Joseph when they went out to sea in their big sea-going outrigger sailing canoe, a ruwal oruwa to do their daily fishing (rakshava, as they termed it) by hand-lining. Manuel’s family were purist hook-and-hand-line fishermen. They moored their boat out at sea, sometimes as far as five to 10 miles from the shore, over submerged rocks, mud flats and old wrecks, catching fish by hand-lines on baited hooks. They never used nets, saying they caught water- logged and decomposing fish.

When shoals of seer moved in, they ran with trolling lines cast out either with dead baits or the few artificial baits they had, which I had given them. It may be mentioned that artificial baits were virtually unknown to the professional fisherman at Nayaru in the early 1960s.

We had interesting encounters with denizens of the deep on these trips. On a run south of Nayaru towards Kokillai, we passed through a large colony of what must have been close to a hundred sea snakes, banded with yellow and black rings round their bodies and with vertically compressed tails. I subsequently heard that sea snakes gather in swarms during the breeding season.

On other occasions I have seen giant manta rays pass quite close to the ruwal oruwa. Since it had no engine noise, it probably did not scare off these fish. On another occasion, some distance from the boat, one of these giant rays leapt into the air, as apparently they sometimes do, and landed with a tremendous splash. There are conflicting views as to whether this is a manifestation of high spirits or an endeavour to get rid of irritating parasites.

Whales were also sometimes seen breaching the water, and the professional fishermen took them for granted. It was only much later, in the 1970s, that a foreign marine research vessel from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute of the USA. along with our own famed marine zoologist, Rodney Jonklaas found that the area round Trincomalee was a gathering ground for whales, particularly humpback and blue whales.

According to Manuel Silva, his family from Pitipana, Negombo, at least from the time of his grandfather, belonged to that hardy breed of migrant fishermen. These fisherfolk migrate to the east coast in March each year, when the south-west monsoon sets in and makes the west coast seas rough. The east coast is then calm and there is a strong shore breeze, which is called goda sulang by the Sinhala fishermen, solaham by the east coast Tamil fishermen and kachchan by Wanni jungle villagers. At this time the fish are prolific in the eastern seas, affording good catches.

These migrant Sinhala fishing families were quite fluent in Tamil and used to live in complete harmony with their Tamil and Muslim brethren belonging to both fishing and farming communities. If at all they returned to their homes in the west coast, it was only for a short time during Christmas (they are mostly Roman Catholics). When the migrant fishermen returned for Christmas they sometimes stayed on until February and did fishing on the west coast when the seas were calm at this time. The north-east monsoon makes the east coast seas rough between November or December to February.

I found, however, that with the fishermen off the west coast becoming more numerous, an increasing number of migrant fishing families preferred to stay on in Nayaru and the other east coast encampments over Christmas and engage in lagoon fishing during this period (kalapu rakshava). Lagoon waters, being sheltered, remain calm and unaffected by the north-east monsoon that prevails at this time.

Among the anecdotes related to me by Manuel Silva of Nayaru during my camping days was an interesting account related to him by his grandfather.

During the days his grandfather was a pioneer among the fishermen in Nayaru, the area was desolate and thickly forested. The small group of fisherfolk used to walk from Nayaru to Kokkutudavai about four miles to the south, where there was a fresh water lake where they used to bathe and wash their clothes. The road ran through a deep cutting in a hilly area with brick-red soil (which still exists today); and the story goes that on top of the cutting in the forested cover there lived a leopard that used to periodically prey on the unwary fisherfolk who walked along the path. The leopard used to leap from the top of the cutting, seize its selected victim and take off into the opposite bank where the cutting was less steep. The fisherfolk had no defence except to go in numbers, shouting and beating drums. The leopard after taking a regular toll of victims, apparently vanished one day, possibly killed in some way by the resident Tamil villagers of Kokkutudavai, but how no one knew.

I counter checked this story with another old fishing family at Nayaru, and their account tallied. So, it seems that there were lesser-known man-eating leopards in our Island before those of Punani and Kataragama.