Walking With Dragons: Danicing with beasts on Indonesia's Kimodo Island
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Walking With Dragons
Dancing
with Beasts on Indonesia’s Komodo Island
By Anna
Stewart
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Carnivorous komodo
dragons, which can reach more than 10 feet long, live on Indonesia's
Komodo Island, a tiny strip of land between the islands of Sumbawa and
Flores. |
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We had come to see the
dragons. We wanted to go snorkeling and eat fresh fish, but mostly, we came
for the dragons – those 10-foot long, flesh-eating Komodo dragons, the largest
lizard now walking on earth.
Our small, chartered boat
docked at Komodo Island right after an inedible breakfast of boiled bananas. No
roads exist on this small island, which is just a speck on the map in the
eastern third of Indonesia’s island chain. In fact, this dry, hilly crumb of an
island has one only one small fishing village built on stilts and the little
pier where we docked. The rest of the island is for the dragons.
About 20,000 people visit
this remote area each year. Some days no one comes at all, but at the height of
the season in June and July, 100 tourists a day may float in to see the dragons.
On the day we visited, 17 people followed the required park guides.
The two Florenese guides
carried long forked sticks as we walked softly behind them. The wide, flat trail
went into the heart of the small island. Yet, there was no sign of the dragons.
Ronald, a visiting Dutchman,
wondered aloud if the dragons preferred Dutch or American flesh. We laughed
nervously, keeping our eyes open for the giant beasts.
Komodos hunt by ambush,
waiting for prey to wander into range and seizing it in their jaws. Nearby
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A Florenese guide
warily eyes a komodo dragon. |
in the tiny park
headquarters was a photo of a memorial on a hill for Swiss man who was allegedly
consumed after wandering away from his group and falling asleep under a tree.
All they found, we were told, were his hat and camera.
The lead guide stopped. A
dragon! Well, actually there were two dragons, engaged, so to speak. Or rather,
the male was trying to get on top of the smaller female. Apparently the male has
to completely overpower the female, even though she may have indicated her
interest by bobbing her head and doing push-ups. Of course, we took pictures.
The guide got nervous and
made us keep walking to where he could pen us up. I liked this switch in roles.
The people were put in a large enclosed area with bathrooms and benches. The
dragons came up to the fence and stared at us in that unblinking reptile way
that lizards do.
The park rangers feed the
dragons a goat twice a week so they hang around, yet don’t feel a need to eat
the tourists. Visitors used to bring their own goats, but the wildlife
biologists wisely stopped allowing that. The lizards were getting lazy and the
rat population was getting too large.
One huge male sat motionless
in the sun. Blood from yesterday’s goat had dried on his chin. He was
frightening, yet seemed harmless, even though I knew he wasn’t. Maybe it was the
fence separating us. Maybe it was too many National Geographic specials. The
idea of the dragons hunting and eating animals and people was scary, but
strangely intriguing and impressive.
The dragons, called
ora by the locals, will eat anything
they can catch, kill or scavenge. The beasts have rows of jagged teeth, serrated
and curved with sharp tips and wide bases. The Komodo is unique in that it is
the only reptile to cut its prey into sections before eating. Using its
articulated jaws, it can maneuver huge sections of animal – even the odd shapes
such as horned heads and pelvic sections – into its stomach.
It wasn’t a thought I wanted
to savor.
The big guy took a meander
around the enclosure, his massive, scaly tail dragging in the dirt. The dragons
didn’t growl or show their teeth the way a mammalian predator might; they just
lazed about under the scorching sun. It wasn’t very intimidating behavior for a
reptile of such repute.
Then suddenly, out of the
sparse vegetation, a dragon ran towards us at full speed, tail raised, short
legs pumping. Taking a sharp right, she bolted into the grasses, her rejected
suitor close behind, moving at five to 12 miles an hour. I was suddenly glad the
fence was there.
The pair ran off somewhere to
continue their courtship as more dragons came to see us. Long forked tongues
flicking, they ranged in size from about five to 10 feet long. Some dragons can
weigh up 330 pounds (150 kilos), but most are slimmer at only 80 to 120 (56
kilos) pounds.
As the sun got higher in the
cloudless sky, the day became much hotter. The guide decided it was time to
leave, and he herded us out with his stick. Back at the dock, our young captain
was ready to go. He took us to a nearby cove. “Okay, how about some snorkeling
now?” he said, gesturing towards the “oh-my-gosh-this-is-unbelievably-clear”
water.
“You know Komodo can swim,”
the Dutchman announced.
We looked at each other.
Maybe it wasn’t so hot after all.
IF YOU GO
Indonesian Tourism
http://www.indonesia-tourism.com
