DigitEye India Fact Checkers
A video that claims that a vegetarian crocodile lives in a Kerala temple’s pond is going viral on social media. The video alleges that the crocodile resides in the lake of Sri Ananthapadmanabha Swamy Temple in Kasaragod district of Kerala. It accompanies visuals of a man resting his head on the crocodile’s nose. It also alleges that the crocodile is named Babiya and the temple priest also offers offerings of rice from the temple to the animal.
Digiteye India received a request to fact-check this viral video on WhatsApp.
FACT CHECK
The Digiteye India team began the investigation with a keyword search. We looked for Babiya on Google and came across multiple results. One of the results led us to an article by The Indian Express published on October 10, 2022. The report mentions that Babiya, who had been living in the temple’s pond for more than seven decades has died. It adds that the crocodile “ate only the rice and jaggery offerings at the temple.”
Another report by The Hindu published on November 13, 2023, states that a year after Babiya’s death, another crocodile has surfaced in the temple’s lake. This was mentioned in the viral video. The Hindu reports that this is the third crocodile to make an appearance in the lake.
However, not all the visuals used in the viral video are of Babiya.
We conducted a Reverse Image Search on all the visuals and found that the image of a man resting his head on the nose of the crocodile is not from the temple in Kerala. It is from a 2013 documentary titled, “The Man Who Swims with Crocodiles”. The viral image can be seen at the 20:57 mark.
The Man Who Swims With Crocodiles follows the life of a man from Costa Rica named, Gilberto ‘Chito’ Shedden. Chito came across this crocodile while fishing. The crocodile was wounded and he nursed it back to health. It was then that he bonded with the carnivore and named it ‘Pocho.’ The description of the documentary mentions, “Ready to bid the creature farewell, Chito was surprised to find that the crocodile refused to leave his side. Their friendship continued to endure over the decades, with Chito gaining notoriety for being one of the few people in the world who has successfully tamed a crocodile.”
The claim is, hence, false.
CLAIM: A viral video shows a vegetarian crocodile named Babiya in the lake of Sri Ananthapadmanabha Swamy Temple in the Kasaragod district of Kerala. It is alleged that the crocodile only eats offerings from the temple.
CONCLUSION: The fact about Babiya, a vegetarian crocodile, who lives in the the lake of Sri Ananthapadmanabha Swamy Temple in the Kasaragod district of Kerala is true. However, Babiya died in 2022 and a new crocodile was seen in the lake a year later. The viral video shows some images of Babiya but not all. One of the images was taken from a documentary which revolved around an unusual relationship a Costa Rican man had formed with a crocodile whom he had nursed back to health.
RATING: Misleading — 
