Gilberto Shedden, a Costa Rican fisherman better known as “Chito”, who played with a 445-kilogram crocodile and even put his head inside its jaws.
But how was it possible for him to play with an animal that size without it hurting him?
Chito found the crocodile in 1989, when it was barely a baby, lying on the bank of the Parismina River, in Limón, with a gunshot wound to its left eye. A rancher had shot it for eating his calves; Chito loaded it onto his boat, thinking he could make use of its hide, but the crocodile did not die.
The fisherman, instead of being terrified, felt such compassion for the animal that he treated it and fed it every night, secretly, without telling anyone where he was going. Over time, he gave it a name: Pocho.
One night, the animal stared at him, as if inviting him. Chito got into the water and swam with the nearly five-meter crocodile as if it were a lifelong friend.
From that moment on, they became best friends, and the fisherman became the only known person in the world who had managed to “domesticate” a crocodile.
Many considered him crazy for spending his time with an animal of that size; his wife even left him out of fear, but Chito knew he was doing the right thing. Pocho and he had an unbreakable bond.
In July 2000, a television channel filmed them together, and the story spread around the world. Every Sunday, in a small lake at Finca Las Tilapias, Pocho” would roll onto his back, raise his tail, and let Chito put his entire head in his mouth. They had become best friends.
11 years later, Pocho died of natural causes, at almost 60 years old. The following Sunday, the fisherman did what he had never done for anyone: they lifted his body”, he said. “There were always people who, without knowing Pocho, got something extraordinary out of him”.