| The local Maya villagers believed that Vince and I fed the missing children to the crocs. We were not even there, as I stated, but were on Ambergris Caye. As a lynch mob, the villagers burnt ACES / American Crocodile Education Sanctuary to the ground.”
Was this some sort of sick Internet hoax? I wondered. How could ACES be gone? In February I toured the facility, and just last week had an email exchange with Chenot-Rose, wherein she agreed to send me details about the work she and her husband were doing on Ambergris so that I could write an article about it.
Burned to the ground by a mob of angry villagers? This seemed more akin to plots from gothic horror novels than reality.
And villagers who believed that the American couple had fed the children to their crocodiles? Huh?
A few emails and phone calls confirmed that the ACES facility had indeed been destroyed, and possibly at least two of the rescued crocodiles along with it—one shot and another hacked with machetes.
Chenot-Rose and Rose were homeless, with nothing to their names but the belongings they had taken with them to Ambergris Caye. The sanctuary they had created was literally up in smoke.
Immediately I began working on an article about the disaster and posted it, as did CNN a few hours later. It was the third story I’d done about the sanctuary--one I never imagined I’d have to write.
A visit to ACES before its destruction
As I wrote, all I could think about was what ACES had been like before—what I saw on the day I visited, what I learned, its magical setting at the sunny bend of a river, the lifelong dream the couple had poured out their sweat and their savings so as to make real, and most of all the magnificent, misunderstood reptiles they had worked so hard to save.
That balmy day last February, Chenot-Rose took me on a tour of the facility that included the personal stories of many of the animals they had brought there at the behest of the Belize Forest Department.
In the coming days I will post the video of that tour on this page.
Watching it feels almost surreal for me now. For the founders of ACES, it might feel like a different lifetime.
But given that Chenot-Rose and Rose wish to build a new croc sanctuary in northern Belize on Ambergris Caye, it’s noteworthy to take a look at the video’s evidence of what they had developed from scratch on the Punta Gorda site before it was annihilated:
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The rescue and care of many animals in well-planned, enclosed habitats
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A research facility that offered study opportunities for students and internships at all levels
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A pair of eco-friendly guest cabins or Croc Cabanas, where they had begun a green tourism business to help support their croc-rescuing habit
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A modest home for themselves.
Troubling questions
It is true that ACES no longer exists—not in its previous form. At the moment what remains of it are the heaps of ashes in Punta Gorda, the fears, the hostilities, the broken but still-breathing dreams, and many questions.
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Where are the two missing San Marcos village children, siblings Onelia and Benjamin Rash, ages 11 and 9, whose disturbing disappearance triggered the cascade of calamity? On August 30th their farmer father sent them into Punta Gorda Town to sell limes. They have not yet come home.
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Will Chenot-Rose and Rose find the copious strength, support, funds, and luck required to recreate ACES on Ambergris?
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And at the end of the day, what does this bizarre and multifaceted episode say about human nature, about intercultural relations, and about the prospects for animals and their champions across the globe?
To donate
Donations to help Chenot-Rose and Rose may be made in two ways:
1. http://www.beedfund.com/
2. A bank wire transfer in U.S. dollars to:
Intermediary Bank, Bank of America New York
300 Harmon Meadow Blvd.
Seacaucus N.J. 07094 USA
Swift address - BOFAUS3N, ABA... -026009593
To credit Beneficiary Bank, BIC BBLBZBZ,account #6550-8-26053 of Belize Bank Limited, for final credit to account # 630-1-1-10130 of Vince & Cherie Rose Fire Victims.
Previous articles about ACES
Crocodile sanctuary burned down, crocs killed, reportedly by 'angry mob'
Today's Animal Fact: What do you call a bunch of crocodiles?
Animal S.O.S. - Rogue male crocodile seeks new home
Katerina Lorenzatos Makris is the author of 17 novels for
publishers including Avon, E.P. Dutton, and Simon & Schuster, and
hundreds of articles for publications such as National Geographic
Traveler, San Francisco Chronicle, and Veggie Life. She wrote a
teleplay for CBS and short fiction for The Bark magazine. With coauthor
Shelley Frost, she wrote Your Adopted Dog
(The Lyons Press). Holding a B.A. in Environmental Science Studies and
a lifelong interest in animal issues, she spends a lot of her time
battling a severe addiction to dogs.
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