大象传媒

Police and conservationists in South Africa's Western Cape are on the hunt for an unknown number of crocodiles after they escaped from a breeding farm outside Bonnievale - about 200km east of Cape Town.

Twenty-seven of the reptiles, bred for clothing and handbags, have so far been captured, after an unknown number got out through a hole in the fence. Experts are reassuring local people that the reptiles are juveniles and so they shouldn't be dangerous to humans if left undisturbed.

Kaylynn Palm is a journalist at Eyewitness News.

"When they breed crocodiles they breed in hundreds and thousands at a time so probably at one point they lost count as to how many they have, and I think that's the reason they don't know how many have escaped."

(Photo: Close up of a nile crocodile. Credit: Science Photo Library)