“GOMEK” – MALE SALTWATER CROCODILE (Crocodylus porosus)
ST. AUGUSTINE ALLIGATOR FARM AND ZOOLOGICAL PARK, FLORIDA
This male was the largest crocodilian in captivity in either America or Europe when he died on 6 March 1997 at the referenced park. According to zoo registrar Lynn Kirkland (telephone conf. with RJR, 9 May 1997), Gomek was 17 feet, 9 inches long at death and weighed an estimated 1,800 pounds. Though newspaper accounts said 1,900 pounds, she said the lower figure was more conservative. Upon arrival at the zoo in 1990 he was accurately weighed at 1,700 pounds, and the staff estimated he had gained at least another 100 pounds by the time of his demise. Necropsy revealed that heart failure was the cause of death.
Ms. Kirkland gave Gomek’s captive history as follows: He was captured in New Guinea. News accounts said it was in the 1950s, but Ms. Kirkland gave “late 1960s” as being more likely. In 1972 he went from New Guinea to one George J. Craig, an Australian, who owns Marineland Melanesia at Green Island. [Reference to Craig with photos of another huge crocodile of the same species that he now owns, an 18-footer named “Cassius,” may be found in David Doubilet’s “Australia’s Salt Water Crocodiles,” National Geographic, June 1996.]
In the late 1970s or early 1980s, Gomek went from Craig to Arthur Jones for his Jumbolair Ranch near Ocala, Florida. Jones had amassed a fortune as the inventor and manufacturer of the Nautilus exercise machine and related fitness products. An animal enthusiast, he developed an exotic collection at his ranch that, at one time, held nearly 100 African elephants plus white rhinos, a male gorilla named “Mickey,” and a large collection of crocodilians of which Gomek was the largest. Then, in May 1990 Gomek went from Jumbolair to the St Augustine Farm and Zoo when the latter acquired all of Jones’s crocodilians. Gomek was there until his death two months ago.
It should be mentioned that the St. Augustine Alligator Farm was established in 1893 and is the oldest zoo in Florida.
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