PHOTOSPEAKS

Anderson Cooper Goes Diving With Crocodiles

Published

12 years ago

March 26, 2013

So close: Part of the problem was that the visibility was so low that he only saw the crocs when they were very close to him, so he had to be extra careful not to startle them

Anderson Cooper, CNN’s famous gay reporter has done many stunts for his talk show and covered warzones for his news broadcast, but his latest daredevil investigation came when he agreed to go swimming with crocodiles. The foray into the murky waters came as part of his correspondent job for CBS’ 60 Minutes, when he and a producing team traveled to Botswana for a story on crocodiles in Botswana.

”It’s eerie and intimidating down here. The only light comes from our cameras & it’s easy to lose your way,’ When you’re diving with them you want to get off the surface as fast as possible,’ The current was so fast and there was so much debris underwater so you had no idea if there were crocodiles there or not.
‘To finally see one, it’s amazing. There’s a beauty to it, but it’s also incredibly intimidating. You really have the sense when you’re so close to it of just how strong it is and it looks right at you and you know and it knows that it could attack you at any moment and there’s nothing you can do about it,’ he wrote of the experience.”

Crocodiles kill their prey at the surface of the water, so Cooper had to dive to the bottom of the murky water and try to see through the low-visibility water for any threatening neighbors.
In his first few tries, he didn’t spot any of the ferocious creatures (but still found the dives ‘exhilirating’) and on one of his later tries he spotted one. He was able to get danerously close to the animal, armed only with an iron rod……see the video HERE