‘‘Missing hotelier found inside huge crocodile airlifted from river,’’ is an irresistible headline for everyone except the hotelier, his friends and family, and the croc. No reader is going to turn the page. In among reports of council doings and the progress of the new sewage farm, the headline stands like a beacon, a sweet that just begs to be sucked. You want to know more. The gruesome facts are these: during a recent flood in eastern South Africa a hotelier by the name of Gabriel Batista got stuck in his car crossing a river. By the time the car was discovered it was empty, leading police to presume that the man had been swept away. There followed a four-day search of the area by drone and helicopter and dive teams. During the search a large Nile crocodile was observed basking on an island in the swollen river. It appeared to have a distended belly and did not slip into the water when the helicopter passed overhead. So a police marksman shot it.…