Environmentalist Meddling Causes Uneasy Existence Between Humans and Komodo Dragons?

Last week's Chicago Tribune had an interesting article about the Komodo dragons in Indonesia.

The Komodo dragon is the largest lizard in the world (up to 10 feet in length). They are ferocious carnivores that live on some remote islands in Indonesia.

They eat buffaloes, deer and, now, the occasional human.

Humans and dragons used to peacefully co-exist on these islands. The dragons can live for 50 years, and they can recognize individual humans.

The locals viewed the dragons as reincarnations of their loves ones, and treated them with reverence. For centuries, their customs included feeding the dragons from their hunts.

Now, the Indonesian government has declared the dragons' home a national park, and turned over management to a U.S.-based conservation group.

The group, the Nature Conservancy, stopped the natives from deer hunting, sacrificing goats to the dragons, and keeping dogs - which kept dragons out of their homes.

Now, the natives blames the environmentalists for angering their ancestors, and throwing off the relationship between the dragons and humans.

The dragons have now killed a growing number of locals - especially children, and their parents blame the Conservancy's rules and interference, rather than the dragons themselves.