When Peter Prodromou was six, he was given a farm set for his birthday. He promptly threw away the ducks and replaced them with toy crocodiles which he put into a pond – and so began a life-long obsession with the man-eating reptile.
“I’m obsessed with all wildlife but crocodiles have got a special place in my heart,” he says.
There’s definitely an element of the crazy about Prodromou. The pint-sized, Highbury-based 29-year-old has become Britain’s answer to Steve Irwin, travelling around the world to catch crocodiles and snakes that pose a threat to local communities: “For me, it’s not dangerous, it’s just really fun.”
He’s nothing short of a local celebrity. A butcher across the road asks him if he’s caught any crocodiles recently. He calls the barmaid “baby” and gives her a kiss.
What comes across when you meet Prodromou is his innate passion for what he does.
“I’m a daredevil. Since I was 16 years old, I wanted to be a crocodile hunter. I’m always going to put that skill into practice.”
The pinnacle of his career came in January, when he captured a 15ft “killer croc” suspected of eating a 15-year-old boy in the village of Katwe in central Uganda.
The story was reported in the national press and there are videos of it online.
It is clear that he was never cut out for a 9-to-5 office job. Prodromou admits he was never academically gifted: “I can’t even write to be honest. School was impossible.”
It was while he was at school that Prodromou took his obsession with crocodiles to the next level.
Aged 12, he was so desperate to have a crocodile that he stole a baby one from a pet shop in Camden.
One day he saw the 12-inch long baby caiman in a tank, reached in, picked it up and put it in his backpack.
By the time he was caught a few weeks later, Prodromou had also stolen an iguana, a python and a parrot.
“I’d managed to steal so many animals. I had rucksacks full of snakes. I’d been going into school with them. My teachers would be amazed at these pets I’d managed to collect.”
His mother, meanwhile, believed her son when he lied to her about how he had obtained such an impressive collection of wildlife. He duped her into thinking that he had rescued all of them.
However, the police were called and he got away with “a slap on the wrist”.
Prodromou’s passion for wildlife really took off when he went to Florida aged 16. He went on boat trips in the Everglades and persuaded the tour guide to let him catch live alligators, filming his efforts as he went.
“Everything was just for fun,” he says. “But I couldn’t wait to get back home and show my friends that I had gone to Florida and jumped on an alligator. I’d always been passionate about all wildlife but especially the dangerous ones. Anywhere there were animals, I’d go and find them – India, Malaysia, Borneo.”
With no qualifications and no background in zoology, Prodromou had to “blag” his way into persuading the people in the wildlife reserves and national parks to let him catch animals.
“I had to fake it because who would let you go and catch a 15ft crocodile? I used to say I collected crocodiles in England or I had previous work experience. I was going to do it no matter what.”
Eventually, Prodromou had built up so much experience that he didn’t have to lie.
Since 2008, he has been to Uganda every three months at the request of the Ugandan Wildlife Education Centre in Entebbe, on the shores of Lake Victoria.
There, crocodile attacks are common and according to reports, up to 200 people die every year. Today, reducing this horrifying mortality figure is top of his agenda.
He teaches the zookeepers at the centre about venomous snakes and how to handle the animals in the exhibits at Entebbe Zoo. He also helps to catch and move dangerous animals that bother people in villages and towns.
When he’s not saving people from the wildlife, Prodromou works for a company called Impeyan Productions, taking animals into schools and doing children’s parties for families around Britain.
He has appeared at a party for the children of Liam Howlett, a member of band The Prodigy, and Liam Gallagher, frontman of Oasis. “Both Liams were asking very intelligent questions. They may have touched the chinchillas but they weren’t too keen on the spiders and the snakes. Otherwise they were generally very encouraging.”
It is this that pays for him to carry on living his dream.
He adds, “This is what I do. This is what I have wanted to do since I was six years old. It’s an adrenalin rush and nothing is going to stop me from doing it.”
