The wily reptile of Yuen Long is expected to be named RTHK's Person of the Year, polling more votes than Regina Ip, Tung Chee-hwa and Yang Liwei
He has already outwitted some of the world's best reptile hunters. Now the Yuen Long crocodile is about to outsmart another collection of human beings by being named RTHK's Person of the Year.
The elusive reptile has collected 10 times more votes than Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa and the astronaut in China's first manned space mission, Lieutenant-Colonel Yang Liwei, in the online and phone poll run by RTHK Radio 3's Backchat programme.
With voting to end tomorrow morning, the crocodile has an apparently unassailable lead over his rivals for the title, with 34.48 per cent of the votes by lunchtime yesterday. Hong Kong's hospital workers are collectively in second place with 19.64 per cent of the vote.
Backchat presenter Hugh Chiverton conceded that despite a late surge in voting for Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, the former security chief, the crocodile was probably as impossible to catch in the poll as he has proved to be in real life.
Since first being spotted in November, the crocodile - believed to be an escaped pet or a reptile that had swum over from a mainland farm - has evaded capture by government workers, Australian expert John Lever and a mainland team.
His exploits and the failed attempts to trap him are believed to have generated more international coverage for Hong Kong than any news event of last year, apart from Sars and the July 1 protest.