Crocodiles attack idiots

With some of the crocodile attack stories that occur you would wonder whether the victim was attempting to make a claim for the Darwin awards.

A few days ago a man was attacked by a crocodile after swimming at Bucket Billabong within Kakadu National Park in Australia's Northern Territory. It is a location that is well known and signposted as being crocodile habitat and people are warned not to swim. The victim received deep puncture wounds to his arm and was treated at a nearby clinic in Jabiru.

Also within the last week, an American tourist was attacked by a crocodile near the Mexican tourist resort of Cancun. The victim approached the waters edge to take a leak when he was attacked by the crocodile. He received multiple bites wounds and a head injury but survived to tell the story, sheepishly. The area also reportedly has plenty of crocodile warning signs in place.

This goes to show that although crocodile warning signs are important for crocodile safety and most people take them seriously, there are always a few who think they know better.

Another croc news day

Another day here in Darwin and we still have plenty to talk about regarding crocodiles.

During the busy Easter long weekend the inebriated fellow on the right here decided to dance on top of a croc trap in Darwin Harbour and wave to passerbys, who of course took this picture of him that was also put on the cover of todays paper.

And in other news there seems to be a growing number of people speaking up in anticipation of the Wednesday release of a draft crocodile management plan, and what it might entail.

Yesterday the Minister for Primary Industry Kon Vatskalis says he is pushing for crocodile safari's in the Top End. Crocodile safari hunting has always been a very political issue here in Australia.

Today Sally Isberg from the Darwin Crocodile Farm spoke out in concern for how the new management plan would handle the allocation of wild eggs and how that would affect the crocodile farming industry.

And also today Gerry Wood the independent member for Nelson spoke out against the proposed 5o kilometre 'croc free zone', saying it was impossible to maintain an area completely free of crocodiles and that the government would leave itself open to a lawsuit if somebody was to be attacked with the area.

Coral Bay crocodile

On Tuesday a large saltwater crocodile was spotted near Coral Bay in Western Australia. This was the first time in 10 years they had found a crocodile this far south on the west coast. The problem was they had lost sight of it again and the Easter long weekend was quickly approaching.

The stretch of coastline is a popular destination for recreational campers for boating, fishing and swimming. Not knowing where the crocodile would next turn up was creating a political nightmare for the Department of Conservation and Environment who had to find the croc and attempt to get the message out to the local community and visiting tourists on the potential risk.

By Saturday they had found the crocodile again near Gnaraloo Bay 30 kilometres south of Coral Bay. With a spotter plane to assist the search they attempted to track it, planning to capture it alive if possible. However keeping a eye on its movements was proving difficult as it kept diving out of sight. Later on it was spotted again moving north and authorities deemed it a better option to shoot the animal instead to end the matter.

Croc free zone

The latest we have on the ongoing croc saga here in the Top End is a leaked plan from the government to create a croc free zone within a 50 kilometre radius of Darwin. From the little bit we know about this from the NT News story on Thursday it appears that within this area all crocodiles will be trapped or shot on sight, with trapped animals to go to croc farms to utilise the meat and skins.

Is this a case of a little sensationalism or goverment spin at a time where the climate on croc issues is at a very high level?

We have always had a no-tolerance zone within the urban and rural areas including Darwin Harbour. Any crocodiles within these areas are trapped and removed for public safety. This new plan extends the area out towards the Adelaide river including floodplains leading up to it.

This system has a very high density of resident saltwater crocodiles that are highly mobile and have seasonal variations in their territory range.
Not only will the government have to spend a very large amount of time catching hundreds of crocodiles that have home territories overlapping this area and that also move, these plans will also disrupt the population dynamics on the Adelaide River that is a major source of crocodile-based tourism and egg harvesting for traditional owners.

This would appear to be a logistical nightmare to ensure these regions are croc free considering at present they are already having a hard time keeping the harbour and Howard River catchment croc free. In knowing that you can never catch every crocodile this policy would appear to mislead people into thinking it's safe to swim again in these rural areas. A crocodile may move into an area overnight from an area 20 to 30 km's away, just after a monitoring spotlight survey declares it croc free!

The strongest thing that is needed now is a much larger public education campaign to remind people of the dangers of swimming in waterways around the Top End and to educate people on how crocodiles behave and interact with the environment that we share with them. The Government used to promote a "Living with Crocodiles" campaign in the 80's when croc numbers increased, but these days we seem reliant on the NT News journalism as the driving force behind keeping crocodiles in people's minds. The positive step from the new croc policy is a greater focus on education.

Community debate on whether culling is the solution or a stronger focus on education and safety seems to be dividing parts of the community and it has been in the papers and airwaves every day for the past few weeks. A stronger more dramatic approach from the government may be the only way forward for them to keep the community sated. The government's new crocodile management plan will be released on Wednesday and we should expect a lot of debate on this to continue over the coming days.

Daly River croc attack

There has been another fatal crocodile attack within weeks of the young girl being taken while swimming at creek in Darwin's rural area. This time 20 year old Keith Parry disappeared while attempting to swim across the Daly River to get some alcohol to drink from the community on the other side. He left his campsite and unfortunately his relatives looked on in horror as he went under the water just after they spotted a 4 metre black crocodile, known to hang around the area, approaching him on the surface.

Police and rangers have a 2km stretch of the river closed off and have apparently shot a large 4.3 metre crocodile within this area that has believed to have killed Keith Parry. His remains have also been found 80 metres down from where the attack happened.

Easter weekend in the Territory is always the busiest for recreational fishing and camping, and just downstream from the attack we have seen photos of people wading in the shallows and drinking lots of beer. They had refused to leave the water when asked by police and rangers as they didn't believe they were in any danger.

Croc Bait

In today's local paper, we have some photos of people pushing the boundaries of what's a safe distance when in crocodile habitat, and includes a shot of a young girl sitting in the fast flowing water above the barrage at Shady Camp fishing. Another photo shows a guy wading thru the water up to his neck after a fishing lure.

Situations like this happen a lot in north Australia and I've seen situations like this myself, where maybe people get a bit too much sun and sometimes a bit to much too drink and will become a little blase about the risk of a crocodile attack. It actually goes to show that if crocodiles were really out to eat people all the time then they'd have plenty of opportunities.

Shady Camp is an interesting place, its a great place to catch a barramundi (popular fish up here) and it also has the highest concentration of wild saltwater crocodiles in the world. Crocodiles are also there for the fish, but they generally don't like people and tend to stay away as they associate us with getting a beer can thrown at them or maybe a fishing lure caught in their mouth.

Crocodiles will occasionally make the most of opportunities that present themselves, and a lot of the fatal crocodile attacks that have occured are directly because of people putting themselves in a dangerous situation. Most fatal attacks have occured when people were swimming in known crocodile habitat, and a high percentage of victims had consumed alcohol that could have impaired their judgement.

This situation above with people swimming at Shady Camp is very similar to the situation in 1987 at Cahill's Crossing in Kakadu National Park. On that occasion a fisherman Kerry McLoughlin pushed the boundaries of croc safety by swimming across the river for a lure and ended up being decapitated by a 5 metre croc in front of a lot of other fisherman, including his 17 year old son.

Below I've posted a video of saltwater crocodiles at the same barrage seen in the photo above. This is from Life in Cold Blood with David Attenborough, and the spectacular footage was filmed by Mark Lamble and assisted by us at Big Gecko. The irony in filming this crocodile sequence was we had to contend with lots of drunk fisherman doing silly things around crocodiles.

Should we cull crocodiles?

The recent debate of whether there should be a widespread cull of saltwater crocodiles appears to be deepening. Recent weeks have seen an increase in crocodile related incidents as well as more sightings of crocodiles within urban and rural areas of the Northern Territory. People have become much more vocal within the community and opinions are becoming increasingly polarised.

One of the main issues that seems to be coming out of this is that the government wildlife agency responsible for crocodile management haven't the sufficient numbers of staff to control the increased numbers of crocodiles moving into these areas of concern. This has then increased the danger to the public who are accustomed to the numbers being minimal.

At present the crocodile management team which consists of 3 people have been working around the clock to locate and capture all the crocodiles being reported, keeping in mind that for sightings of crocodiles they are relying on the general public and that many more crocodiles may be unreported. The crocodile team had to travel to Katherine (300km from Darwin) yesterday to spotlight and attempt to harpoon a crocodile reported near a caravan park. After a late night and unsuccessful search for that animal they are now on their way back to Darwin because of a crocodile attack on a dog that occured this morning while they were away.


Watch the video below for a more in-depth view of this subject from ABC Stateline.

Croc spotting

Another day and another crocodile cover story for the local paper. It does tend to incense certain people after a while, but on the whole it sells more papers and helps to keep the local population thinking about crocs.

The cover pic shows a large crocodile at the local nature reserve of Fogg Dam, a place that supports a large number of crocs but they rarely get seen. Trapping in this area is more of a public relations exercise. If people don't see crocs then at least they see the trap!

In other croc news a small 1 metre crocodile, and I'm guessing it would have been a freshwater croc was spotted on the banks of the Katherine river near a caravan park. Wow, whats next, a news story on spiders being found in trees?

Crocodile Trapping

Just to throw another spanner in the works, we find out today in a news story that some idiots have been releasing crocodiles from traps that have been set in various locations in Darwin Harbour. This creates a bigger problem because the freed crocs aren't likely to go back into the traps again but are more likely to move further upstream into smaller creeks looking for freshwater and better habitat. Once crocodiles become wary they are less likely to be caught and can move into new areas undetected.

The crocodile management team in the Northern Territory catch and remove crocodiles from designated exclusions zones. Exclusion zones are urban areas where the risk of human and crocodile conflict are increased.

As a result of the recent crocodile fatality the issue of crocodile culling has been renewed in the media, however it's a topic thats often misunderstood by the public. Crocodile exclusion areas are a no tolerance zone that are more effective than a broad crocodile cull, because they specifically target those crocodiles that are most likely to become a threat to people. Although you can never catch every crocodile within the management zone, the overall effect is to greatly reduce risk for people in areas that matter.

Living with Crocodiles

This has been a tragic week for the residents of the Darwin region following the loss of Briony Goodsell, 11, to a saltwater crocodile in Darwin's rural area last sunday. It has been an absolute shock to the local community because many people living in these areas didn't realise the dangers of crocodiles can reach almost into peoples backyards when waters levels rise due to wet season runoff. To some people the risk of crocodile attack is something that is associated with tidal rivers and not with the tiny creeks and isolated pools that are scattered amongst peoples property's in the rural area here. Incidents such as these often result in a call for culling and stronger action.

There has been a massive amount of media coverage in response to this story and hopefully something that might come out of this is a greater awareness of the dangers of crocodiles, and a stronger focus on crocodile management, monitoring and community education that may help to prevent this from happening again.

Also within this last week were four other crocodile stories in our local paper showing just how close the dangers of crocodiles are to the community.
The first was a fisherman in Darwin Harbour who was stalked by a crocodile. Secondly a 1.7 metre crocodile was captured from the Botanic Gardens in Darwin city. Thirdly a 5.5 metre croc was stalking another fisherman at the low level bridge at Adelaide River, a place where kids regularly swim. Lastly a 2.4 metre crocodile was caught at another swimming spot behind peoples' property in the rural area.

Below is a video from the fisherman in Darwin Harbour, warning however, colourful Territory language used!

Palumpa croc school

A week ago, reports started coming in that children at the remote community of Palumpa in the Top End have had to brave crocodiles while walking across a flooded causeway in order to get to school. They started using a 4WD troopcarrier to ferry the kids across and were apparently attacked by 5 metre monster croc whilst crossing.

When asked about this situation the Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson said no children were "unnecessarily exposed to crocodiles" and dismissed the story as a "great territory yarn".

Despite this, rangers caught three crocodiles from the billabong, and then shot a 4.5m croc about 20 metres away from a house at the community. Maybe he was on his way to the school?

Croc safety when fishing

A little while ago we put out a media release with Kakadu National Park regarding crocodile safety awareness when reviving and releasing fish from the waters edge. Eventually the local paper the NT News ran the story about a month later (its most likely they were waiting for the right time to put a croc pic on the front page). A spectacular lunging shot of our Saltwater Crocodile named Smaug featured on the front page, this photo was also taken by Darwin's Lord Mayor Graeme Sawyer.

The issue of crocodile safety when fishing in north Australia isn't something that we normally worry about because most fisherman and locals are pretty sensible when it comes to crocodiles, but on occasions you see some really crazy stuff. I have also heard first hand stories of people having caught barramundi being snapped out of their hands by a crocodile right at the edge of the boat.
You would probably remember the photo of the Israeli fisherman jumping back from a croc lunge after taunting it to come closer. Follow the link above to read the story or read the comments on it. Comments on stories are often an interesting way of gauging public opinions and reactions.
Also have a look at this blog from ABC local radio in Darwin where you can see people fishing waist deep in water where several large crocodiles were caught.