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.

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.

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.

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!

Katherine crocs

Yesterday there was a news report from CLP member from Katherine Willem Westra van Holthe that crocodile management wasn't happening in 2008 for that region. He suggested that this was the reason for an increase in crocodiles being caught in the popular tourist region of Nitmiluk National Park. He said that staff were not replaced after the more experienced crocodile ranger had left the service (who now runs the local butchers in the town!) and traps were not baited and left hanging in trees. Katherine rangers apparently had to travel to Darwin in their own time to receive training from the specialist croc team.

The crocodile management plan for Katherine has an exclusion zone of about 20 kms of the river close to town as well as the gorge region. Regular spotlight surveys of these regions are supposed to be carried out and traps set in the deep billabongs where the salties are usually found.
This Saltwater Crocodile exclusion zone is similar to the one for Darwin Harbour, the difference being that a lot more people swim in the Katherine River than in the Darwin Harbour, however they do catch a lot more crocs over a much larger area in Darwin.

Later on a spokesperson from the department stated that they don't alway's bait the traps in the river because they end up catching too many freshwater crocodiles.

Furore in Queensland

The recent and unfortunate death of Arthur Booker has opened a can of worms in Queensland over their crocodile management program. In case you're not living in Australia, or you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, 62 year old Arthur Booker was taken by a crocodile on 30 September whilst checking crab pots on the Endeavour River near Cooktown.

This resulted in a lot of media stories covering the crocodile attack, usually with the most horrifying and impactful photos of crocodiles to accompany them.

Something like this...

The media focus certainly got people nervous about crocs and kept them in their minds.

Around this time a crocodile had begun to be regularly spotted near high profile tourist destination Magnetic Island. And then it was discovered that the crocodile was part of a research project tracking crocodiles.

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said yesterday that the 3.5m crocodile had been trapped near the Cape York community of Bamaga earlier this year and released more than 1000km south, in a creek near Townsville, as part of satellite tracking program Crocs in Space to see whether it would establish a new home range."

As you can imagine, a lot of people including tourists and local businesses weren't happy to find out his new home range now included Magnetic Island.

This created a storm with Queensland politicians looking for someone to blame and also trying to distance themselves from the issue. The next thing that occurred was a whistleblower reputed to be a wildlife ranger who wrote a letter to parliament. Among other things it said that relocated crocodiles that were part of the research project were believed to be responsible for the fatalities of Arthur Booker and Barry Jefferies in Lakefield National Park in 2005.

The truth is, this will probably have major repercussions for crocodile management in Queensland. The entire management programme has already been put up for review and a lot of questions will need to be asked to find out how it got to this stage. There are many opinions on the best approach for managing crocodiles and they are often very strong ones.

However regarding this entire issue we will be keeping our ears open with anticipation for future updates.