Hoo boy. This is my hot button issue right here, in fact, culling crocs in the NT is the reason I had a verbal slanging match with the late Steve Irwin.
Every time there is a croc fatality, especially one to do with tourists, someone, somewhere, suggests a cull.
Currently, ‘dangerous’ crocs, as in, those over a given size, those that display aggression towards human or boats, and those that happen to be in the way, are often relocated – sometimes to a more remote location, sometimes to crocodile farms as “breeding stock,” and sometimes to the tip as a big hunk of croc carcass.
A bill was proposed this year in the NT parliament to allow game hunting of these particular problem crocs. That is, intead of having rangers shoot the crocs, allow very rich tourists to pay for the pleasure. Why not, I say.
Steve disagreed. His opinions were voiced to NT parliament, thence to the Federal environment minister, who blocked the proposal.
Since then, the Papua New Guinean government is considering legalising such hunting, with the help of the OTHER croc hunter, the much less cuddly one, Mick Pitman.
Good move. A German tourist was killed in Kakadu National Park in 2002 when the tour guide reassured her, and the rest of the tour group, that swimming in Sandy Billabong was safe. Cite. The tour guide plead guilty to ‘making a dangerous omission that caused a death’ and was released on a three-year suspended sentence.
